BASIC CONCEPTS

Society

Society is defined not merely as an aggregates of individuals and groups living together, but is
explained as a concept in sociology, where a system of set pattern mechanism exists comprising
a complex web of norms, interactions and interrelations of individuals and groups that keep
them bound together with a common purpose of co-inhabitation from generations together
within a given territorial dimension.

A society is a group of people who share common culture, occupy a particular territorial area
and feel unified and distinct entity. According to Maclver and Page, Society is the web of social
relationships.

Community

Although family as a social entity sometimes are self-sufficient, but families do not live by
themselves. For some reasons ranging from economic interdependence to shared cultural
values, families normally bond together to form communities. The community, rather than the
family, then becomes the social setting for most everyday economic, political, religious,
educational, recreational, and similar activities. In brief, a community is a social organization
that is territorially localized and through which its members satisfy most of their daily needs
and deal with most of their common problems.

Institution

A social institution is a procedure, practice and an instrument, combination of variety of

customs and habits accumulated over a period of time. Institutions are instruments and tools of
human transactions. An institution is thus a stable cluster of norms, values and roles.

Or

A social institution is an organized complex pattern of behaviour in which a number of persons

participate in order to further group interest. The family, the school, the church, the club, the
hospital, the political parties, professional associations are all social institutions. Within each
institution, the rights and duties of the members are defined.

Association

As social life is becoming increasingly complex, with social actors pursuing a widening variety
of goals through collective action, they create various kinds of specialised organisation. Each
of these organisations is limited in its range of activities, focuses on only one or a few aspects
of social life. The generic name for such specialised organisation is association. An association
is a social organisation that is more or less purposefully created for attainment of relatively
specific and limited goals, for example a Trained Nurses Association of India, Teachers
Association.

Family
The family is an organized group based on a network of relationships. These relationships
provide basis for the definition of the family and assignment of rights and duties between
members. The main elements of the structure of family are:

a) Affinal Relationship: The family begins with the marriage of person of opposite sex. The
couple is called husband and wife. They may or may not have children, yet they constitute a
family. Thus, family is not necessarily a biological group as adopted children by the couple are
also the members of the family.

b) Consanguineous Relationship: The members of the family are related to one another
through the process of procreation. The biological interconnection is the consanguineous
relationship that is socially defined as kinship. Thus, family is a kinship group.

Joint/extended family: It comprises two or more elementary families, bound together by

common movable or immovable property and may or may not staying together. A joint
household means a joint family living together

Elementary or nuclear family: It comprises couples and their unmarried children. It is

generally financially independent of other families

Patriarchal Family: Power and authority rests with the oldest man in the family. The other
members of the family have to obey his order. In India, most of the families are patriarchal.
The nature of most of the Hindu families is patriarchal.

Matriarchal Family: In matriarchal families man has no right to property. Property

rights come hereditary from mother to daughter or to mother’s brother. In the real
sense, women in these families set priorities. In the Khasi tribe of Assam such
practices are common. In the tribes of Garo Malabar we find the prevalence of
matriarchal family. 33

Matrilineal family: In this family lineage runs from mother. In other word, mother’s heredity
gets all the importance. In the Nayar family of Malabar such types of family are in existence.

Patrilineal family: Dynastical heritage comes from father to son. Most of the families in India
are patrilineal.

Patrilocal: Where woman resides in husband’s house after marriage.

Matrilocal: Where husband goes to reside in the spouse’s house after marriage.

FUNCTIONS OF FAMILY

The family has very important functions to play i.e. biological, economic and socio-cultural.
Details are given below:

1. Biological: These include sexual and procreative activities in a socially approved

manner. This is also termed as biological reproduction.
2. Economic: At one time the family was the unit of production and consumption, where
males hunted and women and children gathered good for the survival of the family. In
the preindustrial society, women took active part in economic survival of the family
 based on the activities centred around home. However, with the advent of
industrialisation women seek jobs in home-based economic activities as well as outside
house and play a significant role for the survival of the family.
3. Socio-cultural: Entire process of socialization operating form childhood is clearly
visible through the process of imitation and identification. The child gradually acquires
orientation about his roles within the family and is taught to accept the social control
as exercised by the family to maintain discipline and decorum in the society at large.
This function is termed as the social reproduction of labour power.
4. Family is the first unit in which the child is nurtured and has continuous contact with
other people outside the family too. Interacting with them, he learns various skills and
develops appropriate values in accordance with the value system of the society in which
he lives. Therefore, family is the first agency through which culture operates on any
individual.
5. Family is said to be the cradle of the future society as it produces the necessary labour
power for the on-going production of the society. Women play an important role in the
family in this social reproduction of labour power.

Group

Groups are formed in order to satisfy human needs. Groups also provide many activities
that would not be possible by a lone individual. Webster’s dictionary defines groups as ‘a
number of individuals assembled together or having unified relationship’. Each group has
unique wholeness qualities that become patterned by way of members’ thinking, feeling
and communicating into structured subsystems. In our society we often use the word
‘group’ that refer to such diverse collectivities such as family, the crowd or the social class,
informal cliques or vast communities. What should be understood very clearly is that
‘family’ does fall into the category of group, having shared sense of unity among members,
stable pattern of relationships among members, but what distinguishes ‘family’ and ‘group’
is that in a family the members are united by ties of marriage, blood or adoption. Or in other
word the members of the family united by the bands of kinship. It would be of relevance
here to know about kinship and marriage. Without going into the details, we would touch
upon the basic concepts so that you as students of sociology are clear how to use concepts
in daily life.

Kinship

Kinship system is seen as a method of organizing marriage relations between groups. The
members of the family are linked with one another by kinship bonds based on blood
relationships with only exception of husband and wife who are bound by marriage. Every
member of the family behaves and expects from others to behave in particular way as
sanctioned by social norms. This behaviour patterns are learnt through socialization process.

A kinship system is not an unorganized aggregation of individuals. It is a system of the ways

the relations between individuals in the family and between families are organized. G P
Murdock has defined Kinship as ‘merely structured system of relationships in which
individuals are bound to one another by complex interlocking and ramifying ties’. Radcliffe-
Brown looks at kinship system as part of social structure and insists upon the study of kinship
as field of rights and obligations. Studies in kinship systems have been done, largely by social
Anthropologist and only a few of them by the sociologists.