The family is a group of people connected by bonds of marriage or kinship, which ensure the satisfaction of socially significant needs and raising children.
The sociology of family and marriage distinguishes the institution of the family from other communities of people for a reason. The family is one of the oldest social institutions originating in primitive society. The value of the family for society lies in its ability to reproduce life and raise children.
The sociology of family and marriage has an object to study the family as a system of relationships, which is more complex than marriage. A family, as a rule, consists not only of spouses, but also of children, relatives, and people close to spouses.
Marriage refers to the historically established, sanctioned and regulated by society form of relations between people, which establishes their rights in relation to each other, offspring and parents. Relations in the family are built on three components: relations between spouses, children and parents.
The sociology of family and marriage studies the totality of the parts of public behavior and consciousness that lead to marriage and the creation of a family, contribute to its development, functioning, and in some cases to decay. In this regard, the motives, value orientations, expectations of people who are considering the possibility of marriage and the creation of a family, as well as those who are already spouses throughout the development of family relations, are investigated.
The sociology of family and marriage has a separate role for women, believing that it is precisely on her consciousness and desire that the social and moral side of the relationship depends, which is the basic basis for creating a family and its development. An integral part of most families are children. The appearance of children leads to the formation of another group of relationships in the family.
Today, the institution of the family is undergoing significant changes . Shaky economic conditions, material insecurity is now very large number of actual marriages that are not officially registered. Also, single-parent families with a single parent have a fairly large proportion today. This is due to an increase in the percentage of divorces, which already reaches 30-50% of the number of marriages. The presence of same-sex quasi-families, which are legally recognized by the legislation of a number of developed countries, is becoming characteristic of modern society.
The sociology of marriage and family studies the family as an integral part of larger social groups. The family is a component of society. Its existence, functioning and development are influenced by all cultural and socio-economic processes that take place in a given society.
According to the latest data, there were about 40 million families in Russia. About 70% of them are spouses with children. Divorce statistics are changing with great speed and diversity.
To society as a whole, instability in families is disadvantageous. Therefore, the laws of society tend to impede divorces, enabling people to reconsider relationships.
On the issue of family types, sociology defines them as follows.
According to the form of marriage, mono- and polygamy are distinguished. So, a monogamous family is a family in which only one wife can belong to one man. Polygamous - many wives.
According to the structure of family ties, the following types of families are distinguished: simple or nuclear (married couple with children who are not yet married), complex (married couple with children who are already married).
The type of family is determined by such signs as social class (family of workers, intellectuals, businessmen, etc.), type of population (urban, rural family), by the time the family exists and the number of its members.
In addition, types of families are distinguished according to living conditions (student, family of artists, etc.).