Functions of the family as a social institution in society. Functions of the family as a social institution

Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation

NOU VPO "Omsk Humanitarian Institute"

Department of Economics and Management

COURSE WORK

Topic: “Family as a social institution. Definition of the concepts of marriage and family.

Completed:

Distance learning student

Specialties "State and

municipal government"

2 Course Sokruto V.S.

Checked by: candidate of historical sciences, associate professor Zelev V.V.

Omsk-2007

Introduction…………………………………………………………………...3

The concept of a social institution, its types…………………………...5

Marriage is the basis of family relations…………………………………..7

2.1. Forms of marriage……………………………………………………….8

2.2. Historical trend in the sociology of family and marriage……..10

Family as the most important social institution…………………….….14

3.1. Family life cycle…………………………………………….14

3.2. Family forms……………………………………………….……..15

3.3. Family functions……………………………………………………...16

3.4. Distribution of roles in the family………………………………………19

The crisis of the family and its future…………………………………………...21

Conclusion………………………………………………………..………25

References…………………………………………………….…....27

Introduction

The family is considered one of the four fundamental institutions of society, giving it stability and the ability to replenish the population in each next generation. At the same time, the family acts as a small group - the most cohesive and stable unit of society. Throughout his life, a person is part of many different groups - a group of peers or friends, a school class, a work brigade or a sports team - but only the family remains the group that he never leaves.

The family is an integral part of society and its importance cannot be diminished. Not a single nation, not a single civilized society could do without a family. The foreseeable future of society is also not conceivable without a family. For every person, the family is the beginning of the beginning. Almost every person associates the concept of happiness, first of all, with the family: happy is the one who is happy in his home. However, do we always think about the questions:

Why do people live in families?

Is the family a personal matter for everyone or is it somehow connected with society?

Does the family influence society, or does society put “pressure” on the family?

Has the family always existed?

Will the family survive in the future?

Will the family survive the severe trials that our society is going through today?

Family problems are studied by a special area of sociology. The scope of research is wide and varied. The processes of disintegration and formation of a family, the nature of the performance of its main functions, the characteristics of the relationship of spouses and the causes of family conflicts in the family, the social and economic factors that determine its way of life - this is a far from complete list of only the main issues addressed by sociologists.

The sociology of the family is one of the most developed areas of sociological knowledge. In our country alone, the bibliography of works on the sociology of the family includes more than 3,000 titles. The leading researchers in this branch of sociology are E.K. Vasiliev, A.G. Vishnevsky, S.I. Hunger, I.S. Kon, M.S. Matskovsky, B.S. Pavlov, N. G. Yurkevich, A.G. Kharchev, V. G. Kharcheva and many others. Foreign sociology has a long tradition of studying the family. The most famous experts in this field are I. Nye, I. Reis, V. Burr, R. Hill, M. Becombo, A. Girard, L. Roussel, F. Michel and others.

The concept of a social institution, its types

Social practice shows that it is vital for human society to streamline, regulate and consolidate certain socially significant relations, to make them mandatory for members of society. The basic element of the regulation of public life are social institutions.

« social institution- this is a certain organization of social activity and social relations, carried out through a mutually agreed system of expediently oriented standards of behavior, the emergence and grouping of which into a system is determined by the content of a specific task solved by a social institution. ed. prof. M. V. Prokopova. - M.: RDL Publishing House, 2001. - p.128

A social institution is a set of people, institutions, material resources that ensure the stability of social ties and relations in society.

Social institutions ensure the realization of the fundamental needs of society related to its material support, the integration of social groups, the reproduction and preservation of spiritual values, etc. Thanks to their presence, the reproduction of the population, material and spiritual benefits, the socialization of human individuals, the continuity of generations, and much more. Social institutions function only in the presence of relevant social needs. With the disappearance of such needs, their functioning gradually ceases and they die.

Common features that characterize all social institutions are the following: purpose; a set of attitudes and patterns of behavior, social statuses and roles; a system of sanctions that provides stimulation of the desired and suppression of deviant behavior; cultural symbols. The composition of social institutions is very diverse. The most important social institutions are:

a) economic (property, money, banks);

b) political (state, parties, unions);

c) socio-cultural and educational (science, education) and others.

Social institutions perform a variety of functions, the most important of which are integration, regulatory, communicative, broadcasting, the function of consolidating and reproducing social relations, and many others.

Social institutions are formed on the basis of social ties, interactions and relationships of specific individuals, social groups, strata and other communities. They are individual in nature, have their own systemic quality. Consequently, a social institution is an independent public entity that has its own logic of development. From this point of view, social institutions can be characterized as organized systems characterized by the stability of the structure, the integration of their elements, and a certain variability of their functions.

So, having specific features and differing from each other, social institutions at the same time function in close connection with each other and complement each other.

Marriage is the basis of family relations

« Marriage- this is a historically conditioned, sanctioned and regulated by society form of relations between a man and a woman, establishing their rights and obligations in relation to each other, to children and to society. ., 1995. - p. 75

In other words, marriage is a contract that is concluded by three parties - a man, a woman and the state. Unlike all other formal contracts that exist in society, it stipulates only one date - the date of the conclusion of the marriage agreement, but does not indicate the date of expiration of the contract. This implies that the bonds of marriage hold people together for the rest of their lives. In many societies, the state takes upon itself not only the registration of marriage, but its consecration is performed by the church. Spouses take an oath of fidelity to each other and take on the responsibility of social, economic and physical mutual guardianship. The consecration of marriage in front of the church altar is considered the most powerful form of strengthening a marriage.

The institution of marriage, by the very fact of its existence, testifies that society deliberately divided all types of sexual relations into approved and unapproved, and the state - into permitted and unpermitted. But it was not always so. In ancient times, marriage relations looked very different, and at the dawn of human history they did not exist at all.

In any society - ancient or modern - the family is formed, as a rule, through marriage. Marriage is a socially sanctioned sexual union of a definite duration between two or more individuals. Such an alliance is usually concluded through a special ceremony - the inauguration, the solemn conclusion of marriage bonds. The inauguration can take place in a strictly formal or completely informal atmosphere. Children born in a marriage union are considered legitimate, and children born out of wedlock are considered illegitimate.

Marriage is a set of customs that regulate the marital relationship between a man and a woman. In modern European culture, such customs include acquaintance, betrothal, exchange of rings, honeymoon, stepping over the bride and groom through a symbolic obstacle.

All these norms, according to the definition of the American sociologist K. Davis, form a kind of integral structure, which is called the institution of marriage. In society, such an institution performs a number of fundamentally important functions - the reproduction of people, the upbringing of children, and others.

So, marriage is an institution that regulates relations only between spouses, and the family is an institution that, in addition, regulates relations between parents and children.

2.1. Forms of marriage

The way in which a marriage partner is chosen divides all forms of marriage into two types - endogamous and exogamous. At endogamy a partner is chosen only from the group to which the chooser himself belongs, that is, this is a custom according to which marriages are allowed only between persons of the same social group. Exogamy involves choosing a marriage partner from a foreign group. A class, race, nation, age category can become a foreign group.

The size of the marriage group serves as the basis for dividing the forms of marriage into two broad categories:

monogamy (marriage of one man and one woman);

polygamy (marriage of more than two partners).

a) lifelong monogamy;

b) monogamy, allowing divorce (easily divorced marriage);

c) couples family.

