NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF MODERN LANGUAGES

GROUP ASSIGNMENT

Pakistani Society and Culture

BS 2nd Semester

Assignment # 1
Topic:

FAMILY AND KINSHIP

Submitted To:

Ma’am Farhat Naseem

Group Members:

 Zulqarnain Haider Tarar

 Raqeeb Asghar
 Sarwat Hayat
 Kainnat Naeem

FAMILY AND ITS TYPES

In terms of Sociology:
A primary social group consisting of parents and their
offspring, the principal function of which is provision for its
members.
Definitions:

 The term family generally refers to a group of people related to

one another by birth, marriage, or adoption, in contemporary
society, people often apply the word family to any group that feels
a sense of kinship (family connection).

 According to Sociology, family has the primary function of

producing society, biologically, socially or both. It is a social
group characterized by common residence, economic cooperation
and reproduction.

 It is the simplest and most elementary group found in a society. It

is a social group consisting of a father, mother and one or more
children. It is the most immediate group a child is exposed to.

 According to Mahler and Page, “Family is a group defined by a

sex relationship, sufficiently precise and enduring to provide for
the procreation and upbringing of children”.

Characteristics of Family
1. A Mating Relationship:
A family comes into existence when a man and woman establish
mating relation between them.
2. A Form of Marriage:
Mating relationship is established through the institution of
marriage. The society regulates sexual behavior between opposite
sexes through the institution of marriage. Through the institution of
marriage, mating relationship is established. Without marriage family is
not possible. Hence, family is a form of marriage.

3. A Common Habitation:
A family requires a home or household for its living. Without a
dwelling place the task of child-bearing and child rearing cannot be
adequately performed. The members of a family have a common
habitation or household.

4. A System of Nomenclature:
Every family is known by a particular name. It has own system
of reckoning descent. Descent may be recognized through male line or
through the mother’s line. In patrilineal family’s descent is recognized
through male line. Similarly, in matrilineal family’s descent is
recognized through mother’s line.

5. An Economic Provision:
Every family needs an economic provision to satisfy the
economic needs. The head of the family carries on certain profession
and earns to maintain the family.

6. System of Interaction and Communication:

The family is composed of persons who interact and
communicate with each other in their social roles such as husband and
wife, mother and father, son and daughter etc. It is important to
mention that the family is composed of persons united by ties of
marriage, blood or adoption. The family maintains a common but a
distinctive culture.

Functions of The Family

Family is the foundation of society. The progress and development of
the society depends on sound family development. Family is the basic
unit of social organization in all-human societies. Since prehistoric
times, families have served as the primary institution responsible for
raising children and satisfying people’s need for love and support. Six
major functions are as follows:

1. Child bearing.
2. Providing food and shelter to family members.
3. Meeting psychological needs: – love, support and
companionship.
4. Education and training.
5. Socialization and
6. Security and safety.
Families perform many necessary functions, both for individual family
members and for society as a whole. Family helps to socialize the
member particularly children. Home is the center of family activities. In
the home, children basic social skills, such as how to talk and get along
with others. It plays important role for survival, protection and support,
socialization and societal identification of the individual.

FAMILY CLASSIFICATION
The family is the most important primary group in a society. The family as an
institution is universal. It is the most permanent and the most pervasive of all
social institutions Though family is a universal institution, its structure or form
vary from one society to another. Sociologists and anthropologists have
mentioned about different types of families found in different cultures.

Classification of families is generally done on the basis of organization (nuclear

and joint), forms of marriage (monogamous or polygamous), authority
(matriarchal or patriarchal) and residence etc. Classification of families on
different basis is given below:

a. On the basis of Structure of the Family.

b. On the basis of Authority.
c. On the basis of Residence.
d. On the basis of Decent/Ancestry

On the Basis of Structure of the Family

Nuclear Family:

A nuclear family is a small group consisting of a husband, a wife and children,

natural or adopted. It is more or less an autonomous unit that is not under the
control of adults or elders of the family. It consists of two generations only. The
nuclear family is based on conjugal bonds. The children get maximum care, love
and affection of the parents in nuclear family. The nuclear family is independent
and economically self-sufficient.

