Decline: My Definition Of Family
My Definition in Decline
George Sebastian
September 27, 2010
My Definition in Decline The word family is derived from the Latin word famil, which means a household including servants, slaves, and all others that lived under the authority of the household head. It wasn’t until the 19th century that the word was commonly used to describe a married couple and their children. Just as the meaning of the word has changed, so has the functions and structure of the unit. Changed so much to a point that there are many different definitions and ideas about what makes a family and also many opinions about what doesn’t make a family. When people say that there is a decline in the “traditional family,” they are actually saying that there is a decline in one definition most often their definition of family. …show more content…
There are many reasons for people thinking that the institution of family is deteriorating.
New ideas about what makes a family arise and it is met with challenges and objections from the established views. Homosexuality, new legal definitions of family, cohabitation, rising divorce rates, interracial families, childless families, and remarriages are all examples of ideas that challenged the institution of the “traditional family.” So in many people’s eyes, these new family structures are not accepted as a real family. As they see more and more of these new families that are not accepted, they attribute it to the deterioration of the traditional family institution. Homosexuality is one of the most problematic trends because there is so much media attention and legal attention on the issue and it is also the most contrasting idea among the ones
mentioned. I think that the changing trend would be views as deviant by a functionality theorist because they focus more on the individual and the molding of one by social forces. They would focus on the individual as the decision-maker, but one whose decisions are a predictable and inevitable result of external forces. A conflict theorist would look at the trend differently. They would look at the large groups at play and not at the individual. Just as their theory suggests, they would see this trend as a conflict raised from the more powerful groups attempting to exploit the groups with less power. In this case, the established and supported traditional family challenging new ideas that is in contrast to the established norm. The interactionist theorist would be the most sympathetic to the new trends. They seek to understand the individual just as functionality theorists do but also try to recognize that everyone has different attitudes, values, cultures even if the people compared belong to the same social class. This new trend in their eyes would be a different meaning of the institution that arose from a different interaction of individuals.
I think that this trend is best looked at from a family systems perspective. This perspective allows us to study the organizational complexities of the family such as individuals meeting the needs of others. This makes it easier to accept and understand as we compare characteristics of roles rather than characteristics of the person themselves. To study a changing trend like homosexuality, qualitative research methods would be more effective because it requires a more subjective research involving individual interpretations and observations. After all the issue is not one that can be measured with numbers. As I said before, it is just a simple disagreement in definitions.
George Sebastian
September 27, 2010
My Definition in Decline The word family is derived from the Latin word famil, which means a household including servants, slaves, and all others that lived under the authority of the household head. It wasn’t until the 19th century that the word was commonly used to describe a married couple and their children. Just as the meaning of the word has changed, so has the functions and structure of the unit. Changed so much to a point that there are many different definitions and ideas about what makes a family and also many opinions about what doesn’t make a family. When people say that there is a decline in the “traditional family,” they are actually saying that there is a decline in one definition most often their definition of family. …show more content…
There are many reasons for people thinking that the institution of family is deteriorating.
New ideas about what makes a family arise and it is met with challenges and objections from the established views. Homosexuality, new legal definitions of family, cohabitation, rising divorce rates, interracial families, childless families, and remarriages are all examples of ideas that challenged the institution of the “traditional family.” So in many people’s eyes, these new family structures are not accepted as a real family. As they see more and more of these new families that are not accepted, they attribute it to the deterioration of the traditional family institution. Homosexuality is one of the most problematic trends because there is so much media attention and legal attention on the issue and it is also the most contrasting idea among the ones
mentioned. I think that the changing trend would be views as deviant by a functionality theorist because they focus more on the individual and the molding of one by social forces. They would focus on the individual as the decision-maker, but one whose decisions are a predictable and inevitable result of external forces. A conflict theorist would look at the trend differently. They would look at the large groups at play and not at the individual. Just as their theory suggests, they would see this trend as a conflict raised from the more powerful groups attempting to exploit the groups with less power. In this case, the established and supported traditional family challenging new ideas that is in contrast to the established norm. The interactionist theorist would be the most sympathetic to the new trends. They seek to understand the individual just as functionality theorists do but also try to recognize that everyone has different attitudes, values, cultures even if the people compared belong to the same social class. This new trend in their eyes would be a different meaning of the institution that arose from a different interaction of individuals.
I think that this trend is best looked at from a family systems perspective. This perspective allows us to study the organizational complexities of the family such as individuals meeting the needs of others. This makes it easier to accept and understand as we compare characteristics of roles rather than characteristics of the person themselves. To study a changing trend like homosexuality, qualitative research methods would be more effective because it requires a more subjective research involving individual interpretations and observations. After all the issue is not one that can be measured with numbers. As I said before, it is just a simple disagreement in definitions.