The latter, though called a family, but only formally. In fact, a paired family is an unstable, short-term form of marriage. In polygamy, there are:

a) polygyny (marriage of one man with several women);

b) polyandry (marriage of one woman with several men);

c) group marriage (marriage of several men and several women).

The classification of forms of marriage can be carried out according to a variety of criteria: arranged marriage, marriage for love, marriage of convenience, marriage on the recommendation of intermediaries. Intermediaries are friends and acquaintances who recommend the future bride or groom.

Guest marriage. This term comes from France. The couple have two apartments and live separately, visiting each other 2-3 times a week: both married and single at the same time.

Unequal marriage implies that spouses differ in some significant way - social status, age, income, etc.

Another classification criterion is marriage fees. Institute purchase marriage has a long tradition. It arose simultaneously with and within group marriage. An early form of purchased marriage can be called a gift-exchange . The ceremony of marriage was carried out in the form of an equivalent gift exchange. The two groups exchanged "gifts" that the woman could serve as. The woman's relatives "gifted" the man's relatives his future wife in exchange for equivalent services and assistance, which the latter were obliged to provide to the former.

Unlike the ancient forms of purchased marriage, which were carried out in the form of an equivalent gift exchange, its later forms, especially in the era of patriarchy, already manifested themselves in the form of an unequal gift exchange. The man presented the bride with more expensive gifts than he received from her - according to his privileged position, wealth and political power. Since then, we can talk about a new form of purchased marriage - ransom marriage. Now the verbal agreement of young people or their parents was no longer enough. Since it was a large fortune, it became necessary to conclude an agreement, which stipulated the rights and obligations of the parties, as well as the amount of the ransom.

Gradually, the purchased marriage turned into a part of tribal events, and a new form of purchased marriage arose in the Muslim East - rocky marriage. Kalym, a bride price, was originally paid to the family, and later to parents as compensation for the loss of a female worker. As a relic, kalym has been preserved among some peoples of Asia and Africa.

In addition to the purchase marriage, there is predatory marriage. There are two varieties of it:

kidnapping (kidnapping) of the bride;

kidnapping of the groom;

Such a marriage arose in antiquity and was preserved among some peoples as a generally accepted norm (Transcaucasia) or as deviant behavior (Europe).

2.2. Historical trend in the sociology of family and marriage

The family is one of the most ancient social institutions. It arose much earlier than religion, state, army, education, market.

Thinkers of the past approached the definition of the nature and essence of the family in different ways. One of the first attempts to determine the nature of marriage and family relations belongs to the ancient Greek philosopher Plato. He considered the patriarchal family to be an invariable, initial social cell, since states arise as a result of the union of families. However, Plato was not consistent in his views on the family. In the projects of the “Ideal State”, in order to achieve social cohesion, he proposed the introduction of a community of wives, children and property. This idea was not new. The ancient Greek historian Herodotus in his famous "History" notes that the community of women was a hallmark of a number of tribes. Such information is found throughout the ancient era.

Aristotle, criticizing the projects of the "Ideal State", develops Plato's idea of the patriarchal family as the initial and main unit of society. At the same time, families form "villages", and the combination of "villages" - the state.

The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, developing the problems of moral and civil philosophy, refuted the point of view on marriage as something unclean, devoid of holiness, wishing to return to the earthly institution of marriage its spiritual value.

The French educator Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote: “The most ancient of all societies and the only natural one is the family. Thus, the family is, if you like, the prototype of political societies ... "

Philosophers of antiquity, the Middle Ages, and partly even modern times derive social relations from family relations, focus on the relationship of the family to the state, and not on characterizing it as a special social institution. To a certain extent, these views were shared even by the German philosophers Kant and Hegel.

Kant saw the basis of the family in the legal order, and Hegel in the absolute idea. Note that scientists who recognize the eternity and originality of monogamy actually equate the concepts of "marriage" and "family", the differences between them are reduced to a formal beginning. Of course, there is a close relationship between the concepts of "marriage" and "family". Not without reason in the literature of the past, and sometimes of the present, they are often used as synonyms. However, in the essence of these concepts there is not only a general, but also a lot of special, specific. So, scientists have convincingly proved that marriage and the family arose in different historical periods. Modern Soviet sociologists define marriage as a historically changing social form of relations between a woman and a man, through which society regulates and sanctioned their sexual life and established their marital and parental rights and obligations.

The family is a more complex system of relations than marriage, since, as a rule, it unites not only spouses, but also their children, as well as other relatives or just those close to spouses and the people they need.

The historical view of marriage and the family was established in two ways:

1) through the study of the past of the family, in particular, the marriage and family structure of the so-called primitive peoples;

2) by studying the family in various social conditions.

At the origins of the first direction is the Swiss scientist Johann Bachofen , the author of the work "Mother's Right", where he put forward the thesis about the universal historical development of primitive man from the initial chaotic communication of the sexes ("Heterism") to maternal, and then to paternal law. Through the analysis of ancient classical works, he proved that before monogamy, both the Greeks and the Asians had such a state when not only a man had sexual relations with several women, but also a woman with several men.

The major milestone on the path of substantiating evolutionary ideas was the work of the American scientist L. Morgan "Ancient Society". Later, the rationale for the origin and development of the family was given by K. Marx and F. Engels. They argued that economic relations, which form the basis of socio-economic formations, are at the same time the basis of the family. K. Marx noted that "the family must develop as society develops, and must change as society changes." Engels showed that along with the development of society, the family, as its most important cell, under the influence of socio-economic conditions, passes from a lower form to a higher one.

V. I. Lenin also noted that socio-economic relations have been and will be the determining factor in the development of the family. This means that the family is a product of historical development, and each socio-economic formation has marriage and family relations inherent only to it.

From the middle of the 20th century, a stage began in the development of the sociology of the family, which was called the "period of building a systematic theory." It was from this time that the accumulation of a large amount of empirical data on numerous aspects of marriage and family relations began. The rapid development of electronic computing technology made it possible to more deeply and seriously analyze the data obtained.

The problem of the family in this period is becoming increasingly relevant, which is associated with the beginning of the destabilization of the family and marriage. The number of research centers is increasing. First in the USA, then in England, Austria, Canada, the Netherlands, Finland, France, Sweden, etc. Later - in the USSR and the countries of Eastern Europe.

A lot has been done in the sociology of family and marriage. There is a significant progress in the development of the theory, its conceptual and categorical apparatus, practical recommendations for improving social policy in the field of marriage and family relations, there are fruitful approaches to the study of family and marriage, and a huge amount of empirical material has been accumulated. With proper systematization and additions, the developed concepts, statements, and conclusions obtained could give fundamentality and strengthen the integrity of the special sociological theory of family and marriage.

Family as the most important social institution

The existence of the family, like all social institutions, is determined by social needs. Like all social institutions, the family is a system of actions and relationships necessary for the existence and development of society. " Family- a small social group whose members are connected by marriage or blood relationship, common life, mutual assistance, and mutual and moral responsibility. 11 Fundamentals of Sociology: Textbook / Ed. ed. prof. M. V. Prokopova. - M.: RDL Publishing House, 2001. - p. 129

Through the family, the unity of social and natural in a person, social and biological heredity is most fully expressed. In its essence, the family is the primary link between nature and society, the material and spiritual aspects of people's life.

3.1. Family life cycle

The life cycle of a family - a sequence of significant, milestone events in the existence of a family - begins with marriage and ends with its dissolution, that is, divorce. Undivorced spouses, passing through all stages of the life cycle, have served as an ideal type for scientists to distinguish the stages of the family life cycle. It is much more difficult to build a life cycle diagram for spouses who have divorced several times and created repeated families.

In short, the life cycle of a family is as follows. Marriage is the first or initial stage of the family. After some time, the young spouses have their first child. This phase continues from the moment of marriage to the birth of the last child and is called the stage of family growth.

The second stage begins from the moment the last child is born and continues until the time when the first adult child, who has acquired his own family, moves out of the parental family.

At the third stage, the process of resettling adult children continues. It can be very long if the children are born at long intervals, and very short if the children following one after another by year of birth leave the family in turn. It is called the "mature" phase. At this time, the first settled children have their own children and the parental family often turns into a place where grandchildren are brought up.

The fourth stage is the stage of loneliness in old age, or the stage of "fading". It ends with the death of one or both spouses.

The final stage of the life cycle, as it were, repeats the first - the married couple is left alone with themselves. The difference is only in age - in the beginning it is a young couple, and now it has grown old.

3.2. Family forms

There are two main types of family - extended(or multigenerational), it is also called traditional (classical) and modern nuclear(two-generation) family.

The family is called nuclear, because the demographic core of the family, responsible for the reproduction of new generations, are parents and their children. They constitute the biological, social and economic center of any family. All other relatives belong to the periphery of the family. If they all live together, then the family is called extended. It expands at the expense of 3-4 generations of direct relatives. The nuclear family can be complete or incomplete. A complete family is a family in which there are two spouses, an incomplete family is a family in which one of the spouses is missing. It should be noted that the nuclear family is possible in those societies where adult children have the opportunity after marriage to live separately from the parental family.

There are also parental family, or family of origin, and procreational, or newly formed (it is created by adult children).

According to the number of children, childless, one child And large families. According to the criterion of dominance in the family of a husband or wife, patriarchal And matriarchal families, and by the criterion of leadership - paternal(male head of household) material(the head of the family is a woman) and equalitarian(both spouses are equally considered the head of the family).

Also, modern families differ in other ways: by the number of employed family members, by the number of children under 18, by types of housing, size of living space, by type of settlement, by ethnic composition, etc.

3.3. Family Functions

The social functions of the family have two main sources of their occurrence: the needs of society and the needs of the family organization itself. Both factors change historically, so each stage in the development of the family is associated with the withering away of some and the formation of other functions, with a change in both the scale and nature of its social activity. However, with all these changes, society at any stage of its development needs the reproduction of the population, therefore it is always interested in the family as a mechanism for this reproduction.

So, the family can be considered as a social institution, and as a family group that performs a certain social task. We can distinguish the following main functions of the family that contribute to the implementation of this task:

reproductive function performs two main tasks: social - biological reproduction of the population, and individual - satisfaction of the need for children. It is based on the satisfaction of physiological and sexual needs that encourage people of opposite sexes to unite in a family union. The fulfillment of this function by the family depends on the totality of social relations. In recent years, this feature has attracted everyone's attention: How many children does a modern family have? Sociologists note that for normal reproduction of the population, a family must have three children.

Both adults and children are brought up in the family. Of particular importance is its influence on the younger generation. That's why educational function The family has three aspects. The first is the formation of the child's personality, the development of his abilities and interests, the transfer to children by adult family members (mother, father, grandfather, grandmother, etc.) of the social experience accumulated by society, enrichment of their intellect, aesthetic development, promotion of their physical improvement, promotion of health and development of sanitary and hygienic culture skills. The second aspect - the family has a huge impact on the development of the personality of each of its members throughout his life. The third aspect is the constant influence of children on their parents (and other adult members of the family), which encourages them to actively engage in self-education.

Fulfilling economic function, the family provides strong economic ties between its members, supports financially minor and disabled members of society, provides assistance and support to those family members who have material, financial difficulties.

Restorative function is aimed at restoring and strengthening the physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual forces of a person after a hard working day. In a normally functioning society, the realization of this function of the family is facilitated by a reduction in the total duration of the working week, an increase in free time, and an increase in real incomes.

Purpose regulatory function It consists in regulating and ordering relations between the sexes, maintaining the family organism in a stable state, ensuring the optimal rhythm of its functioning and development, and exercising primary control over the observance by family members of social norms of personal, group and social life.

The family as a social community is the primary element that mediates the connection of the individual with society: it forms the child's idea of social ties and includes him in them from birth. Hence the next most important function of the family - personality socialization. The human need for children, their upbringing and socialization gives meaning to human life itself. This function contributes to the fulfillment by children of certain social roles in society, their integration into various social structures. This function is closely connected with the natural and social essence of the family as a reproducer of the human race, as well as with the economic and economic function of the family, since the upbringing of children begins with their material support and care for them.

Sociologists have attached more and more importance to commatnative function families. The following components of this function can be named: mediation of the family in the contact of its members with the mass media (television, radio, periodicals), with literature and art; the influence of the family on the diverse connections of its members with the natural environment and on the nature of its perception; organization of intra-family association.

Leisure function carries out the organization of rational leisure and exercises control in the field of leisure, in addition, satisfies certain needs of the individual in the conduct of leisure. The leisure function is focused on optimizing the organization of free family time to meet the needs of family members in communication, raising the level of culture, improving health, and recuperating. In a happy family, the interests of spouses and their children are mutually enriched, leisure activities are predominantly developing.

Social status function associated with the reproduction of the social structure of society, as it provides (transfers) a certain social status to family members.

emotional function involves obtaining emotional support, psychological protection, as well as emotional stabilization of individuals and their psychological therapy.

Function of Spiritual Communication involves the development of the personalities of family members, spiritual enrichment.

sexual function family exercises sexual control and is aimed at satisfying the sexual needs of the spouses.

3.4.Distribution of roles in the family

To understand the family as a social institution, the analysis of role relations in the family is of great importance. The family role is one of the types of social roles of a person in society. Family roles are determined by the place and functions of the individual in the family group and are subdivided primarily into marital (wife, husband), parental (mother, father), children (son, daughter, brother, sister), intergenerational and intragenerational (grandfather, grandmother, elder , junior), etc. The fulfillment of a family role depends on the fulfillment of a number of conditions, primarily on the correct formation of a role image. An individual must clearly understand what it means to be a husband or wife, the eldest or the youngest in the family, what behavior is expected from him, what rules, norms are expected from him, what rules, norms this or that behavior dictates to him. In order to formulate the image of his behavior, the individual must accurately determine his place and the place of others in the role structure of the family. For example, can he play the role of the head of the family, in general, or, in particular, the main manager of the material wealth of the family. In this regard, the consistency of a particular role with the personality of the performer is of no small importance. A person with weak volitional qualities, although older in age in the family or even in role status, for example, a husband, is far from suitable for the role of the head of the family in modern conditions. For the successful formation of a family, sensitivity to the situational requirements of the family role and the flexibility of role behavior associated with it, which manifests itself in the ability to leave one role without much difficulty, to be included in a new one as soon as the situation requires, are also of no small importance. For example, one or another wealthy family member played the role of a material patron of its other members, but his financial situation has changed, and a change in the situation immediately requires a change in his role.

Role relationships in the family, formed in the performance of certain functions, may be characterized by role agreement or role conflict. Sociologists note that role conflict most often manifests itself as:

a) conflict of role models, which is associated with their incorrect formation in one or more family members;

b) inter-role conflict, in which the contradiction lies in the opposition of role expectations emanating from different roles. Such conflicts are often observed in multigenerational families, where spouses of the second generation are both children and parents at the same time and must accordingly combine opposite roles;

c) intra-role conflict, in which one role includes conflicting requirements. In a modern family, such problems are most often inherent in the female role. This applies to cases where the role of a woman provides for a combination of the traditional female role in the family (housewife, educator of children, etc.) with a modern role that implies equal participation of spouses in providing the family with material resources.

The conflict may deepen if the wife occupies a higher status in the social or professional sphere and transfers the role functions of her status into intra-family relations. In such cases, the ability of spouses to switch roles flexibly is very important. A special place among the prerequisites for role conflict is occupied by difficulties with the psychological development of the role associated with such personality traits of the spouses as insufficient moral and emotional maturity, unpreparedness for the performance of marital and, in particular, parental roles. For example, a girl, having married, does not want to shift the household chores of the family onto her shoulders or give birth to a child, she tries to lead her former way of life, not obeying the restrictions that the role of a mother imposes on her, etc.

Family crisis and its future

It is no secret that the modern family is in crisis. The manifestations of this crisis are such indicators as falling birth rates, family instability, an increase in the number of divorces, the emergence of a large number of childless families (today such families are 15%), and a conscious refusal to have an only child. Also, mass abandonment of children, their delivery to maternity or orphanages, orphanages, reception centers, children running away from home, cruel treatment of children, up to the deprivation of the life of their children.

An indicator of the crisis of the family is also a sharp reduction in the level of "marriage" and at the same time an active increase in extramarital births. The number of marriages has been declining every year since the 1990s. So, if in 1990 in the 1st quarter 301 thousand marriages were concluded, then in 1993 - 246.1 thousand marriages. The proportion of illegitimate children in the total number of those born in 1992 was 17%.

By the number of divorces, Russia ranks first in the world. In 1994, divorces per 1,000 people for the first time amounted to 105.3%. significantly exceeding the number of marriages (92.1%).

Since 1991, the death rate has significantly exceeded the birth rate. In 1994, the birth rate was 9.6 children per 1,000 people, and the death rate was 16.2 people. There is a process of total depopulation of the population. The rate of population decline is growing catastrophically.

The reform of society sharply exacerbated the problem of families in need of social protection. Among its objects are families of single mothers, conscripts with children; families in which one of the parents evades the payment of alimony; families with disabled children; taking care of children; large families with young children under three years of age; student families with children.

For three years, there has been a significant increase in low-income families among large families (26.9% over three years) and single-parent families (14.5%). At the same time, another trend is also clearly visible - a decrease in the number of large families and an increase in families with disabled and incomplete children.

The reasons for the crisis situation of families can be conditionally divided into economic and social. Economic - job loss, non-payment of wages or benefits, low wages - are the most characteristic. Among the social causes are often found such as alcoholism, parasitism, illegal behavior of one or both spouses. As a rule, this is accompanied by a low cultural level, lack of spirituality, irresponsibility towards children. A child growing up in such a family is often unbalanced, psychologically depressed, forms stereotypes of social behavior that are inadequate to the general social and cultural environment. Very often, children from such families are difficult children, difficult teenagers, among whom there are young offenders.

When predicting family and marriage relations, it should be borne in mind that the family was under the gun of not one, but several global trends that affected our society as well. This is a transition (hopefully to a civilized one) to the market, the democratization of society, the informatization of society, the growth of personal potential, the growing role of women in public life.

In the absence of a state program for the adaptation of the family to the transitional state of society, the family itself, by trial and error, at the cost of great hardships, “gropes for” the mechanisms of survival. In modern conditions, the social functions of the family are significantly changing. For example, the economic function of the family is undergoing major transformations. Market relations have significantly accelerated the rejection of the paternalistic, dependent consciousness of the family and the understanding that the survival of the family is the work of the family itself. Based on the change in property relations, the family is increasingly beginning to act as an economic and economic unit of various alternative types of property: family, rental, farm, individual, cooperative, personal household, etc. The family is looking for internal reserves of survival, mastering in its own way new, market activities: private business, shuttle commercial, speculative-intermediary. Under these conditions, personal subsidiary, dacha and homestead farming is increasingly acting as a guaranteed support for the family budget. His share in the family budget has increased dramatically over the past 5 years.

The development of a modern family is largely associated with the growing role and importance of personal potential in family relationships. This is due to the action of such factors as the transition to market relations, the rule of law, information technology. Which, in turn, requires the greatest disclosure of the creative potential of the individual, the possibilities of her social adaptation. A new attitude is emerging towards each family member as a person, which essentially gives rise to a new most important function of the family - personsAliterary(from lat. persona - a person, a person). This means the formation of such a type of family, where the individuality of the individual, his rights and freedoms will become the highest value, where conditions will be created for the creative development and self-expression of each family member, including parents and children, based on respect for the dignity of the individual, love and consent. . The personalitarian function of the family in the future should become the leading one that determines the essence of the family in the information society.

The reproductive function of the family will also undergo serious changes. Sociologists have noticed that fewer children are born in cities than in rural areas. The number of children in a family is affected not only by urbanization and the ecology associated with it, but also by the level of education of a woman. However, the greatest influence on the transformation of the reproductive function of the family has a change in the basis of the metabolism between man and nature in connection with the informatization of society. The development of information production will require a certain correspondence between the latest objects and means of labor, the latest technologies and the employee’s ability to work: his general culture, awareness, intellectual abilities, professionalism, health status, interest in work, working capacity, ability to quickly adapt, ability to work independently decisions. The value of each life increases sharply. A person in the information society will be actively engaged in raising awareness, maintaining health, good shape.

To ensure the qualitative growth of the worker and the younger generation, appropriate living conditions and material resources must be created, including the level of education and culture, housing conditions, the quality of food, healthcare, the service sector, opportunities for recreation, and relieving nervous tension. In a word, the need for quality of life is increasing.

Thus, the reproductive function of the family will be aimed at deliberately limiting the birth rate and ensuring the high quality of the child's preparation for life and work in the information society. Emphasis will be placed on the disclosure of individual abilities of the individual. Family conflicts in the information society will occur mainly due to the inability and unwillingness to take into account the individual personal characteristics of family members. Disrespect for the personal dignity of each individual member of the family is a serious reason for confrontation and alienation.

Conclusion

So, the family is one of the most ancient social institutions. It arose much earlier than religion, state, army, education, market. The family is the only and indispensable producer of the person himself, the continuation of the family. But, unfortunately, it performs this main function with failures. And it depends not only on her, but also on society. The family arises from the need to satisfy the personal needs and interests of individuals. Being a part of society, it connects them with the public interest. Personal needs are organized on the basis of socially accepted norms, values, patterns of behavior, and it often happens that the unceremonious interference of society in the life of a family destroys it and the life of its constituents, brings it to a beggarly existence.