Joint Family:

The joint family is also known as undivided family or extended family. It

normally consists of members belong to two-three generations: husband and
wife, their married and unmarried children and their married or unmarried
grandchildren. Joint family may be defined as a group of people who generally live
under one roof, who eat food cooked at one hearth, who hold property in
common and who participate in common family worship and are related to each
other as some particular type of kindred. The rights and duties of the members in
this type of family are laid down by the hierarchy order of power and authority.
ON THE BASIS OF AUTHORITY:

(i) Patriarchal Family:
Patriarchal family is a type of family in which all authority
belongs to the paternal side. In this family, the eldest male or the
father is the head of the family. He exercises his authority over the
members of the family. He presides over the religious rites of the
household; he is the guardian of the family goods. In the developed
patriarchal system of the past, the patriarch had unlimited and
undisputed authority over his wife, sons and daughters.
(ii) Matriarchal Family:
It is a form of family in which authority is centered in the wife
or mother. The matriarchal family system implies rule of the family by
the mother, not by the father. In this type of family women are entitled
to perform religious rites and husband lives in the house of wife.

Matriarchal family is also called mother-right family or maternal

family under which the status, name and sometimes inheritance is
transmitted through the female line.

ON THE BASIS OF RESIDENCE:

1) Patrilocal Family:
When the wife goes to live with the husband’s family, it is called
the patrilocal family.

2) Matrilocal Family:
When the couple after marriage moves to live with the wife’s
family, such residence is called matrilocal. The husband has a
secondary position in the wife’s family where his children live.
3) Neolocal Residence:
When the couple after marriage moves to settle in an
independent residence which is neither attached to the bride’s family
of origin nor bridegroom’s family of origin it is called neolocal
residence.

4) Changing Residence:

Immediately after marriage the bridegroom moves to the house

of the bride and temporarily settles there till the birth of the first child
and then comes back to his family of orientation, along with wife and
child for permanent settlement.

ON THE BASIS OF DECENT/ANCESTRY:

On the basis of descent, families may be divided into two types such as
patrilineal and matrilineal.

(i) Patrilineal Family:
When descent is traced through the father, it is called patrilineal
family. In this type of family inheritance of property takes place along
the male line of descent. The ancestry of such family is determined on
the basis of male line or the father. A patrilineal family is also
patriarchal and patrilocal. This is the common type of family prevalent
today.

(ii) Matrilineal Family:
In this type of family descent is traced along the female line and
inheritance of property also takes place along the female line of
descent. There are other two types of family based on descent namely
Bilateral and Ambilineal family. When descent is traced through both
father and mother, it is called bilateral family. Ambilineal family is one
in which one’s ancestry may be traced through father’s line in one
generation, but in the next generation one’s son may trace his descent
or ancestry through his mother’s line.

CONCLUSION:

Happiness comes through satisfaction. It is a very important

practice for family members to satisfy themselves within what they
have. Otherwise a family cannot be completely happy and sound. It is a
very important factor that a man or women’s family should must be
sound and happy otherwise it will be impossible to expect a good
impact from him or her. Family leads a very important role in a man’s
or women personal life. So, it is very important that a good and happy
family can help to makes a man or woman successful. Family can lead a
very important role to its member’s mentality. Happy and sound family
is very much required for a complete human being non can achieve his
or her goal without family support. The family has lost some of its
functions or losing many functions performed in the past. However, the
process is gradual and not everywhere the same. Despite its structural
and functional changes, the family still holds a unique position among
the innumerable.

KINSHIP TERMINOLOGY
Introduction:

Man does not live alone in society. From birth till death, he is
surrounded by a number of people. Some of these people are his
relatives, some are friends, some are neighbours, others are strangers
and some unknown to him. He is bound to all those people who are
related to him either on the basis of blood or marriage.

The relations based on blood or marriage may be close or may

distant. The bond of blood or relationship which binds people
together in a group is known as Kinship. Kinship system includes
socially recognized relationship based on supposed as well as actual as
genealogical ties. These relationships are the results of social
interaction. Kinship is one of the most organizing components of
society. From East to West, North to South, we will find this
everywhere in society. This social institution ties individuals or groups
together and establish a relationship among them.
 Some Basic DEFINITIONS

According to L. Stone,

Kinship is the recognition of relationships between persons

based on descent or marriage. If the relationship between the one
person and another is considered by them to involve descent, the two
are consanguine(“blood”) relatives. If the relationship has been
established through marriage, it is affinal.

"Kinship is one of the most important organizing components of

society. This social institution ties individuals and groups together and
establishes a relationship among them."

According to A.R Radcliffe brown defines kinship as a system of

dynamic relations between person and person in any of these relations
being regulated in some way and to a greater or less extent by social
usage.

Kinship is a "system of social organization based on real

or putative family ties," according to Encyclopedia Britannica.

"the degree of sharing likelihood among individuals from different

communities. For instance, if two people have many similarities
between them then both of them do have a bond of kinship."

