family- its role, functions and responsibilities

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The Family
(Types, Function and Role of Family in
Health and Disease)
By
Dr. Utpal Sharma
Assistant Professor
Department of Community Medicine, SMIMS

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Introduction
 The family is primary unit of all society
 ‘Family’ is derived from the Roman word ‘famulus’ which
means ‘servant’
Defination
 Family is a group of persons united by the ties of marriage,
blood or adoption and living together & eating from a
common kitchen.
 The term household is different from family
Different aspect of family
 As a biological unit ---- share a pool of genes
 As a social units ---- common physical and social environment
 As cultural unit ---- it reflects the culture of the wider society
 It is also an epidemiological unit ---- for providing social
services and medical care

3. Family life cycle
 Families are not a constant
 They are ever changing
 Having six phase
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4. Types of family
 On the basis of structure: Nuclear, Joint & 3-
generation
 On the basis of authority: Patriarchal & Matriarchal
 On the basis of residence: Patrilocal & Matrilocal
 On the basis of marriage:Monogamous, polygamous
& polyandrous
 On the basis of ancestry: Matrilineal & patrilineal
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Types of Family
Three generation family
Joint Family
Nuclear family

6. Nuclear family
 Also known as “Elementary family”
 Universal in all human societies
Definition
 It consists of a married couple and their children when
they are still regarded as dependent
 They tend to occupy the same dwelling place
 The husband usually plays the dominant role in the
household
 Absence of relatives like grand parents, uncles, aunts
and other.
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Cont…
 There is a greater burden on nuclear family in
terms of responsibilities for rearing children
 The husband – wife relationship is likely to be
more intimate
New families
 This term is used for the nuclear families less
than 10 years old
 The concept is important in view of studies
relating to family planning

8. Joint family
 Also called “Extended family”
 It is kind of family grouping very common India, Africa,
Far East and Middle East
 More common in agriculture areas ( rural areas)
 Now a days there are losing of joint family
Definition
 It consist of numbers of married couples and their
children who live together in the same house hold
 All the man are related by blood and the women of the
household are their wives, unmarried girls and widows of
the family kinsmen
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Cont….
Characteristics of a joint family
 All the property is held in common
 There is common family purse --- all income goes and
expenditures met
 All the authority is vested in senior male member of
family
 He is most dominant member and control all internal and
external affairs of family
 The familial relations are enjoy primacy over marital
relations
 Early and arranged marriage is advocated to ward off
any threat from marital relationship

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Cont…
Advantages/ merits of joint
family
 It is based on the motto “Union is
Strength”
 There is sharing of responsibility
 It gives family greater income and social
security
 It provide economic and social security to
the old, unemployed
 Pooling of income makes rearing of
children, arranging marriages, caring for
the old easy job

11. Three generation
family
 It is fairly common in west
 There are representative of three generations in the
same family
Definition
 It occurs usually when young couples are unable to
find separate accommodation and continue to live with
their parents and have their own children
 They are related to each other by direct descent live
together
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Functions of Family
Residence
 To provide clean and descent home to its member
 In west when men marries he separate with his parents and sets up
his own home
 In India (Hindus) married couple should resides in the house of the
parent
 Two types of residency:
 Patrilocal residency
 Matrilocal residency
Division of labour
 The male had the sloe duty to earn a living and support the family
 The female had total responsibility for day to day care of children
and running of household

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Cont…..
 Now a days there are less difference between function of
men and women ---- the coming together and sharing
responsibility
Reproduction and bringing up of children
 This is very important function
 The mother take absolute care of infant and children
during certain age
 The father provides for education and teaches the social
tradition and customs
Socialization:
 The family is bridge between generations and between
father and son
 The cultural pattern relating to eating, cleanliness, dress,
speech, language, behavior and attitude transmitted
through the family

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Cont…
Economic function:
 The family hold the properties and ownership like farms,
shop, dwelling are handed down to the children
Social care:
 The family provides social care by….
 Giving status in society
 Protecting its member from insult
 Regulating marital activities of its members
 Regulating to a certain extent political, religion and general
social activities
 Regulating sex relations through incest-taboos

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Role of family in health and disease
 The family is ultimately the unit with which one has to
deal if concerned with medicine or public health
 There are certain function which are related with health
and health behavior
Child rearing:
 One of the important function
 Physical care of dependent young ---- survive to
adulthood
 The child rearing may differ from society to society and
from time to time
 It is important to note the pattern of child care (feeding,
nutrition, hygiene, sleep, clothing, habit training)
 Passing from one generation to another

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Cont…
Socialization
 It refer to process by whereby individuals develop
qualities essential for functioning effectively in the
society……it is a latent function
 Teaching the young, the values of the society and
transmitting information, culture, belief, conducts by
citing examples
 Introduction of young in to adult society
 In some societies the young are given freedom to
develop into individuals ---- to take initiative
Personality formation
 The capacity of individual to withstand stress and strain
 The way he interact with other people
 Family acts as the “placenta” to filter off ill influences

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Cont…
Care of dependent adults:
 Care of sick and injured:
 So adult become dependent either through injury, illness
or because of biological limitation
 In some society there is great deal of harshness in
respect to those who are sufferer
 Some times individual are excluded from full range of
benefits
 The kind of illness is important ---- attitude of society
 The family acts like the cushion and gives the front-line
care for such individuals

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Cont….
 Care of women during Pregnancy
 In term of financial help, maternity leave, diet and
nutrition supplement and decrease workload to the
women
Stabilization of adult personality:
 The family is like “shock absorber” --- stress and strain of
life
 The stress could be injury, illness, birth, death, tension,
worry, anxiety etc
 The family provide opportunity to release tension -----
individual --- mental equilibrium
 Alcoholics and narcotics are reflection of this trend
 Stress disease --- peptic ulcer, colitis, high B.P.

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Cont…
Familial susceptibility to disease:
 The member of family share a pool of genes, common
environment ---- decide their susceptibility of disease
 Certain disease such as haemophilia, colour blindness, D.M.,
mental illness known to run through families
 Could be a playground for communicable disease viz. TB,
measles etc
Broken family
 Where the parents are separated or where death of one or
both parents
 Importantly, the victims of the broken family in younger years
were found to be displaying psychopathic behavior, immature
personality etc.
 They may drift to anti social activities like prostitution,
gambling, crime and vagrancy

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Cont….
Problem family:
 Those families who lag behind the rest of the community
 The standard of the life are far below the accepted minimum
and parents are unable to meet physical and emotional need of
their children
 The underlying factors are backwardness, poverty, illness,
mental and emotional instability, character defects and marital
disharmony
 The problem families found in all social class but more
common in LSEC
 The children reared in such environment ----- crime, prostitution
and vagrancy
“The secret of national health lies in the
homes of the people”

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