Structures and Functions of Present

Family Systems in Bangladesh

1. What is your idea/ opinion about a family?

Marriage and family are key structures in most societies. Family is the
smallest, basic and most primitive organization of a society. It is like a
wheel on which the society marches on. Definitions of family have varied
from time to time and also from country to country.
A family is a social group consisting of individuals related by blood ties,
marriage or adoption, who share a mutual commitment to the group. It is
usually established through marriage, which is a socially approved sexual
relationship between two individuals. Family members are connected
through kinship ties. It has been a very resilient social unit that has
survived and adapted through time.

2. How will you describe roles and functions

of a family?
The roles and functions of a family differs greatly with respect to time,
culture, religion, geography and many other factors. Most basic and
primary roles and functions are discussed as follows:

❖ Primary Socialization:

Primary socialization is the process by which children learn the

cultural norms and expectations for behavior of the society into which
they are born. Primary socialization occurs largely in the family.
Family provides a child with norms, values, beliefs, ideologies. Family
 thus plays a vital role in reducing the crimes and violent activities in a
society.

❖ Personality Stabilization:

According to functionalist theory, the family plays a crucial role in

assisting its adult members emotionally. Family is ideally a major
source of practical and emotional support for its members. It plays a
vital role in the procreation of children and their socialization.

❖ Fulfilling Basic Needs:

The family members look after each other. They share food, clothing,
shelter, and other essentials. Being in a family also provides a person
with love, comfort, help in times of emotional distress and other types
of intangible support that we all human being crave for.

❖ Regulating Sexual Activity:

The family helps to regulate sexual activity and sexual reproduction.

All societies have norms governing with whom and how often a
person should have sex. The family is the major unit for teaching
these norms and the major unit through which sexual reproduction
occurs.

❖ Forming Social Identity:

The family helps to form a social identity of its members. Children

are born into their parents’ social class, race and ethnicity, religion,
and so forth. Thus, family helps a person to get blended into the
society the belong to.
 ❖ Raising Children:

One of the most important roles of a family is to raise children.

Parents take care of their children until they are ready to step outside
the family and participate in the wider domain of the society. Family
provides a safe space for the children to learn the intricacies of the
society they belong to. It is also responsible for the determination of
their course of future life.

❖ Emotional Support:

The family provides its members with emotional support, intimacy,

love, affection and companionship. Human beings are by nature
social creatures. People can cope up with the difficulties they face in
life by drawing emotional support from the family. The members can
share their happiness and sorrows with each other.

3. Classify families. Describe with different

examples from your own perspectives.

Families can be classified in a number of ways and the classifications

changed time to time. Some of them are discussed below:

❖ Nuclear Family:

A nuclear family is the one where two adults are living together with
their own or adopted children in a household. The word “nuclear” was
picked upon, that represents a married couple as forming the
“nucleus” of a family. Usually nowadays in such a family a husband
and a wife look after one or two children. One or both parents may
work outside of home. They both take responsibilities for taking care
 of their children and participate in the domestic activities. These
types of families are mostly found in cities.

❖ Extended Family:

An extended family may include grandparents, brothers and their

wives, sisters and their husbands, aunts and nephews. Extended
families typically consist of three generations of people- the
grandparent, their adult children and their younger children. These
types of families are mostly found in villages.

❖ Matrilocal Family:

When the couple lives near or with the bride’s parents, the
arrangement is matrilocal.

❖ Patrilocal Family:

In a patrilocal family, the couple lives near or with the groom’s

parents. This type of family is more common in our country.

❖ Family of orientation/ origin:

It is the family into which a person is born or adopted.

❖ Family of Procreation:

It is the family into which one enters as an adult and within which a
new generation of children is brought up.
Families can be further classified by the types of marriages:

❖ Monogamy:

Monogamy is the practice of marrying or state of being married to

one person at a time. Most of the families in our current world are
monogamous.

❖ Polygamy:

Polygamy is the practice of marrying multiple spouses.

Polygamy is of two types:

1. Polygyny:

When a man is married to more than one wife at the same time,
sociologists call this polygyny. Most polygamous families are of this
type.

2. Polyandry:

When a woman is married to more than one husband at a time, it is

called polyandry. This is the rarest type which is found nowhere in
our country.
Alternative Types of Families:

❖ Childless Family:

Childless families consist of two partners living together without any

children.

❖ Same-Sex Family:

A same-sex family is a homosexual couple living together with or

without children.

❖ Single Parent Family:

A single parent is a person who lives with a child or children and who
does not have a spouse or live-in partner. Reasons for becoming a
single parent include divorce, break-up, abandonment, death of the
other parent, childbirth by a single person or single-person adoption.

❖ Step Family:

A step family is a family where at least one parent has children that
are not biologically or adoptive related to the other spouse or partner.

4. Describe your idea about the functions and

structures of present family in Bangladesh.
The families in Bangladesh may be divided into two categories, namely,

1. Nuclear
2. Extended
The nuclear family mainly consists of father, mother and their unmarried
children.
The extended family is a group of nuclear families and related individuals
from several generations who reside together in the same household but
their hearths are separate.
Although Bangladesh had mostly extended families till late 1970s,
nowadays the families are mostly nuclear because of increasing
urbanization and industrialization. Village people are moving to urban
areas in search of work. Thus, they are forming newer nuclear families and
breaking up extended families in their paternal homes. Also, the conditions
of life in the cities are not suitable for extended families as the living places
are smaller. So, individualization is causing more nuclear families.
However, there are many extended families in urban areas but they are
mostly in higher class people.
Within the structure of the family, the father is respected and obeyed by the
children and from the mother, they expect tenderness and indulgence. The
children belong to the family of the father. Marriage is patrilocal, i.e., wife
shifts to the local group of the husband. Inheritance of property is mainly in
the male line, and the family is patripotestal, i.e., the authority over the
members of the family is with the father. Therefore, in Bangladesh, for
most purposes, kinship through the father is more important than that
through the mother is. Among Muslims and Hindus, parents and children
are united by religious guidelines and among them females have limited
freedom.
Polygamy (polygyny) in Bangladeshi families was much common even only
a few decades ago. As our economy is largely dependent upon agriculture,
sons were considered to be assets of the family as they can perform field
works. Women also used to get engaged with many economic activities
besides their daily household works.
However, as things are getting modernized and perspectives of the people
are getting changed due to proper education, this attitude is changing. Now
female members are demanding equal rights and they are also participating
in all areas of work.