KINSHIP AND ITS TYPES

Kinship is the most universal and basic of all human relationships and is based
on ties of blood, marriage, or adoption.

There are two basic kinds of kinship ties:

  Those based on blood that trace descent
 Those based on marriage, adoption, or other connections

Some sociologists and anthropologists have argued that kinship goes beyond
familial ties, and even involves social bonds.

TYPES:
Most social scientists agree that kinship is based on two broad areas:
birth and marriage; others say a third category of kinship involves social
ties. These three types of kinship are:

1. Consanguineal:

This kinship is based on blood—or birth: the relationship

between parents and children as well as siblings, says the
Sociology Group. This is the most basic and universal type of
kinship. Also known as a primary kinship, it involves people who
are directly related.

2. Affinal:

This kinship is based on marriage. The relationship between

husband and wife is also considered a basic form of kinship.

3. Social:
Schneider argued that not all kinship derives from blood
(consanguineal) or marriage (affinal). There are also social kinships,
where individuals not connected by birth or marriage may still have
a bond of kinship, he said. By this definition, two people who live in
different communities may share a bond of kinship through a
religious affiliation or a social group, such as the Kiwanis or Rotary
service club, or within a rural or tribal society marked by close ties
among its members. A major difference between consanguineal or
 affinal and social kinship is that the latter involves "the ability to
terminate absolutely the relationship" without any legal recourse.

Bases of Kinship:
Famous Sociologist H.M. Johnson identified five important bases of
kinship which are described below:

) Generation:
Kinship tie is established between the persons in relation to
generation. The term ‘father’ and ‘son’, grand-father and grandson
show the relation between two generations.

(3) Close relations or intimacy:

ADVERTISEMENTS:

It refers to relationships through marriage. It does not based on blood

relations. The intimacy or relationship with son-in-law and father’s
sister’s husband is based on close relations or intimacy.

(4) Blood Relations:

The kinship based on blood relations is divided into two such as lineal
and collateral. Close blood relatives in a direct line of descent are
called lineal relatives. Grandfather, father, son and grandson are the
example of lineal relatives. Other descendants of one’s lineal kin such
as uncle and their children refer to collateral relatives.

(5) Division:
This bases of kinship based on division and sub-division. Almost all
kinship relations are divided into two parts. For example father’s
father i.e. paternal grand father and mother’s father i.e. maternal
grand father. Similarly brother’s daughter and sister’s daughter, son’s
son and daughter’s son are two types of relations.

(6) Binding Thread:

Kinship ties are connected with a linkage. The affinal relatives or
consanguineous relatives acts as binding thread. In other words the
binding thread of these relations is close or intimate blood
relationships. For example the relationship of father-in-law is based
on the relation binding thread either of the husband or that of the
wife.

FUNCTIONS OF KINSHIP:

(1) Kinship assigns guidelines for interactions between persons. It

defines proper, acceptable role relationship between father- daughter,
brother-sister etc.

(2) Kinship decides who can marry with whom and where marital
relationship are taboo.:

(3) Kinship helps us to determine the rights and obligations of the

members in all the sacraments and religious practices starting from
birth to death.

(4) Kinship system maintains solidarity of relationships.

(5) In rural and tribal societies kinship or kinship relations determine

the rights and obligations of the family and marriage, system of
production and political power.
(6) Kinship through its different usages regulates the behavior of
different kin.

(7) Kinship helps in (through kinship terms) designating kin of various

types such as classificatory and descriptive.

(8) Kinship through its usages creates special groupings of kin.

(9) Kinship rules govern the role relationships among kins.

(10) Kinship acts as a regulator of social life.

(11) Kinship influences ownership of land, concept of wealth and the

system of production and its use.

Importance

Kinship is important to a person and a community's well-being.

Because different societies define kinship differently, they also set the
rules governing kinship, which are sometimes legally defined and
sometimes implied. At its most basic levels, according to the Sociology
Group, kinship refers to:

Descent: The socially existing recognized biological relationships

between people in the society.Every society looks at the fact that all
offspring and children descend from their parents andthat biological
relationships exist between parents and children. Descent is used to
trace anindividual’s ancestry.
Lineage: The line from which descent is traced. This also called
ancestry. Based on descent and lineage, kinship determines family-line
relationships—and even sets rules on who can marry and with whom,
says Puja Mondal in "Kinship: Brief Essay on Kinship."
Mondal adds that kinship sets guidelines for interactions between
people and defines the proper, acceptable relationship between father
and daughter, brother and sister, or husband and wife, for example.
But since kinship also covers social connections, it has a wider role in
society, says the Sociology Group, noting that kinship: