Revision summary
Family organises sex, filiation, and domestic care. Murdock claimed the nuclear family as universal. Nayar taravad, kibbutz, and ghost marriage break that atom. A childcare group is widespread; the nuclear household is not. Treat ‘the family’ as a variable form, not a natural given.
Model answer
Introduction
A family is a socially recognised group that cares for children and organises sex, descent, and domestic labour. Whether that group is universal depends on how tight the definition is.
Body
Definitions
- Murdock called the nuclear family a universal building block: adults of both sexes and their children, with common residence and reproduction.
- Goody and later critics said many societies start from a wider kin corporation, not from a isolated couple.
Claims of universality
- Childcare, incest rules, and some durable mating appear very widely.
- Malinowski’s parental group among Trobrianders still named mother, father, and mother’s brother with different duties.
Limits
- Nayar taravad, described by Gough, had visiting husbands. The residential family was matrilineal, not Murdock’s nuclear unit.
- Israeli kibbutz and some commune experiments split sleeping, meals, and parenting.
- Same-sex parenting, fostering, and Nuer ghost marriage show filiation without a living opposite-sex pair in the house.
- Collier, Rosaldo, and Yanagisako argued that ‘the family’ is an ideological package, not a natural atom.
A usable settlement
- Some domestic arrangement for raising children is universal. Murdock’s nuclear form is not.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD FAM[Family] --> CARE[Childcare filiation] MUR[Murdock nuclear] --> U[Claimed universal] NAY[Nayar kibbutz Nuer] --> L[Limits]
Conclusion
Family as childcare and recognised filiation is widespread. The nuclear, co-resident, heterosexual household is historically common, not a human constant, as Nayar and kibbutz cases show.
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