The Nuclear and the Extended Family: An Area of Conceptual Confusion

Abstract

An attempt is made to establish a typology of families that would encompass all family units in major types of societies- non literate hunting and gathering and horticultural societies, agricultural societies, industrializing societies and highly industrialised societies. The problem of definition of family types is viewed as arising largely from a failure to define the concepts nuclear and extended according to essential rather than accidental criteria. Essential features are degree of economic interdependence between members of the wider kin network (common ownership of economic resources, occupational cooperation, exchange of goods and services), degree to which psychological interdependence (socialization, emotional support, protection) is confined to related kin units, degree of arbitrary intergenerational authority between related nuclear families or segments of these families, and degree of contact between these units. Common household residence is not regarded as essential to the definition of nuclear or extended family units. The degree of economic interdependence is viewed as the major factor underlying the tendency for the other variables to cluster together. Four modal types of families are then defined on the basis of the above classificatory principles. These four types are : extended, modified extended, modified nuclear, and nuclear, The definition of these concepts differs in certain ways from current usage. This particular model appears to offer a possible solution to some of the difficulties now prevalent in classifying family types, in determining their relative frequency in major kinds of societies, and in clarifying the relationship between technological development and family forms.