Social Institutions

The Family
What are social institutions?
 Institutions develop around human needs that are
essential to the individual

 Habits, or traditional ways of doing things that

have eventually become established patterns of
behaviour
Universal or pivotal social institutions
(these are common to all societies)

 The family - helps provide the basic needs of daily life

 Educational institutions – provides a means to
transmit culture & train new generations through formal
education

 Religious institutions - so people can express their

religious beliefs and join in worship with others who express
similar beliefs

 The economy - provides a means to obtain food,

shelter and clothing

 Government - provides peace and order around

society
The Family
 The oldest of all social institutions

 Exists
in some form in all societies, past &
present

 The most important element in the

socialization process
Family forms
 All families share the following features

 They are social groups that originate in marriage

 They consist of husband, wife and children
 Members are bound by legal, economic &
religious bonds, as well as duties & privileges

 They provide sexual privileges and prohibitions,

as well as love, respect & affection
 Historically, the family has taken two chief
forms

The extended family The nuclear family

 Father, mother & children
 Husband, wife, children +
other relatives living
together as a family unit  Typical of urban industrial
societies in which there is
geographic & social
 Typicalof traditional
mobility
agricultural societies
where cooperation is
important for production


  What are the special features of the
extended family?

 Shared child rearing responsibilities

 Children form affectionate relationships with
many persons
 Socialization is a shared process
 The welfare of the family unit has priority over
the personal goals & desires of the individual
 There is a well defined hierarchy of authority
Why is there a trend towards nuclear
families?
Individuals are attracted to urban centers in search of work
& form new family units

Many of the functions previously performed by extended

families (education, healthcare) have been taken over by
separate institutions in urban industrialized societies

Housing is scarce & expensive in urban centre

Achieved status - what a person does through his/her own

effort – is important in industrial societies (cf. ascribed status
– depends on the family’s social position)
What are the Functions
of the Family?
Family Functions
1. Regulation of sex
• No known society leaves regulation of
sex to chance
• Marriage is encouraged and married
persons are given high status in most
societies
• Marriage is socially & legally sanctioned
in most societies
Family Functions
1. Regulation of sex
2. Controls reproduction
• Ensuring there is always a new generation
growing up
• Reproduction outside the family has not
been sanctioned by any society, despite
changing norms in some societies
Family Functions
1. Regulation of sex
2. Controls reproduction
3. Main agent of socialization
 Most societies depend on the family to
socialize their children in preparation for
living in the wider society
 Schools & peer groups have taken over
part of this process
Family Functions
1. Regulation of sex
2. Controls reproduction
3. Main agent of socialization
4. Provides care, affection &
companionship
1. Fundamental human need for survival
 While companionship may be provided by
other groups, affection is more often
found only within the family.
Family Functions
1. Regulation of sex

2. Controls reproduction

3. Main agent of socialization

4. Provides care, affection & companionship

5. Economic cooperation
 A family must work to provide sustenance
& other needs for its members. i.e. shelter,
food
 Marriage
 A legally defined & sanctioned relationship the family,
which is socially defined)

 The union of a man & a woman, or various combinations

thereof, living together in a sexual relationship with the
expectation of producing offspring

 In every society, the definition of the marriage

relationship includes guidelines for sexual behaviour,
obligations to children & in-laws, division of labour within
the household & other duties and privileges of married
life.
Marriage pattern variations
 Monogamy – union of one man with one woman

 Polygamy - plural marriage

 Polyandry: the union of one woman with two or
more men
 Polygyny: union of one man with two or more
women
 Group marriage: several men living with several
women
Selection of marriage partners
Who is eligible?

 Every society regulates its members’ choices of mates

 All societies require that marriage occurs outside a certain
group [exogamy] . (e.g. outside the family/village).

 The incest taboo – a universal prohibition of sexual relations

between mother & son, father & daughter, sister & brother,
grandparents & grandchildren.

 Societies also require that their members marry within

specified groups [endogamy]. E.g. within a person’s own
race, religion or social class.
 Selection of marriage partners
 Who is eligible?
Arranged marriages
• Parents plan the marriage of their offspring
 based on the idea that a marriage is as much a concern of the
families as of the individuals involved

 To consolidate wealth, property or political power

 based on the belief that young people are too immature,
inexperienced or impulsive to make suitable choices
 Choosing a marriage partner
 Interesting Trivia

In Feudal times, bride-capture was an accepted means for

obtaining a wife in many parts of the world, and the
practice continued into the nineteenth century. A man
wishing to marry a woman would enlist the help of his
best friend, the first "best man", and together they would
set off for the hunt. Many women, knowing in advance of
their pending "capture," didn't bother putting up a fight.
The family & social change

“Modernization & the affluence it

has brought in industrial societies
greatly changed the structure and
substance of family life”
[Perry & Perry 2000: 285]
 Choosing a marriage partner

Romantic love is a modern idea;

previously marriage was an economic
arrangement

Where do you suppose you might meet a

future wife or husband?
 The role of power
 Is egalitarian status possible within a marriage?

 Resource theory [Blood & Wolfe 1960] - argues that

the distribution of power depends on the resources
each spouse brings to the marriage.

 New issues to decide

 When both partners have careers – whose career will come
first?
 What happens if one partner is transferred on promotion?
 Robert Bellah
 Individualism  Relationships(like
 Preoccupation with marriage & having
self children) that
demand
commitment
 Do our conceptions
of love and marriage
Today… (as self fulfillment)
conflict with the
• Marriage today does older social functions
not necessarily imply of the family that
having children acted as a tie to the
• Social pressure to marry larger society
is not as strong as it was (unselfishness and
previously concern for others)?
• Divorce is more
acceptable
 Divorce
 high rates of divorce in urban industrial societies

 Is divorce a natural product of social change?

 the nuclear family is more vulnerable to conflict
 liberalized sexual norms
 changing attitudes to marriage – i.e. “the focus of
marriage has moved away from the idea that it is the
duty of everyone to marry to replenish society.
Increasingly, marriage is entered into for affection
and companionship” [Perry & Perry 2000:299].
Is divorced status becoming a social norm in
some societies?
 Divorce laws in many societies have become
simpler

 Support organizations

 “How to” books

 Community Courses

 “no fault” divorce

The changing form of the
family
 Remaining single
 Living together (cohabitation)
 The one parent family
 The blended family
 The small family
 Partnerships

New phenomena :
• Mail order brides
• Pre-nuptial agreements
 Problems for the family
1- Child care
 hard to find, expensive and often of poor quality
 As yet, we don’t know the long term effects on
children (especially very young children) who are
cared for by strangers
 Possible solutions: government funded/subsidised
day care; employers provide day care facilities for
children of employees
 Problems for the family
1-Child care
2-Family violence
 disagreements are an outcome of people
living together
 definition of violence within the family
differs between cultures and changes
over time
 Problems for the family
1-Child care
2-Family violence
3-Child abuse
 Sexual, physical, neglect
 Children who are abused more likely to
become troubled adults
 Problems for the family
1-Child care
2-Family violence
3-Child abuse
4-Teenage pregnancies
 the proportion per population greatly increased
 Impacts on 2 generations –the mother and the
child
 The Family Survives

 “Inspite of all its faults, the family is still the most

efficient and satisfactory transmitter of culture,
socializer of children and nurturer of old and
young that has ever been devised” [Perry &
Perry 2000:299].