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Family is the most important primary group. Some of the important definitions given by sociologists are given here.
A very broad definition of family is a group of two or more people living together who are related either by blood or marriage or by adoption and who are economically and emotionally interdependent.
Maclver defined family as “a group defined by a sex relationship sufficiently precise and enduring to provide for the procreation and upbringing of children”.
According to Burgess and Locks “Family is a group of persons united by the ties of marriage, blood or adoption; constituting a single household, interacting and intercommunicating with each other in their respective social roles of husband and wife, mother and father, son and daughter, brother and sister creating a common culture”.
The definition given by sumner and Keller is ‘Family is a miniature social organization, including at least two generations and is characteristically formed upon the blood bond’.
Family is also defined as ‘a socially recognized unit of people related to each other by kinship, marital and legal ties’
Based on all these definitions the family can be biological unit implying defined as a institutionalized sex relationship between husband and wife. The difference between other institutions and family is that it results from a physiological union of two married persons who create the other members of the unit. The members of this unit are biologically more closely related to one another through the process of reproduction. Family is a universal institution found in every age and in every society.
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Participants