Family is an important and primary unit or any social organization. It is both biological and social. The biological aspect of family is simple: two parents are required to produce offspring, and the number of ancestor’s doubles with each ascending generation.
Some societies have institutionalized this fact of bilateral patriarchal and matriarchal families. More often, however, descent is counted in accordance with a unilateral pattern, whereby a person belongs to his father’s or mother’s family. The former is called patrilineal, whereas the latter matrilineal.
The social aspect of family is also very important. Wherever we see a community rural or urban, primitive or civilized there is invariably the presence of family. It is the family which rears and up brings a child. There are some needs which have to be fulfilled by the family.
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But what is that which determines the family? “It is”, says Radcliffe-Brown, “the necessary conditions of existence of the social organism.” When the child comes out of the womb of the mother, there is nobody to help it.
Among the animals, the moment the calf is born, its stands up and its dependence on the cow is short-lived. In the case of human beings the period of dependence varies from society to society.
All of us are the products of family. Whether we like it or not, we identify with our family. Besides, our status also depends on our family. In India, right from birth to death, a person is dependent on his family in one way or the other. The family thus helps us fulfill some necessary conditions of existence.
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Currently, the institution of family has become controversial. Though it is a universal social institution and is regarded fundamental, both for the individual and society as a whole, there are new perspectives which question many of the assumptions of the more traditional view. For instance, in India, LP. Desai made a breakthrough by stating that the Indian family is essentially a joint family.
His observation though emerges out of his empirical work from Mahua (Gujarat), it applies to all caste Hindus, tribals and rural and urban communities.
In the west, during the late sixties, the Women’s Liberation Movement began to shake the foundations of the family by attacking the role of women within it. “This attack was developed by some feminist writers into a condemnation of the family as an institution.”