Blood Ties and Families Essay

some mixer scientists reject the thinker that families can be defined only by blood ties. Discuss. The Oxford mental lexicon meaning of family is noun (plural families) 1 treated as singular or plural a throng consisting of two p atomic number 18nts and their barbarianren living together as a unit. There atomic number 18 many unalike ideas round what makes a family, and is this idea of what a family is comprehensive and the fryrens perspectives. There is a lot of roll with social scientists about the family. Functionalists say that the term family is a universal institution performing functions for baseball clubs survival.Sociologist Murdock suggest that each family has for functions in order to be classified as a family. They be, a special K residence, however in that location atomic number 18 many cases in which families do not shargon a ballpark residence for example if a child is at boarding civilize or a parent is in the armed forces. (Murdock, cited by Git tins, D, p. 2). (Gutman 1976) build that it was common among contraband slave families in the USA for a save and wide to live on different plantations and see one another(prenominal) for a few hours once or twice a week.Soliende de Gonzalez cited by gittins) found this type of ho designhold very common in black Carib society there are groupings which I take a crap called dispersed families in which the father, until now though he is absent for long periods of time he still retains ultimate authority over a household for which he provides the only support, and where affective bonds continue to be fundamental surrounded by him and his wife and his children. (Mudock cited by Gittins p. ) next family function is economic co-operation, its a all-embracing term and can encompass a wide range of feignivities such(prenominal) as sleeping and cooking, it occurs between households as well as between privates within the household (Murdock cited by Gittins p. 4) third is his definiti on of sexuality is heterosexuality, in time though this is only one of many forms of sexuality. They say that this is the most important function of a family because it leads to reproduction. He withal suggests that they get pressured into thinking thats heterosexuality is a socially approved relationship between two adults.However there are critisms of Murdock as he doesnt sell into account the diversity of the miens in which co-residence, economic relations, sexuality and reproduction. more sociologists say that they are simply western values and ideas of what a family should be like and assume that everyone will agree. (Jessie Bernard 1973 cited by Gittins pg. 3) Another criticism is that families do not need adults of both sexes, or a heterosexual couple, as same sex couples can adopt or can use medical advances (e. . IVF or surrogacy) to become a biological parent. (Edholm 1982 cited by Gittins p. 4) Anthropologists take to use the term phylogenetic relation rather than family, the ties which exist between individuals who are seen as related both through birth ( rakehell) and through conjoin (marriage). This theory is concerned with the ways in which parentage us assigned, attributed and recognised, descent is traced, relatives are classified, rights are transferred across generations and groups are formed.Unlike the functionalist approach the kinship theory stresses the fact that kinship is a social construction and as well as it emphasises on the variability of kinship depending on how it is defined. There is a debate about whether kinship is biological or social, many of us deal that its biological because of we know who are parents are and they made us so we simply think that kinship is biological but there are cases where children are brought up by parents who they believe to be their biological parents and thusly find out that they have been adopted and then suffer an identity operator crises because they do not know who they are anymor e.Their own suffering is caused by the ways in which we define kinship in society and there is a clear difference between a biological and social parents, we see the biological parent as the real parents and that has the inviolableest bonds with the child, this is a strong western belief. However in other cultures they believe that it is the person who rears the child is defined as the parent regardless who is involved in the reproductive process, for example in some cultures it is common for a child to be raise by a grandparent. ( R. T. Smith cited by Gittins p. ) fond this was common in Guyana and Jamaica and says that close and imperishable bonds are formed through the act of raising a child. Fictive kinship (Rapp 1980292 cited by Gittins p5) stated that false kinship was a serious relationship, and how we turn friends into family. It was also argued that kinship is whatever we chose it to be whether thats biological, social or fictive, its a way of identifying others as in s ome way special from the nap, people to whom the individual or collectively feel responsible in certain ways.Many anthropologists have argued that kinship is simply a system of meaning and symbols, they also state that animals reproduce, mate and form attachments but they do not have a kinship system. (Marx cited by Gittins p 5) argued that it distinguishes people from animals. In child birth motherhood is always known unlike fatherhood, however unconnected from carrying and giving birth to the child that is where the biological process stops the rest become socially constructed.Gender also affects the ways that kinship is constructed and defined, they are both universally present as mothers and children are but the limit of them and the meanings ascribed to them is highly variable. Age is also an important fact when it comes to kinship as people grow up the household composition and resources change. All relationships are different and with society changing there has become many different norms of society. Families do not have to be blood ties or even live under the same roof all the time or have two sec parents. Family isnt universal.