What is a family?
Families are among the oldest social institutions, but their forms vary widely and keep changing.
Defining family and marriage
For sociologists, a family is a group that society recognises as related, whether through birth, adoption, marriage, or living together as partners, and whose members share emotional ties and pool resources. Marriage is a legally recognised social contract between two people. Definitions have broadened over time, for example with the legal recognition of same-sex marriage in many countries.
Family forms
A nuclear family is parents and their children. An extended family includes other relatives such as grandparents or aunts. Single-parent families, blended families, cohabiting couples, and multigenerational households are all common. Many people experience several family forms across their lives: the family of orientation they are born into, and the family of procreation they create.
Family life cycle and change
Families move through stages such as forming a couple, raising children, and the 'empty nest'. In many countries people now marry later, have fewer children, and divorce more than in the mid-twentieth century, while cohabitation has grown. Sociologists study how economic change, education, and shifting values drive these trends.
Flashcard
Parents and their children
Check your understanding
A woman lives with her parents, her children, and her grandmother in one household. This is an example of: