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Structures and Functions of Present Family Systems in Bangladesh PDF
Structures and Functions of Present Family Systems in Bangladesh PDF
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.
❖ Primary Socialization:
❖ Personality Stabilization:
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.
❖ Emotional Support:
❖ 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:
❖ Matrilocal Family:
When the couple lives near or with the bride’s parents, the
arrangement is matrilocal.
❖ Patrilocal Family:
❖ 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:
❖ Polygamy:
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:
❖ Childless Family:
❖ Same-Sex 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.
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.