Family

Anthropologist say a culture’s biological and marital kinship rules and patterns of reciprocal obligations define family.Each culture defines who is biological and marital kin,and who is not, and defines the obligations kin have to one another.In one culture,Kinship is based on the father’s biological line in another, kinship is based on the mother’s biological line; but kinship obligations may quickly end about the level of uncles, aunts and first cousins, but some early African societies made no distinction between brothers, sisters and cousins and used a single word to designate these kin. The rules for kinship and marital family relationships are virtually unlimited.

structure functionalist say the patterns of reciprocal obligations among people and between structures of people and the greater society define family.The greater society has needs that must be met; in order to meet those needs, society creates subsets of people structured to help meet the needs of society.The family is one of those structures. The definition of family changes the needs of the of the greater society needs rapid population growth.