Essay on The Significance of Family and Kinship

Kinship influences daily life of Indigenous people, including individual responsibilities to other members in the clan.

Marriage and the traditional family unit is key to the success of any society even today in the United States. Family is the building block of civilization; Furth more, higher civilization is not possible without family, which is male and female marriage (Prager). Family’s make up cities, cities make up provinces or states, states make up nations. The family unit is a

It was these systems of kinship which determined who, and for which, members of the clan were responsible. In a society in which excess and wealth were not valued, in fact discouraged, this was a method of survival and insuran ce. These kin relationships were the foundation for all forms of reciprocity within the clan. For example, when a larger animal was caught in the hunt, it was pre-determined, depending on who captured the animal, who would receive which parts of the animal (Edwards 2005, p. 49). Sharing and reciprocity was not a friendly gesture within Aboriginal communities, it was an obligation which was to be taken seriously. It was a method for Aboriginal people to survive in a sometimes harsh and unforgiving land, which took the lives of many settlers.

This essay has shown that kinship and society was virtually the same thing because Kinship took a central role in the structure of Aboriginal communities as it was their main way of organising people and their social relationships. Kinship is an integral part of the total social organisation, therefore it is how they formed and ran their society. Kinship is the fine mesh which holds the society together,

What’s the meaning of family? According to Merriam-Webster dictionary family is defined as “all the descendants of common ancestor”, but is that how do you define family? Have you ever had someone in your life outside of your family that you were able to confide in? Share your happiness and saddest moments with? Be your biggest advocate? If the answer is yes, then these people are considered family as well. Channeling personal experiences I’m able to relate to Cecile Gilmer’s believe that “Families are not only blood relatives but sometimes just people who show up and love you when no one else will.”

Family is an important aspect of society. Keeping a family stable is a hard task and the definition of family has expanded from what it used to be because nuclear families are not the norm nowadays. Throughout history the African-American family has had to face traumatic events such as slavery, the Great Migration, the Harlem Renaissance, and the Civil Rights Movement. The racism, segregation, and discrimination that followed these movements have also played an integral role in developing the black family. It takes diligence, strength, and courage in order to be able to persevere through hardship. Society as a whole has tried to undermine the black family by implementing in them a false identity of inferiority. If there are strong nuclear black families today, that means that powerful people in history have been forced to step up in order to make a difference within their community. From the beginning of the play to the very end, Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun displays the vital theme of family. In the play there are multiple generations within the Younger Family’s household. The different generations come to show how the African-American family has had to evolve over time. A Raisin in the Sun highlighted the difficulties that families have in order to be able to overcome poverty, aspirations, and the society.

A family is something that comforts and includes others. It is an environment where people can feel like they belong. Although in societies eyes the family is much more. We depict who is fit enough to support a family and question if the family is functioning properly. In both articles, Homeplace: A site of Resistance by Bell Hooks and “Family” as a Site of Contestation: Queering the Normal or Normalizing the Queer? By Michelle K. Owen, both authors have distinct understandings of the concept of family and question the societal norm of how a family should behave. Family is a site of belonging and contestation. Both authors describe that there are many forms of family that contrast the typical nuclear model family. Also it is demonstrated that families supply a place of belonging and nourishment. Although society has placed values on families, distinguishing what families are most fit and functioning. Using an intersectional lens it is demonstrated in these two articles that many families reject the nuclear family model, and families are given a value and are placed within a social hierarchy.

While social status is becoming more distinct, family relationships are diminishing. It is common while walking through the mall to hear a young girl sassing her mother, or a pair of siblings unpleasantly bickering with one another. Around 10,000 years ago this extreme, malicious behavior was rare because early civilizations were kinship based, meaning that ties of blood and marriage bound groups together. This foundation emphasized the concept of family, involving respect between siblings of the opposite sex, children and parents, and between children-in-law and their parents-in-law. With the advent of industrialization came big cities, causing families to break apart as members moved around for jobs. There remains a kinship among immediate family, but not extended family like in ancient times. Will Durant believes that family is the nucleus of civilization, an idea that our society must readopt from earlier peoples.

Another concept at the core of Bedouin ethics, which is linked to aṣl in some ways, is kinship. Bedouin people have an ideology of very strong, natural, unbreakable bonds of blood, especially through agnates (those in the same male bloodline). The concept of kinship is not restricted to blood, but also extends to those who live together, sharing a type of temporary bond. Loyalty to friends and family is very important to the Bedouin, and so the concept of kinship ties directly back into their sense of honor. Within Bedouin culture, directly connected to the concept of kin, is a complex hierarchical social structure of superiors and dependents.

In The Way We Never Were, Stephanie Coontz suggests that society romanticizes past generations of family life and points out that these memories are merely myths that prevent us from “dealing more effectively with the problems facing today’s families” (Coontz x). Coontz proposes that researchers can take empirical data and create misleading causality for that data, thus feeding cultural myth and/or experience. Coontz believes that “an overemphasis on personal responsibility for strengthening family values encourages a way of thinking that leads to moralizing rather than mobilizing for concrete reforms” (Coontz 22). She calls on us to direct our attention to social reforms, which can be accomplished by avoiding victim-blaming

Traditionally, the kinship system by which aboriginal society follows is one based highly on collectivism. Geert Hofstede defines a collectivist society as one that prefers a “tightly knit framework” in which individuals can expect “unquestioned loyalty” (The Hofstede Centre, 2013) from relatives and members of the group.

This joint family, like any social organization, must face problems such as acceptable division of work, relationships and specific family roles. These familial relationships are managed on the basis of a secular hierarchical principle. In fact, all Indians owe respect and obedience to the head of the family, who usually is the father or the oldest man of the family community. In The Gift of a Bride: A Tale of Anthropology, Matrimony and Murder by Nanda and Gregg, it is explained that, “females [are] placed under the perpetual guardianship of first their fathers and elder brothers, then their husbands.” (Nanda & Gregg 22) Thus, all the spending decisions, studies and profession, or marriage, are exclusively the responsibility of the father after the possible discussions with the other men of the family. Age and sex are the basic principles of this hierarchical system. The eldest sons enjoy greater unchallenged authority than their cadets. Of course men have more authority than women, but older married women have an important role within the family. In fact, the authority of a woman depends on the rank of her husband inside the group. Traditionally, the wife of the patriarch rules over domestic affairs and has considerable power over the other women in the community, especially her daughters- in-law.

Michael Halloran (2004) proposes that culture as a diverse and complex system of shared and interrelated knowledge, practices and signifiers of a society, provides structure and significance to groups within that society which subsequently impact the individual’s experience of their personal, social, physical and metaphysical worlds (p.5). Halloran (2004) theorizes that cultural maintenance is key to increasing the health and well-being of Aboriginal Australians whereby he suggests that culture provides collectively validated ways to think of and value oneself, further arguing that culture helps to suppress fundamental human existential anxieties about social isolation produced by our mortality awareness. Emile Durkheim (Marks, 1974) identifies anomie as being without law or norms, similarly, D.J Spencer (2000)

there is a great amount of variability in kinship rules and patterns around the world (O 'neil,2015).

The word “family” is often used in connection with a person’s ancestry. Most families are based on kinship. Members belong to the family through birth, marriage, or adoption. Family plays the most vital role in our daily life and family is the finest thing that you can ever desire for. It’s the family who assists their child in hardships of life and give affection no matter what happens. Human personality reflects on what his /her family status is and what their families have taught them.