There are many reasons that encourage people to unite in family groups, to create stable ties and interactions, but the basis is primarily human needs. In scientific terms, the spiritual, physiological and sexual needs of men and women encourage them to unite for the joint implementation of goals: the reproduction of the human race, the creation of material conditions for existence - housing, clothing, food; satisfaction of the need for children, the biological dependence of children on their parents, the need for sex. Can't a person satisfy this need outside the family? Of course it can. But isn't the experience of ancestors instructive? Turning our gaze to the past, we realize that society as a whole, and hence the people who make it up, are interested in ensuring that these biological needs are fulfilled within the family. Only by identifying these specific features in the realization of human needs in a family environment can one understand the essence of the family as a social institution, and along with this, the origins of the family's vitality, its vitality, and attractiveness to a person.

What is the indestructible strength of the family? The strength and attraction of the family, its essence lies in the integrity that is inherent in the family and the social community, both as a small social group and as a social institution. The integrity of the family is formed due to the mutual attraction and complementarity of the sexes, creating a single "androgenic being", a kind of integrity that is not reducible either to the sum of family members or to an individual family member.

Bibliography

Grebennikov IV Fundamentals of family life: a textbook for students of pedagogical institutes. - M.: Enlightenment, 1991. - 275 p.

Kasyanov VV Sociology: Exam answers. Rostov n / a: "Phoenix", 2001. - 288 p. - Series "Pass the exam."

Kravchenko A. I. General sociology: Proc. allowance for universities. - M.: UNITI-DANA, 2001. - 479 p.

Fundamentals of Sociology: Textbook / Ed. ed. prof. M. V. Prokopova. - M.: RDL Publishing House, 2001. - 192 p.

Radugin A. A., Radugin K. A. Sociology: a course of lectures. - 3rd ed., supplementary and revised. - M.: Center, 2001. - 224 p.

Sociology: A textbook for universities / V. N. Lavrienko, N. A. Nartov, O. A. Shabanova, G. S. Lukasheva; Ed. prof. V. N. Lavrienko. - M.: Culture and sport, UNITI, 1998. - 349 p.

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The family is the primary community of people related by marriage or blood relationship, within which the upbringing of children is ensured, and other socially significant needs are satisfied. For sociologists, the family is, first of all, a social institution that regulates the reproduction of a person, with the help of a special system of roles, norms and organizational forms.

The foundation of family relationships is Marriage is a socially conditioned form of relationship between a woman and a man, through which society regulates and authorizes their sexual relations, and also establishes marital and kinship roles. Marriage is considered the only acceptable, socially approved and legal form of sexual relations between spouses. It includes in its structure both norms and a set of customs governing the marital relations of a man and a woman (betrothal, wedding ceremony, honeymoon, etc.).

At present, in Western societies, marriage is associated with monogamy when one man can be married to no more than one woman at a time. At the same time, on a global scale, monogamy is not the most common form of marriage. American anthropologist George Murdoch, who conducted a comparative study of 565 different societies, found that polygamy(that is, a form of marriage in which a man or woman can have more than one spouse) is allowed in 80% of them. There are two types of polygamy: polygyny in which a man can be married to more than one woman at the same time; and the less common polyandry, in which a woman is simultaneously in two or more marriages with different men (as a rule, this form of marriage gives rise to a situation where the biological father of a child born in such a marriage is unknown).

From the point of view of the sphere of choice of a spouse, marriages are divided into endogamous(prisoners within their own community) and exogamous(concluded between representatives of different groups). This leads to the emergence of two types of family: socially homogeneous (homogeneous) in which the spouses and their parents belong to the same social groups, strata and classes, and socially heterogeneous (diverse).

The categories of "marriage" and "family" are closely interconnected, despite the fact that they also have many differences. Unlike marriage, which is only a relationship between spouses, the family is also a social organization that affects both marital and parental relationships. Married individuals become relatives to each other, while their marital obligations are linked by family ties.

a much wider circle of people (blood relatives of one side become relatives of the opposite side).

The family structure includes the following groups of relationships, which together create a family as a special social phenomenon:

natural-biological, that is, sexual (sexual) and consanguineous;
economic, based on housekeeping, organization of life and family property;
spiritual-psychological and moral-aesthetic, associated with feelings of marital and parental love, with the upbringing of children, with caring for elderly parents, with moral standards of behavior.

To date, according to a number of researchers, several main functions of the family can be distinguished:

- reproductive, that is, the biological reproduction of the population in the social plan and the satisfaction of the needs for children - in the personal plan;
- educational - socialization of the younger generation, maintenance of the cultural reproduction of society;
- economic - obtaining material resources of some family members for others, economic support for minors and disabled members of society;
- the sphere of primary social control - the moral regulation of the behavior of family members in various spheres of life, as well as the regulation of responsibility and obligations in relations between spouses, parents and children, representatives of the older generation;
- social status - granting a certain social status to family members, reproduction of the social structure;
- leisure - the organization of rational leisure for all family members;
- emotional - obtaining psychological protection, emotional support, emotional stabilization of individuals;

There are two main family organization forms:

related("or extended) family, characteristic of traditional societies, based not only on the marital relationship of two people, but also on the consanguinity of a large number of relatives (in fact, a clan of relatives together with spouses and children).
nuclear (from lat. nucleus- core,) or married family characteristic of modern societies (where children have the opportunity to live separately from their parents after marriage); the basis of such a family is a couple of people connected by marriage (husband and wife), as well as their children, forming

those who are the biological, social and economic center of the family, all other relatives already belong to the periphery of the family;

Family life, its historical types and structure depend on the general trends in the socio-economic development of society. In the transition from a traditional society to a modern one, the family changes significantly. Due to the fact that the household ceases to be the main producing unit, there is a separation of home and work, there is a transition from an extended family, consisting of several generations with the dominance of the elders, to decentralized nuclear families, in which marriage ties are placed above tribal ties. A large family is being replaced by a one-child family.

In relation to the individual, families are divided into parental and reproductive. TO parent families are those in which a person is born, to reproductive - those that a person forms when he becomes an adult, and within which he brings up a new generation of children. At the same time, depending on the place of residence, families are distinguished matrilocal(when the spouses live with the wife's parents), patrilocal(when a married couple moves in with the husband's parents), or separate(when the spouses live separately from the parents of the wife and husband and run a separate household).

There is a transition from a family based on sociocultural prescriptions to interpersonal preferences. In turn, the family influences all aspects of society. It is a kind of micromodel of society, all its social ties.

In the modern Westernized post-industrial society, model of "non-traditional family", based on same-sex marriage. The most important role in its legalization was played by the Cairo Conference on Population and Development of the United Nations in 1994, which fixed, in principle 9 of the Program of Action for Population Regulation, equality and equivalence of different types of sexual unions, including same-sex ones. Currently, same-sex marriages (as well as same-sex partnerships) are legal in a number of EU countries, in Canada, in some US states and in South Africa.

The complex nature of the family as a social entity requires different methodological approaches to its sociological analysis. Modern sociology considers the family, first of all, as a system of social and gender roles.

