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Institution of the Family

The family is seen as an endangered institution and as an institution under attack. The nuclear family has been held out as the "ideal" family structure, and many have been opining in recent years that the nuclear family seems to be disappearing in a world where divorce and unwed motherhood are occurring at high rates. Many families today are single-parent families with only a mother in the household. There may be different reasons why this is so. Unwed mothers represent one type of single-parent families where the mother is forced to be the sole parent and has always been the sole parent as far as the child is concerned. Widows represent another type of single-parent household, and divorced women represent still another. Proposals have been made as to what families should be like and how to achieve this supposed ideal, and there is a political movement to return to "traditional values," by which is meant a stronger family. It is not clear what can be done to strengthen the family. It is clear that the family was never the rock-solid institution it has been made out to be and that in the past, it was held together as much by economics as by a dedication to the family or a sense of moral duty. Two things should be done about the family today: 1) provide supports to strengthen the family in every way possible, following a number of proposals offered for doing so, from better education to better jobs; and 2) stop demonizing alternative family structures because they are a permanent part of the landscape and need assistance as well.

A study of the family funded by Massachusetts Mutual Life in 1989 raised the issue of the definition of the family. The definition that was selected by the most people was that a family was a group of people who love and care for one another. This definition has supplanted the traditional definition based on blood and law (Lawler 20). Yet our policies and concerns continue to center on the bloo...

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Institution of the Family. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 11:14, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1702526.html