System Of Kinship

Answer : A social movement is collective behavior that is purposeful, organized, and institutionalized but not ritualized. In the last few decades alone, the American Civil Rights movement, the peace, environmental and feminist movements, and revolts against authoritarianism all over the world have brought masses of people into the streets demanding change. They often succeeded; but even when they failed, their movements had profound effects, and set in motion important political and international changes.

Power in movement grows ....

Answer : Matrilineal society adheres to a kinship system in which ancestral descent is traced through maternal instead of paternal lines. Matriliny does not eliminate male authority, because the mothers’ brother is likely to exercise some authority over his sisters’ son, but matriliny does tend to weaken the husband’s authority over wife and children. When descent is matrilineal and the residence of the married couple is matrilocal, there is at least the potential both for breaking up ....

Answer : Kinship as an important organizing principle in human society play crucial role in the regulation of behavior. There are two major structural approaches adopted in the study of kinship, they are descent and alliance. All human beings are connected to others by blood or marriage.

Connections between people that are traced by blood are known as consanguineal relationships. The bond between two families following a marriage is described as relationship of ‘alliance’. For example, the relationships ....

Answer : Functionalist perspective has focused on the functions of the family in society and for its members. In other words, it looks at how the family, as an institution, helps in maintaining order and stability in society, and the significance of the family for its individual members.

George P. Murdock in his study of family he found family performs four basic functions for its individual members and society at large. He has referred to these as the ....

Answer : Social values and norms are being changed according to the human needs and desire. In the name of globalization it has not only changed the economy but also social and moral values.

A live-in relationship is an arrangement where a heterosexual couple lives together without entering into a formal relationship called marriage. It need not necessarily involve sexual relations.

Institutionalization of Live in relationship is being both legally and socially accepted as social institution as regards ....

Answer : The gender bias is there in almost every aspect of present day society. Starting from childhood to adulthood to old age, the gender bias is inherent in both the men and women of the society. Female feticide and infanticide are the examples of gender bias when the girl child is yet to born or just born. Even women are involved in these cruel acts because of the mentality which is described by Veena Das as ....

Answer : Various types of contemporary trends in family are as follows.

1. Nuclear Family: In this, parents live with their unmarried children. Because of increasing mobility and being structurally fit with industrialization (Parsons) this kind of family is the most common.
2. Lone Parent Family: As women are becoming independent, they are becoming more assertive. Unable to compromise in a failed relationship they move out and divorce their husbands. This can happen in the opposite direction too. This leads ....

Answer : Today, in this World of industrialization and globalization all the contemporary societies are in transition and changing fast. Family and marriage being a part of society are also changing rapidly. Parsons and Goode argued that the family is changing from extended type to nuclear type. Parsons told that nuclear family is a structural fit with the industrial society.

In fact, he talked about structurally isolated nuclear family. However, these views have been challenged by Peter Laslett ....

Answer : Social structure and system of Indian society are made up by kinship. Socially accepted relations based on marriage, blood or adoptions are called kinship. Kinship system is an important element of human society which establishes relations between sons, siblings and married couples. On other side, lineage is a consanguineous and one sided group whose members attach their relation with unknown ancestor. This ancestor is not any mythical or religious person but a real person before ....

Answer : Family is such a group which exists in all societies of world. Members of family are attached with each other emotionally by blood or marriage relations. According to MacIver, “family is a group decided by definite and stable sexual relations to produce child and for their nurturing.” Family provides social security to their members.

Household has relation with people residing under common roof. It is not necessary that members of a household have any blood relation ....

Answer : Gender is a Socio-cultural construct that defines the differences in the capabilities between men and women. Gender as a cultural construct speaks about differential roles both men and women should play in different spheres of the society. As a result men and women born equals have been compartmentalised into distinct group engaged in different roles enjoying access over privileges, respect, power, education, wealth differently giving way to the rise of gender as a form of ....

Answer : Descent is the seeking of kinship relationship and it is a social group in which membership depends on common descent from a real or mythical ancestor. Descent can be broadly divided into unilineal descent and non-unilineal descent. The unilineal descent include patrilineal, matrilineal, double descent, parallel descent. In non-unilineal descent and many a time confusion occurs pertaining to inheritance. Where as lineage is a unilineal descent group in which membership may rest either on matrilineal ....

Answer : According to Anderson, marriage is an institution sanctioned by society to establish a durable bond between men and women and permit sexual intercourse for the purpose of parenthood and for establishing a family. Marriage is such a social phenomena having great variations of forms and functions. Marriage in human society is also considered as the most crucial institution which connotes a publicly recognised and culturally sanctioned union between a male and female.

Marriage is also the ....

Answer : The marriage and family are the two basic functional unit of society. Scholar Anderson has defined marriage as an institution sanctioned by the society to establish a durable bond between man and woman and to permit sexual intercourse for the purpose of parenthood and establishing family. Whereas the family is such a basic unit of society where man is born. Family is also the basic unit where man learns language, the behavioural patterns and social ....

Answer : Family is a universal social fact present in all types of societies irrespective of marital status of individuals. Family helps to study how human sexual reproduction is institutionalized and of how children, who are the product of sexual unions, are assigned places within a kinship system.