Gender roles represent one of the types of social roles, a set of expected patterns of behavior (or norms) for men and women. Role in social psychology is defined as a set of norms that determine how people should behave in a given social position. Each person performs a number of different roles, such as wife, mother, student, daughter, girlfriend, etc. Sometimes these roles do not overlap, leading to role conflict (for example, between the role of a business woman and the role of a spouse).

In industrial society, there was a so-called "patriarchal" hierarchy of roles of the gender system, based on the gender contract. "housewives"(English - housewife) for a woman and a "breadwinner" (eng. - breadwinner)- Sponsor of family life for a man.

In a post-industrial society, the gender contract of the "housewife" is supplanted contracts of "equal status"(English - equal status), according to which the hierarchy of patriarchy is being replaced by the equalization of the position, rights and opportunities of men and women both in the public (politics, education, career, cultural life) and in the private sphere (housekeeping, raising children, sexuality, etc.). .). Changes in gender contracts are due to the transformations that have taken place in late modern society: the formation of the welfare state, the mass consumer society, the feminization of men and the masculinization of women have influenced a radical change in the traditional gender order.

The problem of divorce is closely related to the change in the type of relationships in the modern family: new family models give rise to their own forms of breaking these relationships. In traditional marriage, divorce is understood as a rupture of relations in legal, economic, psychological terms, while the modern form of family relations brings the psychological problems of parting to the fore. Partners, most often, do not find common ground in personal interaction; and in this case, psychological calm becomes more preferable for them than, for example, economic difficulties.

Among the main factors predetermining divorce today, we can name the following:

- industrialization;
- urbanization;
- population migration;
- emancipation of women.

These factors reduce the level of social control, make people's lives largely autonomous and anonymous, the sense of responsibility, affection, mutual care is greatly reduced.

The most common causes of direct divorce between spouses are:

1. Domestic problems (housing disorder, material insecurity, etc.)
2. Interpersonal conflicts (loss of love, respect, affection; jealousy of one of the spouses; different views on life in economic, social, spiritual terms)
3. External factors (treason, interference in the relations of third parties, for example, parents of spouses, the beginning of a new relationship, etc.)

“Marriage today has ceased to be a bond aimed at transferring property and status to another generation. As women gain economic independence, marriage is less and less a consequence of the need for economic partnership ... In all likelihood, the increase in the number of divorces is associated not with deep disappointment in marriage as such, but with a growing desire to turn it into a full-blooded union that brings satisfaction.

E. Giddens "Sociology"

The nature of the bonds between people entering into marriage has changed in the last few decades. Political, economic, social changes in the modern world have contributed to the fact that public opinion has become more tolerant of different models of family life. And yet, the situation of divorce is a critically acute experience in the life of an individual, which does not have a one-time character, but develops over a long period of time.

The beginning of the 20th century was not only a period of revolutionary activity, active modernization, feminization, numerous social changes in public life, but also a stage of dramatic changes in marriage and family relations. Changes in family structure throughout the world in the twentieth century allow us to talk about the transition to an era of small children, an increase in divorces and a drop in the number of registered marriages, the alienation of the individual and his autonomy.

Gradually, there is a transition to a specific model of marriage: late marriage - either upon reaching economic independence from parents, or after completing education and acquiring a profession.

The crisis of the modern family is largely due to significant changes in social life in general. What are the manifestations of crises in the family? First of all, in its instability. In large cities, over 50% of marriages break up (in some places, the divorce rate reaches 70%). Moreover, in more than a third of disintegrating families, life together lasted from several weeks to 4 years, that is, not for long. Family instability leads to the growth of incomplete families, reduces parental authority, affects the possibilities of forming new families, and the health of adults and children.

To the instability of the family, one should add its disorganization, i.e. an increase in the number of so-called conflict families, where the upbringing of children in an environment of quarrels and scandals leaves much to be desired. This has a very negative effect on both adults and children. It is in such families that the sources of alcoholism, drug addiction, neurosis and delinquency are found.

The difficult economic and social situation requires serious tension from a modern person, which often causes stress and depression, which have already become an integral part of our daily life. That is why, today, the need for a “safe harbor”, a place of spiritual comfort, is especially acutely felt, a family should be such a place - stability against the backdrop of widespread variability. However, despite such a clear need, the institution of the family is currently experiencing a rather acute crisis: its very existence, which has been unchanged for many centuries, is under threat.

“In world science, there are various points of view on the state of the family in modern society, which can be ordered on a continuum resembling a battlefield. On one front, there is a position that the family is degrading, going through a deep crisis, the causes of which lie in social cataclysms, ideological or moral and ethical transformations, and this destruction of the family harms both society and the individual. On the other - a diametrically opposite point of view. The social changes that have taken place over the past two hundred years (and in our context also the turbulent changes of recent decades) have revealed the fact that the family as an institution is outdated and, in the old-fashioned form as it exists now, must either disappear or undergo a radical redesign. ... Between these radical points of view, there is a more moderate position, shared, perhaps, by the majority of scientists, that the family, although it is in a state of crisis, turns out to be a very adaptive and strong entity that endures the blows of fate. As we have already mentioned, this is a kind of battlefield for the monopoly of social control over the individual. Is it necessary to say that the points of the lances of all three divisions are directed against each other, at known enemy vulnerabilities? The balance of ammunition, as well as the tempting, apparent accessibility of the object of their claims, convinces that the end of the battle is still far away.

Yarskaya-Smirnova E.R. "Sociocultural analysis of nvtypicality"

Murdok G. (1949) Social Structure. New York: The Mac Millan Company.
See, for example, Antonov A.I. Sociology of the family M., 2010; Zritnsva E.I. Sociology of the family M., 2006; Chernyak E.M. Sociology of the family M., 2004, etc.
See: Zritneva E.I. Sociology of the family. M: Humanist. Ed. Center VLADOS, 2006.

The family is the most ancient, the very first social institution, and it arose in the conditions of the formation of society. At the first stages of the development of society, relations between a woman and a man, older and younger generations were regulated by tribal and tribal traditions and customs, which were based on religious and moral ideas. With the advent of the state, the regulation of family relations acquired a legal character. The legal registration of marriage imposed certain obligations not only on the spouses, but also on the state that sanctioned their union. From now on, social control was carried out not only by public opinion, but also by the state. The family has several definitions from the point of view of different sciences and approaches. Its typical and most important features are:

small group of people

unites these people - the relationship of marriage or consanguinity (parents, children, brothers, sisters),

the family, as a social institution, performs certain social functions (the main ones are reproductive, the socialization of children, the maintenance of children), and therefore society endows the family with the means to perform these functions. Such a means, for example, is the institution of marriage, and the institution of divorce that arose later.

The structure of the family is a set of relations between its members, which includes: the structure of kinship, the structure of power and leadership, the structure of roles, the structure of communications.

FAMILY FUNCTIONS:

1) REPRODUCTIVE (BIRTH OF CHILDREN)

2) SOCIALIZATION

3) HOUSEHOLD

4) RECREATION (HEALTH)

5) SOCIAL STATUS (EDUCATION OF CHILDREN)

The selection of types of families and their classification can be carried out for various reasons:

1) according to the form of marriage:

a) monogamous (marriage of one man with one woman);

b) polyandry (a woman has several spouses);

c) polygyny (marriage of one man with two or more of us);

2) by composition:

a) nuclear (simple) - consist of a husband, wife and children (full) or with the absence of one of the parents (incomplete);

b) complex - include representatives of several generations;

3) by the number of children:

a) childless;

b) one-child;

c) small children;

d) large families (from three or more children);

4) by stages of civilizational evolution:

a) the patriarchal family of a traditional society with the authoritarian power of the father, in whose hands is the solution of all issues;

b) egalitarian-democratic, based on equality in relations between husband and wife, on mutual respect and social partnership.

