Family is Where the Heart is

Family is a social institution that is found in all societies. In my life, I believe family is very important especially in times of need and despair. Families can positively or negatively influence your life. They can be a support system and help you through rough days and situations.

A nuclear family is a combination of one or two parents and their children. Nuclear families include biological children and adopted children. In my nuclear family, I have a mom and a dad, and one older sister. My nuclear family is pretty small but we are all very close. An extended family is made up of parents and children as well as other kin. Kin is a social bond based on common ancestry, marriage, or adoption. In my extended family I have four aunts, two uncles, and eleven cousins. One of my cousins was adopted, but he is still considered a part of the family.

In class we talked about the show “Modern Family” as an example of extended family. The marriages in the show are monogamous, meaning, marriage that unites two partners. This is very common and the only legal marriage in the United States. Marriage is a legal relationship that involves childbearing, sexual activity, and economic cooperation. My parents also have a monogamous marriage and have been married almost twenty-six years now. I also hope to have a monogamous marriage too when I am older. Other types of marriage include polygyny and polyandry. Polygyny is when one man marries two or more women and polyandry is when one woman marries two or more men. This mostly happens in Africa. These are both outlawed in the United States. 

Patrilocality is when a married couple resides near the husband’s family. In "Modern Family" Jay is Mitchell's father, and Mitchell lives near his father so that is an example of a patrilocal family. A matrilocality is when a married couple lives near the wife’s family. In "Modern Family" Claire and her family lives near Jay, her father, this means she has a matrilocal family. A neolocality is when the married couple lives apart from the parents. In my family, we reside near my grandma, so we partake in matrilocality. However, my dad’s family is not too far away from us either.

            http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/Courses/so142/Family_types/familyterms.htm This website is a good source for visuals of the types of marriages there are.  They use various shapes to explain how each marriage is composed. http://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-nuclear-family-and-vs-extended-family/ This website goes into great depth about the difference between what a nuclear family is and what an extended family is.