Family Life

Summarize and discuss the texts.

A. There are many different views on family life. Some people could not do without the support and love of their families. Others say it is the source of most of our problems and anxieties. Whatever the truth is, the family is definitely a powerful symbol. Turn on the television or open a magazine and you will see advertisements featuring happy, balanced families. Politicians often try to win votes by standing for ‘ family values ”: respect for parental authority, stability in marriage, chastity and care for the elderly.

Sociologists divide families into two general types: the nuclear family and the extended family, which may include three or more generations living together. In industrialized countries, and increasingly in the large cities of developing countries, the nuclear family is regarded as normal. Most people think of it as consisting of two parents and two children. In fact, the number of households containing a nuclear family is shrinking year by year.

There are people who say that the family unit in Britain is in crisis and that traditional family life is a thing of the past. This is of great concern to those who think a healthy society is dependent upon a stable family life. They see many indications that the family is in decline, in such things as the acceptance of sex before marriage, the increased of one-parent families, the current high divorce rate and what they see as a lack of discipline within the family. Some politicians blame social problems, such as drug taking and juvenile crime, on a disintegrating family life.

Concern that the family is in a state of crisis is not new in Britain. In the 19^th century, many legislators and reformers were saying the same. It was also a concern between the two World wars, and in the 1980s it became a continuous political issue.

There is no definition of a “normal” family. Broadly speaking, the family is a group of people related by blood or law, living together or associating with one another for a common purpose. That purpose is usually to provide shelter and food, and to bring up children. The nature of the family keeps changing; there are a number of types of family that exist in a society at any one time.

B. The family is the most basic and ancient of all institutions, and it remains the fundamental social unit in every society. Yet there are many people today who predict the end of the family system as we know it. The family, it is contended, is breaking down, the victim of moral decay, sexual permissiveness, changing gender roles, or irresistible social forces.

Such predictions are heard in all industrialized societies, but the statistics suggest that the family system of the world’s leading postindustrial society, the United States, is under the most pressure. The great majority of both American men and women begin sexual activity before marriage. One in every five American births is to an unmarried mother, usually a teenager. One in every four pregnancies ends in abortion. The number of unmarried couples living together has tripled in less than two decades. Americans are staying single longer than ever, and more than one adult in five now lives alone. About half of American marriages are expected to end in divorce. New alternatives to traditional marriage, such as the single-parent household, are becoming steadily more common.

What exactly is a family? Our ideas on the subject may tend to be ethnocentric, for they are often based on the middle-class “ideal” family so relentlessly portrayed in TV commercials, one that consists of a husband, a wife, and their dependent children. This particular family pattern, however, is far from typical. A more accurate conception of the family must take account of the many different family forms that have existed or still exist both in America and in other countries.

What characteristics, then, are common to all family forms? First, the family consists of a group of people who are in some way related to one another. Second, its members live together for long periods. Third, the adults in the group assume responsibility for any offspring. And forth, the members of the family form an economic unit – often for producing goods and services (as when all members share agricultural tasks) and always for consuming goods and services (such as food or housing). We may say, then that the family is a relatively permanent group of people related by ancestry, marriage, or adoption, who live together, form an economic unit, and take care of their young. If this definition seems a little cumbersome, it is only because it has to include such a great variety of family forms.

3) Read and expand on the underlined parts of the text, which concern your own experience:

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