A tradition has developed in science to study the family both as a social institution and as a small group.

social institution" means a stable set of formal and informal rules, principles, norms, attitudes, through which society regulates and controls the activities of people in the most important areas of human life. This is a given set of appropriate standards for the behavior of certain individuals in specific situations. Standards of conduct are organized into a system of roles and statuses.

In the science of the family, close attention is paid to the analysis of the functions of the family.

Acting as an essential element of the structure of society, the family reproduces its members and their primary socialization.

A small group is a small social group in its composition, whose members are united by common goals and objectives and are in direct, stable personal contact with each other, which is the basis for the emergence of both emotional relationships and special group values and norms of behavior.

We list the main features of a small group:

♦ common goals and activities common to all members of the group;

♦ personal contact between group members;

♦ certain emotional climate within the group;

♦ special group norms and values;

♦ the physical and moral pattern of the group member;

♦ role hierarchy between group members;

♦ relative independence (autonomy) of this group from others;

♦ principles of admission to the group;

♦ group cohesion;

♦ socio-psychological control of group members' behavior;

♦ special forms and methods of managing group activities by members of the group.

Psychologists most often attribute the following functions to the family.

1 Begetting and raising children.

2 Preservation, development and transmission to future generations of values and traditions of society, accumulation and implementation of social and educational potential.

3 Satisfying people's needs for psychological comfort and emotional support, a sense of security, a sense of value and significance of one's self, emotional warmth and love.

4 Creation of conditions for the development of the personality of all family members.

5 Satisfaction of sexual and erotic needs.

6 Satisfying the needs for joint leisure activities.

7 Organization of joint housekeeping, division of labor in the family, mutual assistance.

8 Satisfaction of a person's need to communicate with loved ones, to establish strong communications with them.

Satisfaction of the individual need for fatherhood or motherhood, contacts with children, their upbringing, self-realization in children.

9 Social control over the behavior of individual family members.

10 Organization of activities for the financial support of the family.

11 Recreational function - protecting the health of family members, organizing their recreation, removing people from stress.

Family therapist D. Freeman presents his point of view. He believes that the main functions delegated to family members by its social environment are:

12 ensuring survival;

13 protection of the family from external damaging factors;

14 care of family members about each other;

15 parenting;

16 creation of physical, emotional, social and economic prerequisites for the individual development of family members;

When studying the institution of the family, special attention is paid to the analysis of the functions it performs. Expert opinions on this issue are in good agreement with each other. The existing differences relate mainly to the degree of detail of the spheres of family life. For example, some authors separate the sexual-erotic function from the reproductive one, firstly, because of its independent value, and secondly, assigning the leading role in the psychosexual development of a person to the family.

Family Institute

The family is a complex social formation in which the interests of society as a whole, the individual family and each of its members in particular are intertwined. It is defined as a historically established specific system of marital and parent-child relationships. It is considered as a small group whose members are connected by marriage or family ties, common life and mutual moral responsibility. They see it as a social necessity, due to the need of society for the reproduction of a physically and spiritually healthy population.

The family has a whole range of important social functions and roles for which society is ready to create, support and protect this social institution. It is important to take into account that in human culture, social norms reflect idealized ideas about what a family should be like in terms of the moral values of society.

Therefore, a normal family is a very conditional concept. Such can be considered those that provide the necessary minimum of well-being, social and psychological protection, create conditions for the socialization of children until they reach maturity - psychological and physical. Normally functioning families are those that carry out their functions responsibly and differentiatedly.

Regarding the basic functions of the family, the judgments of psychologists largely correspond to the views of sociologists and culturologists. This topic was devoted to the work of such famous psychologists as Druzhinin V.D., Elizarov A.N., Matskovsky M.S. According to Elizarov A.N., value orientations unite people in a family, and they also set the perspective of its development.

The social functions of the family are understood as the types of its life activities that are directly related to the satisfaction of the needs of its members. From time to time they undergo some changes due to the development of society.

Today there is no single generally accepted classification of the social functions of the family, however, interdependence and complementarity are observed between the existing ones. Differences in views on this subject are not so significant. Below are the characteristics of the main functions of the family.

Sexual-erotic function

Sexuality is an innate need that expresses itself in a combination of biological, physiological, mental and emotional reactions. All of them are inextricably linked with the attraction of people of the opposite sex to each other and with the satisfaction of this attraction. Therefore, one of the most important functions of the family is sexual and erotic, which implies getting pleasure from satisfying the sexual needs of partners.

Dissatisfaction in the intimate sphere prevents a person from living a normal life and performing his daily duties. He becomes irritable, gloomy. Sexual dissatisfaction is a strong destabilizing factor for marital relations.

reproductive function

The reproductive function of the family implies the satisfaction of the individual need for a child. It is also associated with maintaining health. Indeed, in this case, the family faces the task of preventing the manifestation of various biological anomalies in new generations. The reproductive function of the family is of tremendous importance for society as a whole, since it satisfies its need for the reproduction of the population.

educational function

Very important. Psychologists emphasize that of all the cubs, the human is the least independent. In order for him to grow and develop normally, he needs long-term care and parental care. The main thing they can give him is love. Together with her, they pass on their life experience and knowledge to the child, and also help to discover and develop his unique abilities and talents. Family education has a much stronger impact than social education, since it is more emotional and is associated with love for children on the part of parents, which causes reciprocal feelings in children.

The educational function of the family extends not only to the younger generation, but also to adults. The systematic impact of the educational nature of the family team is felt by a person throughout his life. There is also a constant influence on the part of children on parents and other adult family members. Self-education of parents is associated primarily with the constant influence of children on their lives.

economic function

The economic function is understood as the organization of activities for the financial support of the family, including all sources and volume of family income. The material conditions of the family life are based on them. This is the creation of normal living conditions. This includes financial support for minors and disabled members. This is the potential to meet the growing needs and empowerment of the family.

Adult family members take part in the sphere of social production, form and distribute the family budget, and organize consumer activities. To a greater extent, by their example, they carry out the labor and economic education of children.

Household function

This function of the family is responsible for housekeeping. Maintaining cleanliness and order in the house, creating comfort in it, washing, ironing, cooking - all these are routine daily measures that generally contribute to maintaining the health of partners and children. This also includes caring for babies and caring for elderly relatives.

All this requires a large amount of time, so the question of the distribution of roles between spouses, the involvement of children in domestic work becomes relevant. This process has the most direct impact on the moral and psychological climate of the family group.

Leisure function

The leisure function provides for meeting the needs of family members in communication and organization of free time. They can arrange to watch TV together, go to the cinema, organize family holidays, travel, play, play sports, and be creative. This creates a favorable emotional background and helps to strengthen the family. If the family is happy, then the interests of spouses and children are mutually enriched in it, and its activities are, as a rule, developing.

