Definition of family

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Definition of family

• ... a group of persons united by ties of
  marriage, blood, or adoption constituting a
  single household interacting and communicating
  with each other in their respective social roles
  of husband and wife, mother and father, son and
  daughter, brother and sister, and creating and
  maintaining a common culture. (Burgess and
  Locke, 1953, p.7-8)
• ... A basic unit of kinship composed of two or
  more members who are united by ties of blood,
  marriage or adoption, and who live together
  constituting a single household. (Wong, 1975)

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Definition of family

• The family is a social group characterized by
  common residence, economic co-operation and
  reproduction. It includes adults of both sexes,
  at least two of whom maintain a socially approved
  sexual relationship, and one or more children,
  own or adopted, of the usually co-habiting
  adults. (George Peter Murdock, 1949)
• ... a social group made up of members related to
  one another by blood or marital ties and usually
  constituting a household.(Lee, 1991, p.42)

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Concepts of the family

• Karpel and Strauss summerizes different concepts
  of the family (1) the functional family -
  defined by shared household, shared activities,
  shared responsibility for daily life and child
  rearing (2) the legal family - defined by legal
  structure, altered by divorce and adoptive
  placement of children (3) the family as seen by
  its members - defined by the perceptions of its
  members and seen as in the family by family
  members (4) the family of long-term commitments
  - defined by long-term expectations of loyalty
  and commitment trust, reliability, and fairness
  are basic expectation (5) the biological family
  - defined by blood relationships parent-child
  relationship. What are the strengths and
  weaknesses of these definitions?

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