A family consists of people who are socially-related to one another. An exam of such a social relationship might be marriage or cohabitation.

Kinship is a related concept that means connections between people (either through marriage or lines of descent) that are “blood relationships“. An example of a kinship relationship might be that of a mother and a child. Thus, the relationship between them and their children is one of both family and kinship.

Marriage is an important concept when talking about family life in our society. We place a great deal of importance upon the concept of legal marriage as the cornerstone of the family group.

A household is a group of people who have a common residence. There is not necessarily any family or kinship relationship between them.

Family function

Living in a family is important for every human being. Our parents take care of us from our births until we grow up. We are often loved and even spoiled by grandparents, uncles and aunts. We are related to our families by blood. We may live far from them, but we always try to keep in touch with them.

Our family supports us when we need it. They are with us in all the important moments of our lives. It is in our families and in our homes where we can learn all the skills that we need for life: how to get on with people, be tolerant, selfdisciplined, polite and helpful.

Relationships within family

The people closest to us are our parents. Often they show how much they care by worrying about things like our health and how we do in school. We learn how to communicate and how to be helpful and understanding through our discussions with them.
Family members, especially from our extended family, get together on special occasions, for example at family celebrations, such as weddings, graduation ceremonies, birthdays and funerals.
A family gathering is a unique social occasion where we see our whole family and have a chance to talk to our cousins, aunts and uncles who we don´t see very often.

As members of a family we have different relationships with people we live with. The relationship with parents is special: we love them, but we have to respect and obey them as they are responsible for our upbringing.
Our siblings are much closer to us. They are from the same generation, share similar hobbies and probably have much the same opinions.

Relationships with grandparents are similar to those with our parents, but there is one important difference: grandparents aren´t responsible for us. We don´t live with them, so most of us see our grandparents only once or twice a month, and even then we usually spend only one or two days with them. Sometimes we spend only a few hours with them.

Duties

Being a member of a family means duties, such as cleaning, doing the washing up, working in the garden and taking out the rubbish. Daughters usually help their mums in the kitchen and boys usually help fathers with household repairs. If the household chores are not divided up equally among the family members, relationships within that family may get worse and result in arguments.