Leisure is free time, which a person can dispose of at his own discretion. This is the time when he can carry out activities for his own pleasure, whether it be entertainment, self-improvement or the achievement of some goals on a personal initiative, and not out of necessity. Primary skills for the constructive use of free time are acquired within the family.

Psychotherapeutic function

Each person feels the need for love, acceptance, understanding, respect, recognition, psychological support. The niche where she is fully satisfied should be the family. In it, first of all, a person should feel accepted and protected, without regard to his status, appearance, life achievements or their absence, financial situation. This contributes to the preservation of the emotional and mental health of the individual, and this is precisely the task of the psychotherapeutic function. The lack of family understanding often leads to depression, aggression, and the development of deviant behavior.

The function of primary socialization

The functions of the family in society cannot be overestimated. The family is the very first social institution in a person's life, within which he begins to learn about the world. It is in it that the child learns the norms of morality and the rules of behavior in various spheres of life, gets acquainted with the sanctions for their violation, learns about the responsibility and obligations in the relationship between relatives. Parents introduce the child to the culture of the country, its traditions. This is how the function of primary socialization manifests itself. The characteristics of the development of the psyche and the primary socialization of children at the earliest stages of their development depend on how well it is performed.

Social status function

The family is a key institution in a person's life. In addition to influencing the formation of his personality, she also gives him support and support in adulthood. The family also leaves an imprint on its position in society - it determines belonging to a certain class, gives titles, if any, transfers the inheritance. Through the provision of a certain social status to family members, it contributes to the formation and satisfaction of their needs for social advancement.

Teaming up function

One of the most important features of family functions is their complexity. Any of the above needs can be satisfied without creating a family. And yet, only the institution of the family makes it possible to perform all these functions in the aggregate and provide a comprehensive satisfaction of human needs.

Mowgli children

There are cases in the world when human cubs fell into packs of animals and were brought up there. Their "parents" were wolves, bears, less often leopards, baboons. Such children were repeatedly caught by people. Catching them was as difficult a task as catching a wild beast.

The feral children behaved like animals - they ran on all fours, could not stand and move on two legs, showed aggression, even more than animals from their flock. They had a well-developed sense of smell, sight and hearing. They were distinguished by great muscular strength and agility. In all other respects, they were inferior to ordinary children of their age.

In reality, children raised by animals have practically no opportunity to socially adapt and return to human society. As practice has shown, they violently resist attempts to introduce them to civilized life, they try to escape back into the wild.

These numerous cases clearly show that in the absence of inclusion in the collective, social life, a person cannot develop as a person and remains at the level of an animal. The psychophysical development of a person depends very much on the quality of upbringing and education, the foundations of which are primarily laid in the institution of the family.

The concept of family and marriage- the object of study of sociologists, psychologists, religious scholars, jurists and even talk show hosts. We, of course, are interested in the family not in the understanding of Andrei Malakhov, but from the point of view of social science.

“The family is the cell of society,” says the host of the ceremony in the registry office and does not even suspect that this is the main thesis family sociology, that is, the branch of sociology that studies marriage And family relationships. In fact, the definition of a family is somewhat more complicated. Family- This small social group, and also this. Every person in society has some kind of marital status (single, divorced, married, married, widower, widow, etc.; in active search, by the way, this is not marital status). Thus, every inhabitant of our planet has something to do with institution of marriage and family.

Marriage (also known as a marriage union or matrimony) is a historically conditioned, socially and (almost always) state-sanctioned form of an agreement between a woman and a man, the purpose of which is to create a family. Marriage brings the family to the official level: family members have rights and obligations. The marriage union is protected by the state, has restrictions and entails legal consequences in case of violation of the family code. Marriage and Family Code created to protect family members by the state at the legal level.

Family structure.

Family structure (family structure)- These are the different types of family composition:

Nuclear family - husband, wife, child (one or more).
A completed family (or extended family) - nuclear plus grandparents, uncles, aunts (who live together), sometimes plus another nuclear family (for example, a husband's brother with his wife and child, again - if they all live together ).
Mixed family (rearranged family) - may include a stepfather or mother (stepfather and stepmother) and, accordingly, one or more stepchildren.
Single parent family.

By the number of children, families are:

childless;
one-child;
small children;
average children;
large families.

By place of residence:

matrilocal (with the wife's parents);
patrilocal (with the husband's parents);
neolocal (separate from all this joy).

When considering subsequent types of family and its organization, one will have to hit a certain degree of radicalism, from the point of view of generally accepted moral standards.

By the number of partners there are:

monogamous families (two partners - the most common form of family relations since ancient times);
polygamous families:
1. polygyny (polygamy - one man, three or more women, as in Shariah);
2. polyandry (a rare occurrence - one woman and three or more men; for example, among the peoples of Hawaii and Tibet);
3. Swedish family (three partners of different sexes - a man and two women or vice versa) - an interesting fact is that this type of family is associated with Sweden only among native speakers of the Russian language, and Swedish society is conservative, and this type of relationship is extremely rare there.

By gender of partners:

heterogeneous family;
same-sex family.

Same-sex marriage are allowed in some countries, or in some areas of certain countries (for example, in the USA and Mexico - not in all states). Having mentioned them, it is impossible not to mention that this type of relationship has been the subject of fierce disputes and discussions over the years. I have to move away from an abstract, impartial position and emphasize a few points.

Persecution or oppression of supporters of same-sex relationships is a violation of the Declaration of Human Rights. However, same-sex relationships are one thing and same-sex marriage is another. And the possibility of same-sex partners to adopt and raise a child is generally the third. If the first is normal, but it should have some kind of censorship (that is, gays should not expose their type of relationship, because in this way they can psychologically injure others, and this is also a violation of social norms). The second is not normal, although not critical. The most correct thing (I can’t say for sure) would be to recognize same-sex marriages at the level of society, but not at the level of the state and law; and again - to censor. Everything described in relation to the first and second points coincides with the official policy of the Russian Federation and some other countries. Speaking of censorship, I mean that "if a gay wants to go to the parade, he must be a veteran."

Regarding the third (adoption) - this is unacceptable. Unacceptable, as it contradicts social, moral and religious norms. In addition, it affects the psyche of the child, and is unacceptable from a medical point of view.

Let's go back to family and marriage.

Functions of family and marriage.

Family Functions- these are the relations within this family and the relations of the family with society, that is, its internal and social significant characteristics.

reproductive function. This function contains both the sexual need and the need for procreation.
Economic and economic function - issues of nutrition, family property, family budget and landscaping.
Regenerative function - inheritance (surnames, property, family values, social status, family business).
Educational and upbringing - the function of the socialization of children.
Initial social control is a function of instilling norms of behavior with elders, the concept of responsibility and duties.
Recreational function - entertainment, leisure, recreation, hobbies, etc.
The function of spiritual communication (spiritual mutual enrichment).
Socio-status - the reproduction of the social structure within the family, since the family is society in miniature.
Psychotherapeutic function - satisfies the needs for recognition, support, psychological protection, sympathy, etc.

In conclusion, we can say that the family is the most ancient social institution, and the history of the family is, in fact, the history of mankind. In addition, the family, as a cell of society, shows the problems that exist in this society. Therefore, the sources of problems in the family should be studied not only by family psychologists and Andryusha Malakhov, but also by politicians, lawyers, and sociologists.