Haralambos, M(2000)The Sociological Perispective;Rondom House.New York.
Schaefer,R,T and Lamm R (1992)Sociology;McGraw Hill.New York
Thomas J.Sullivan.Sociology
Linda L. Lindsey.Sociology
According to Thomas J. Sullivan, the family is the eldest and most fundamental of all social institutions. In fact the family was at one time the center of the political economic educational and religious activities. Every society has rules or norms that shape the family and kin relationship and the family can take many different forms depending on which particular combination of rules develop in a given society. Once the rules are established people are socialized to accept their society’s form of the family as “natural in fact the rules are usually embodied in central cultural values that are internalized the violence of which is considered unthinkable.
According to macionis and Plummer 2002, the family has been seen as a social institution that unites individual into cooperative groups .most families are built on kingship a social bond based on blood, marriage or adoption that joins individuals into families.
According to giddeons 2001:173, a family is a group of persons directly linked by kin connections the adult members of which assume responsibility for caring for children
According to Murdock 1949 define family as a social group characterized by common residence economic cooperation and reproduction. It includes adults of both sexes at least two of whom maintain socially approved sexual relationship and one or more children own or adopted of the sexually cohabiting adult.
So the family is a social institution found in all societies that unites people in a cooperative group to care for one another including any children. It is a social bond based on common ancestry marriage or adoption .so all societies contain family.
Most of sociologist describe different types of family