Once, there was a question to a celebrity of today at the start of her career, “How do you define a woman?” She is said to have replied unhesitatingly, “Woman is that valuable creation by God, to whom mankind owes its origin.” There are two classes involved in the process of creation– male and female. Who came first is not the question but both started the process and are carrying on the same for further creation. To make them come closer, emotional attachment and physical attraction at some age are there. As the civilization grew up to further maturity, the mode of coming closer also underwent the changes from time to time. Earlier they started their lives in forests, where arranging eatables, eating them, meeting and sleeping had been a way of life. Time passed and there was a formation of groups, villages, towns and cities.
Generally, we call the teaming up of one male and one female with their off-springs as family. Literary, the word, ‘Family’ denotes a group of people affiliated by a common ancestry, affinity or co-residence. The family serves to locate children socially, and plays a major role in their enculturation and socialization. The main function of the family is to perpetuate society with bilateral love and affection. It ensures viable financial security for all the members. In good families, there is a division of work amongst family members to ensure better productivity for each other. In due course of time, they become dependent on each other for their specific needs and provide assistance in hour of need too. The family is considered to encourage “intimacy, love and trust where individuals may escape the competition of dehumanizing forces in modern society from the rough and tumble industrialized world, and as a place where warmth, tenderness and understanding can be expected from a loving mother and protection from the world can be expected from the father.
The members of a family suppose that the family forms the primary economic unit. With the materialism getting more importance over the bilateral emotional attachment, the economic role has gradually diminished in modern times, and in societies like the United States the family structure has become much smaller — except in certain sectors such as agriculture and in a few upper class families. In sub-continent Asia, a joint family as an economic unit still plays a strong role in the countryside.
However, in the western society the forms of nuclear and single parent family have been growing more accepted and have begun to truly make an impact on culture. The term nuclear family is used to distinguish a family group consisting of most commonly, a father and mother and their children, from what is known as an extended family. Nuclear families can be any size, as long as the family can support itself and there are only children and two parents, nuclear families meet its individual members’ basic needs since available resources are only divided among few individuals or the family would be known as an extended family.
In opposition to this concept, single parent family comprises of the children with their mother or father. The majority of single parent families are more commonly single mother families than single father. These families face many difficult issues besides the fact that they have to raise their children on their own, but also have to deal with issues related to low income. Many single parents struggle with low incomes and find it hard to cope with other issues that they face including rent, child care, and other necessities required in maintaining a healthy and safe home.
The family institution was started to nourish the society culture in the human being although it conflicts with human nature, and one of its core functions is performing a suppression of instincts, a repression of desire commencing with the earliest age of the child. This psychic repression is such that social repression becomes desired, forming docile subjects for society. The growing materialism has increased its dimension and today, we do not recognize the warmth of our relationship within our family. The family, once a base of social security of those members handicapped for any ground to earn their livelihood is getting shattered on economic considerations. The spree of divorces, break down of relationship between brothers and sisters or isolation in event of any major illness or grave financial needs can be said to be result of the selfishness created by the materialism.
Today, when we are passing through the recession period putting a number of families on the brink of financial and social break-down, we find the emotional detachment too playing a major role in such circumstances. It should be remembered well that if it is happening within one family, it can happen in our family too. Maybe tomorrow my father may not have any employment and our all family members may starve if we do not have other resources of our bread and butter. If I decide to live alone at the extreme of my earning, tomorrow what will happen to me if I am dismissed or I may become insolvent in my business affairs? What will happen if the earning source of my family is not there?
Before we get endangered, we need to redefine our relationships. We need to attach their due importance. We must build up the atmosphere of warmth with each one of our family members, our community members with larger human interests in mind to help them in the time of their needs if we can. We can expect their reciprocation only then, at the time of our needs. In this direction, the concept of joint family is more viable. Traditionally, joint family is knitted with blood relatives. But where due to some employment or other reasons, it is not possible to have joint family – we can constitute with those who are living in our neighbourhood to share our pleasures and woes. We expect that they would extend the same warmth – it is warranted in human nature. If we do not exploit anyone in any terms, we can expect the other will not do any harm. However, keeping precautions is equally necessary.
As soon as we redefine our relationship over and above our financial and other interests, it will give us eternal peace and for happy living, it is essential too. Be happy and redefine your relationships.
Friday, July 26, 2024
