Families, Definitions and Typologies

Family is the primal relational experience for most people. Most people assume that they know what a family is. Yet, the basic definition of this universal phenomenon has recently become intensely controversial. Recently, California's Supreme Court followed Massachusetts in ruling that gays and lesbians can marry and raise children—in essence establishing a legal family—just as heterosexuals do, although this ruling was overturned by public referendum. Whether referendums to ban gay marriages are passed, traditional definitions of family are changing. The rise of gay rights is not the only social change to challenge traditional notions of family. With the divorce rate long higher than 50 percent, single-parent and blended families have become as commonplace as the traditional nuclear family with a father, mother, and biological children. Likewise, the rise of long-term cohabitation has created a social unit, sometimes called a common-law marriage, that has also challenged traditional conceptions of family. Laws protecting children have also led to increasing numbers of children being removed from their biological parents and adopted or placed in foster care. Likewise, there are cross-cultural variations in what con stitutes a family and what a family looks like. Polygamy is accepted in some cultures or subcultures but not in others. Different cultures have different traditions for where to draw the boundaries of the extended family. All of these variations have political and legal implications.

This entry presents three approaches to defining what constitutes a family: structural, functional, and process. It also describes several of the most popular and useful family typologies.