Nuclear Family (Also Called Simple or Elementary Family)
This consists of Husband, Wife and children (own or adopted). The newly married couple who lives separately is ‘a nuclear family-in-the-making’. It is therefore called a Conjugal Unit. A nuclear family might revert to a conjugal unit when the children grow up and establish their own nuclear families. Thus, conjugal units are of three types: (a) potential nuclear family; (b) nugatory nuclear family—when the conjugal unit is past child-bearing age and has no children. Such a unit can become a nuclear family if it adopts a child; and (c) residual Conjugal Unit: Hu and Wi living alone after their children have separated to create their own family units.
The two nuclear families. The first one is that of a Railway Station Master with his wife and three children. The second one is that of the grandson of the head of the first Nuclear family, with his two children.
Nuclear Family with Adhesions and/or Adjuncts
Usually in many nuclear families, one or more additional persons may reside. We shall exclude the case of servants, as they form a separate category. Here, reference is made to those persons who are related to members of the nuclear family. They are of two types: adhesions and adjuncts. The term adhesions is used for remnants of the earlier larger group, such as Father or Mother, or Father’s Brother, or Father’s Mother, unmarried Brother or Sister. The term Adjuncts is used for those kinsmen who do not belong to the patrilineal family; these include affinal kins such as Wife’s Mother or Father, Wife’s Brother or Sister, and Widowed or Divorced Sister or Daughter (the latter two cases are included because upon their marriage, a sister or daughter belongs to the family of her husband. Her return to her parents’ family is as an adjunct). Generally, such units maintain the character of nuclear families and treat the adhesions or adjuncts as temporary members.
Compound Family
A Simple Family, that is, a Nuclear Family, becomes a Compound Family when, upon the death of the wife (who had mothered child/ren), the husband marries again. This is also a case of monogamy—only one wife at a time. In such a family, one can conceive of at least two sets of children—one from the first wife and the other from the second. However, in the event of the first wife dying childless, the unit formed by the widower through a second marriage will remain a nuclear family-in-the making, that is, a Conjugal Unit. There can be a peculiar situation where the second wife comes with her own children from her first marriage, and then has a second set of children from the second union. Such a composition will be regarded as a nuclear family (because children—own or adopted—are a part of the definition we have provided); however, for analytical purposes, it would be advisable to treat such a unit as different from a family with a single set of children. It is proposed that we call a family with two sets of children a Compound Family.
If a man marries a widow with children from her first marriage and has his own children from his first marriage, there is a possibility of a third set of children from this new union. Such a family with three sets of children may be designated Complex Compound Family.
Figure 9.8 illustrates the complex compound family.
Figure 9.8 Complex Compound Family
Stem Family
A family consisting of the family of procreation of one married child linked with the ego’s family of orientation in a common household is called a Stem Family. It is often erroneously referred to as Joint Family. Figure 9.9 illustrates a Stem Family.
Figure 9.9 Stem Family
Such families are quite common in Japan, where they are also known as a three-generation family. In 1955, 36.5 per cent of Japanese families were stem families; their number came down to 11.3 per cent in 2005 (Kumagai, 2008: 14).
If the nuclear family of Ego’s brother also lived with this encircled stem family, then it would have become an instance of an extended family, somewhat similar to the joint family.
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