The document discusses the importance of family as the most fundamental social institution. It is nearly universal and is responsible for socializing individuals and imparting social values. Family provides emotional attachment and care for its members from birth to death. It plays a key role in social structure and development of personality.

2.  Family is one of the most important social institutions.
 Most of the world’s population lives in family units; it is an
important primary group in the society.
 Family is the most pervasive and universal social institution. It
plays a vital role in the socialization of individuals.
 Family is regarded as the first society of human beings.
 It is known as the first school of citizenship.
 One is born in family, grows in it, works for it ad dies in it. One
develops emotional attachment to it.
 The parental care imparts to the child the first lesson in social
responsibility and acceptance of self-discipline.
 Family is the backbone of social structure. It occupies a nuclear
position in society.

3.  “The family is the basic primary group and the natural matrix of
personality” - Mack and Young
 Family is a group defined by sexual relationship, sufficiently precise
and enduring to provide for the procreation and upbringing of
children.’– Maclver
 ‘The family, almost without question, is the most important of any groups
that human experience offers … the family … is with us always, or more
precisely, we are with it.- Robert .B
 ‘Family is a more or less durable association of husband and wife, with
or without child, or of a man or woman alone, with children.
 ’– M. F. Nimkoff
 ‘Family is the biological social unit composed of husband, wife and
children.’- Eliot and Merrill
 Family is a group of persons, whose relations to one another are based
upon consanguinity and who are therefore kin to one another.
 -k.Davis

4.  1. Universality
 2. Emotional basis
 3. Limited size
 4. Nuclear position
 5. Formative influence
 6. Responsibility of the Members
 7. Social Regulation
 8. Persistence and Change

5.  1. A Mating Relationship
 2. A Form of Marriage:
 3. A Common Habitation:
 4. A System of Nomenclature:
 5. An Economic provision
 6. System of Interaction and Economic
Communication

6. Essential functions:
 1. Satisfaction of Sex Needs
 2. Reproduction
 3. Sustenance Function
 4. Provision of a Home:
 5. Socialization
Non-Essential Functions:
 Economic Functions, Property
Transformation, Religious Function,
Educative , Recreational functions

8. Nature Types
1. On the Basis of Authority Patriarchal Family
Matriarchal Family
2. On the Basis of Organization Nuclear family
Joint family
Extended family
3. On the Basis of Residence: Patrilocal, Matrilocal
Neolocal , Avunculocal Family
4. The Basis of Descent Patrilineal Family
Matrilineal Family
5. On the Basis of Marriage Monogamous , Polygamous
Polygynous , Polyandrous family
6. In-group and Out-group
Affiliation
Endogamous Family
Exogamous Family
7. On the basis of Blood-
relationship
Consanguine Family
Conjugal Family
8. On basis of birth Family orientation
Family procreation