Family

A family consists of any two individuals usually a man and a woman who wish to share their lives together in a committed relationship that is long term with one another. The family in society is a primary social group much like a small community that normally lives in the same dwelling and raises offspring.

The word family can also be defined as a group of persons from a common ancestry, or a group of people or a people believed to come from a common stock, or a people group united by a common affiliation or certain convictions, or things in a group that have common characteristics thru which they are related.

The personality and social character of society is determined by family structure and upbringing resulting in the family being the main building block in the community.

Our family values and vital fundamental skills such as respect for others and ourselves, peaceful conflict resolution, reason, love, caring, common sense, fairness, honesty, ethics, and compassion are learned in the family and are necessary in the world community to live a prosperous and honorable life in harmony.

Some of the different types of families are conjugal, consanguineal, and matrilocal.

A conjugal family is made up of a husband and wife including any unmarried children who are not old enough to marry and be on their own.

A parent with his or her children and any other people make up a consanguineal family.

Another family unit that is made up of a mother and her children is called matrilocal.

Usually these children are her biological offspring although they can be children she has adopted. This type of family is more common where resources allow the women by themselves to raise their children and or the women are less mobile than the men.

Eskimo kinship terminology is used in most Western societies and its usage most commonly occurs in conjugal or nuclear families on which the societies are based and there is a degree of mobility that is relative to these nuclear families.

Some of the most used kinship terms are:

• Father: a male parent
• Mother: a female parent
• Daughter: a female child of the parent(s)
• Son: a male child of the parent(s)
• Sister: a female child of the same parent(s)
• Brother: a male child of the same parent(s)
• Grandmother: mother of a mother or father
• Grandfather: father of a father or mother

Such systems commonly assume that the biological father has also been the mother's husband.

In some families a man may have had children with more than one woman or a woman may have had children with more than one man.

A "half-brother" or "half-sister" only shares one parent with another child.

"Stepbrother" or "stepsister" is a term used for children who do not have common biological or adoptive parents. An example of this would be when one of the biological parents of one child would marry one of the biological parents of another child.