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Introduction To Family Life

Subject: Enviroment Population and Health

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Overview

The group of individual related either by blood, marriage or adoption, living under the same roof and dining in the same kitchen and creating and practicing a common subculture is called family. This note provide us the information about family life, origin of family and its importance.
Introduction To Family Life

Human being is a social creature. As he cannot survive in loneliness, he forms a group, in which the members have the similar kinds of feelings. Only the family provides the opportunity to live a pleasant life. It is the family where we live and learn to live as a social creature. Family life is a very board term related to the issues of introduction, importance, types and essential characteristics of a family.

Life must be happy and significant. So, to make the life happy and prosperous, the size of the family must be small. Besides this, efforts are to be made to increase the sources of income for family welfare. To increase the sources of income, one should be involved in income generating activities and also reduce the number of children. People should follow the concept of small family life.

Introduction to Family

The group of individual related either by blood, marriage or adoption, living under the same roof and dining in the same kitchen and creating and practicing a common subculture is called family. This definition implies that family members related by any of these three relation .i. e. relationship, martial and adoption. The relationship between father or mother and son is that of relationship, the relationship between husband and wife is that of marriage. Adoption of child of other people as one's own is quite a latest practice. The third type of practice exist more in developed countries. Whatever may be the relationship, love is the underlying element of any family. It is a family in which the responsibility and positional hierarchy play a significant role.

The family comprises parents, sons and daughter in law, grand son and daughters living under one roof and dining in one kitchen. The group of members related with blood and marriage is a family. The family also an inherited small group. The person of different sex and age live in an organized way of keeping warm relations with on one another in the family. We are born in family, grow in the family and live together in the family.

Importance of Family

The family members provide love, affection, care, kindness, spirit to one another. Available resources and means are used by family members in the family. There is a close relationship among them. The chief function of a family is to create the spirit of cooperation, to live daily life in friendly atmosphere, to share pleasure and pain to solve various problems jointly. A family has a very important role in keeping social values. It has great importance in a country like Nepal where social values, beliefs and tradition are seriously observed.

Family is the cohort of intimately organized individuals who are creating and practicing common subculture. It is defined whole that combines the people of various forms of statue: age, sex, occupational status and so on.

Types of family

At present, we can study family by dividing into two types on the basis of its structure.

Nuclear family:

A family composed of husband and wife, and their children is called nuclear family. The system of nuclear family is very popular in present context.

The strength of Nuclear family are as follows:

  • There is less possibility of quarrel due to less family member.
  • It is easy to take care of all family members.
  • There is equal love and affection among all family members.
  • There is freedom of making decision.

Extended Family:

A family composed of grand-parents, parents, brothers and their wives, daughter-in-law, grand-son, grand-daughter and so on is called extended family.

The strength of extended family are as follows:

  • There is economic, social and emotional security.
  • Well supervision of children.
  • Easy to run business and farming.
  • The problem of adolescence can easily be solved.

Size of family


Every family should have the objective of the happiness, development and good wishes to make their members happy and prosperous. It needs a balance between the size and the resources of income of the family. The source of income is to be managed according to the size of the family. If the size of the family is large with limited sources of income, there will arise the atmosphere of dispute. Hence, the size of the family is to be determined according to the sources of income.

Things to remember
  • Food, shelter, clothes, health, education and security along with entertainment are basic needs of family.
  • Small family, delayed marriage, first conception at proper age, child spacing, quality education, health and sanitation, nutritious food, and saving habits makes family life happy.
  • The group of individual related either by blood, marriage or adoption, living under the same roof and dining in the same kitchen and creating and practicing a common subculture is called family.
  • The family members provide love, affection, care, kindness, spirit to one another.
  • It includes every relationship which established among the people.
  • There can be more than one community in a society. Community smaller than society.
  • It is a network of social relationships which cannot see or touched.
  • common interests and common objectives are not necessary for society.
Videos for Introduction To Family Life
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Questions and Answers
Family is a group of individuals who are sharing the same rood and related by blood, marriage and adoption. They interact as their designated roles for collective developments.
A nuclear family is the smallest and elementary type of family which consists of parents and their unmarried children only.

In nuclear family, it is easy to fulfill the requirements, desires, aspirations and demands.

The family which is composed of parents, children, grand parents, uncles, aunts, cousins etc. under a single roof is a joint family.
Joint family is socially, economically and emotionally more secured.
Joint family lacks privacy.
In nuclear family there is no feeling of security.
Family plays a vital role for the conservation and regulation of socio-cultural values, assumption and traditions.
The family is unit of a society and its function exerts influences on the society. The functions of the family are mentioned below:
  • Protection: The child is reared and taken care of in the family. Parents take every care for the protection of their child. They are always ready to help the children.
  • Sexual control: A nuclear family initiates from marriage. There is social, legal, and cultural approval of sexual activities for a married couple in families. So, family is institution where sex is allowed. Due to this people should not seek for the alternative ways of sex satisfaction leading to sexual crimes and misbehaves. In this way, family serves as a unit for sexual control.
  • Reproduction: Reproduction is the process of producing children who continues family. Death of people causes a loss in the society. The loss is fulfilled by the family by giving birth to infants who become the member of the society. So, the society is never devoid of people. No other institution replaces the family in this function.
  • Socialization: Family is the first school of children where they learn about social behaviors, norms, values, and culture that helps to adopt them in the society. It makes children able to perform their social duties in future.
  • The emotional function: Family is the source of love affections and other institution which imparts knowledge about emotional behaviors. People can obtain emotional experiences from the family.
The demerits of nuclear family are given below:
  • Nuclear family lacks the proper security.
  • Nuclear family lacks the feeling and love for others.
  • In the nuclear family, the couple gets involved in some kind of employment, finds it difficulty in bringing up their children.
  • As nuclear family is composed of parents and off springs, children lack the values and beliefs of old generations.
  • It becomes difficult during the period of casualty.
The differences between Nuclear and Joint family are given below:
Nuclear family        Joint family
  • It is the smallest and elementary type of family composed of parents and their off springs.
  • It is  a large family composed of grandparents, uncles, cousins, parents, children etc
  • Less number of members, so fewer quarrels exists.
  • More number of members. So there is huge quarrel.
  • It is less secured.
  • It is more secured.
  • Easy supervision to children is not possible.
  • Easy supervision to children is possible.
  • Easy fulfillment of basic needs to its small necessities.
  • Adequate manpower for professional like farming.
  • Due to its small size privacy is more.
  • Due to its large size privacy is less.
The disadvantages of extended family are given below:
  • There are more chances of family disputes and conflicts.
  • There is less privacy, especially for new married couples and they cannot enjoy their married life.
  • It is difficult to fulfill the basic needs (food, clothing, housing, etc.) so there is less possibility of quality of life.
  • Extended family may not be self-supportive.
  • Decision making process is longer.
  • Conditions of women are worse as they need to do all the households works, and take care of physically handicapped members, elderly people and so on.
  • Feelings are less intense in extended family.
The size of family means the number of members in the family. The size of family is mainly determined by the type of family and the number of children along with parents. The size of family should be strictly planned by the couple themselves. It is easy to collect income source and expenses for proper reading of children, providing quality education and health in a small family. The couple having small family can easily perform their responsibilities towards their children. So, there is a mutual relationship between income and expenditure, happiness and prosperity and size of family. The family income determines the expenditure of family. The amount of expenditure of family is determined by its size. Therefore, if the size of a family is small then there will be balance between income, expenditure and life can be easy.
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