Lawrence Stone said that family passes through three different stages: from open-nuclear family of tribal society to patriarchal joint family of traditional society to closed-romantic nuclear family of modern society.

In ....

Answer : In India, the traditional joint family was a unit of production and consumption. Today, with the advent of diversified occupations, members in the joint family tend to seek their fortunes outside.The contemporary family is a unit of consumption. Particularly in technologically advanced societies, the family has a vital economic function as a unit of consumption. Money is spent on land in the name of the individual rather than by the individual. Thus, the modern family ....

Answer : The family is the basic unit of society. Man is born in family. It is in the family that he learns language, the behavioural patterns and social norms in his childhood. Family is a universal group exists in tribal, rural and urban communities and among the followers of all religions and cultures.

Inspite of universal nature of family one can see vast differences in its structure. In tribal and agrarian societies, people of several generation live ....

Answer : Family and marriage are the two important aspects of the same coin. Westermark in his book, “History of Human Marriage” remarked, “Marriage is rooted in family rather than family in marriage”. The entire structures of family are based on the two types of bonds or relationship; consaguineous, (blood relations) and affinal (marriage relations). When we argue about the structure of family and marriage, it refers to the pattern of relationship between husband and wife and ....

Answer : Family is one of the important agencies of socialization. In the family a child learns the expected behaviours, social values, norms of society and various customs, mores and folkways. They also learn religious belief political and economic values of a particular kind. When a child become adult or make appearance into the society, they are guided by the values imported in the family. For example, if a child is violent against his father or mother ....

Answer : Many sociologists begin from the assumption that human behaviour is largely directed and determined by culture. In fact, norms, values and roles are culturally determined and socially transmitted. From this perspective, gender roles are a product of culture rather than biology. In modern society, gender roles are taking a different shape because of increase of women’s participation in the labour force. Now a days, womens are free to work in various type of occupations. This ....

Answer : Family is a basic and universal unit of human society. It performs functions that are necessary for the continuity, integration and development of social life. In most traditional societies family has been the unit of social, cultural, religious, economic and political activities and organizations. In modern industrial societies, the family performs primarily the function of reproduction, socialization and provision of emotional satisfaction.

Sociologists talk about family in two senses. It refers (i) to an empirical ....

Answer : This is the prohibition of or avoidance of sexual relations with near kin usually primary relatives e.g., parents, sibling, children etc. The sociologists differs considerably in their definition of what constitutes 'incest' and hence which sexual relations are in fact 'taboo'. Sometimes, it is confined to members of the nuclear family. Sometimes, it is simply a synonym for forbidden sexual relation with any kin. Sometimes, the incest taboo is equated with prohibition on marriage e.g. ....

Answer : The very term “structure of family” refers to the pattern of relationship between husband and wife and the nature of residence, size, authority, procreation, marriage, kinship, property, etc. Whenever change occurs in this pattern of relationship and nature of the above mentioned areas, we call it “structural change” in the family.

The earlier structure of family was characterised by sexual promiscuity, patriarchy, group-living, polygamy, joint property, strong kinship-ties, etc. Since the society has made all round ....

Answer : Generally, the nuclear family consists of husband, wife and their unmarried children. Sometimes the unmarried brother, widowed mother, or unmarried sister of the couple are also included in it. The nuclear family emerges with the disintegration of the joint family. This disintegration is generally caused by individualism and problems in the family. The sociological knowledge and data reveals that nuclear family is rapidly emerging around the world. In India also, the rate of nuclearization of ....

Answer : Conviction, simply refers to convince or promote people for doing something or not doing others. Whereas coercion means use of force to achieve a desired goal. According to Gillin and Gillin “Social Control is that system of measures, suggestions, persuasion, restraints and coercion by whatever means including physical force by which a society brings into conformity its members”. Kimball Young defines social control as “the use of coercion, force, restraints, suggestion or persuasion of one ....

Answer : The word 'education' has been derived from the Latin root 'educare' which means to bring up and is connected with the verb 'educare' which means to bring forth. Plato held that the aim of education was to develop in the body and in the soul of the pupils all the perfection and all the beauty of which they are capable. According to Aristotle, to educate means to develop men's faculties, especially his mind so that ....

Answer : The very term "Sex roles" refers to the different ways of behaving of men and women which are supposed to act according to the different tasks assigned to them differently. In most of the advanced industrial societies, women are expected to do household work, while the men spend their lives in a varieties of career outside the home and their work is often better paid, and of higher status than that of women. Several biological ....

Answer : In general the word "Custom" refers to the practices that have been often repeated by a multitude of generations, practice that tend to be followed simply because they have been followed by the past. According to Bogardus, "Custom and traditions are group-accepted technique of control that have become well established, that are taken for granted and that are passed along from generation to generation. Anderson and Parker write". The uniformly approved way of acting we ....

Answer : The industrialization which is closely associated with urbanization has brought remarkable change in the traditional family and kinship organisation. The pattern of relationship, authority, residence, marriage etc. have been affected by it. The kinship system which performs various social and individual function is gradually being replaced. The significance of kinship is too much in bringing coherence and harmony in the society.

The family system, at its structural and functional level, is gradually changing due to ....