Family Concept Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Family Concept - Essay Example Legitimization of children born is of course a universal criterion of marriage. Another factor related to the subject marriage is 'legal paternity'. Dr. Edmund Leach in Europe is of the opinion that no definition could be found that would apply to all the institutions which is commonly accepted as marriage. He referred to ten classes of rights which are related with the word marriage. He is flexible in his approach and states "we ought to feel free to call 'marriage' any institution which fulfils any one or more of the selected criteria". Dr. Leach cites the case of Nayar, the Kerala person in Kerala community. His marriage is not accepted as traditional marriage but a "relationship of perpetual affinity" between linked lineages" (Gough 1955a). The ritual husbands of Nayar girls had no obligation to the brides after the ritual was over. The ritual wife also has no obligation except observing pollution rites at death of the ritual husband... The children born to the woman after marriage have no notion of paternity. . The marriage was basically exogamous with matrilineage character having allegiance to the family of head of the village which might be patrilineal Nayar... Such traditional scattered groups all over the world lost the cohesion of tradition later but kept together by thin thread of kinship. What is the actual family scenario in the western world today The institution of marriage is present but the divorce rate remained as high as 50%. The rate of marriage is coming down and the system of co-habitation started in which men and women live together without marriage. The status of family in this new system is very weak... Couples who once might have wed and then divorced now are not marrying at all. Co-habitation is never good for children because it increases family instability. Cohabiting couples have twice the break up rate of married couples only because there is no family bond between the couples. 40% of children in USA come under this fold of loose family set up. 8.1% of US coupled household are made of unmarried but heterosexual partners. The percentage of children who grow with both biological parents is the lowest at 63%. The divorce rate in USA being one of the highest the family status in this country is the weakest with the highest rate of solo parenting. In this type of a weak family concept and social scenario any university would remain confused about promotion of a well-defined family set up. Therefore my concept of a family set up would be one where there is unity, love and peace among all the family members to promote the objective of everybody's life. Generation has due recognition in any society and family but not from the marginal point of view as it was earlier...We often hear about generation gap. The emergence of global generation that started in 1960s has world wide repercussions today with major development in new electronic communication and international consciousness. The future generation will be uniquely influenced by web technology with the introduction of social networking services like MySpace, social bookmaking sites like Yahoo's del.icio.us, and peer to peer social networks like the blogosphere and the cell phones... Today the word