Defining family structures and relationships

¶ … Family

We live in a time when the definition of family is changing, and I myself personally support the change. Human social organization is not a fixed quantity that works in the same way everywhere at all times. For example, the Oxford English Dictionary defines "family" as "a group consisting of two parents and their children living together as a unit" or "a group of people related by blood or marriage." Yet the shifting definition over time is indicated by the accepted etymology for the word, from the Latin "familia" meaning "household servants, family" from "famulus" meaning "servant." (OED 1989). This reflects the fact that in ancient Rome, slavery was a commonplace and accepted fact of life: any household that was being defined as a family would have included slaves, even though this would have included multiples sets of parents and children. People in 2014 who decry the changing definition of family fail to notice that the change in definition is built into the etymology of the very word "family" -- it is worth asking if these people are sufficiently reactionary to urge a return to slavery in order to be more faithful to the root meaning of the word itself. In point of fact, the notion that a family is restricted to one set of parents and their children is undercut by the fact that we routinely use the qualifier "nuclear family" to refer to this arrangement. It is also worth noting that, even in the most conventional definition offered, the Oxford English Dictionary declines to assign a gender to the parents who are living as a unit with their children. This is a crucial element to the way that the concept of family is being redefined in the twenty-first century, and I will return to this subject in due course.

But we should begin with an acknowledgement that the "normal" definition is, in a very real sense, not exactly normal. Many of us are familiar with the (now-outdated) definition of the "average" American family as having a mother, a father, and 2.3 children. I bring up this old definition to make a point: there was never an American family that had 2.3 children, as this is a mathematical average and not an observable reality. To attempt to fit something as unruly as human social behavior onto a fixed definition or norm is always a doomed enterprise. This is something that Don and Sandra Hockenbury emphasize in their textbook Discovering Psychology:

…diversity in adult relationships reflects the fact that adult social development does not always follow a predictable pattern. As you travel through adulthood, your life story may include many unanticipated twists in the plot and changes in the cast of characters. Just as the "traditional" family structure has its joys and heartaches, so do other configurations of intimate and family relationships. In the final analysis, any relationship that promotes the overall sense of happiness and well-being of the people involved is a successful one. (Hockenbury and Hockenbury, 406)

I should make it clear that my own definition of family is one that embraces the "diversity' that the Hockenburys emphasize here. A family is basically any social grouping that contains more than one person, but which "promotes the overall sense of happiness and well-being of the people involved." This seems to be the Hockenburys' definition: it is certainly the definition that I would endorse.

It is worth acknowledging some statistics about how the definition of family has been changing in the twenty-first century. Nathalie Angier in the New York Times acknowledges that even the most recent definitions are subject to revision far more rapidly than anyone might have thought possible. As she puts it,

Researchers who study the structure and evolution of the American family express unsullied astonishment at how rapidly the family has changed in recent years, the transformations often exceeding or capsizing those same experts' predictions of just a few journal articles ago. (Angier 2013)

Sharon Jayson quotes the results of a 2010 Pew Research Center poll that indicates some interesting and novel results. According to Jayson, "86% say a single parent and a child are a family" and "80% say an unmarried couple living together with a child is a family" and "63% say a gay or lesbian couple raising a child is a family" and "88% say a childless married couple is a family" -- although surprisingly only "54% say a cohabiting couple with no children is a family" (Jayson 2010). There seem to be a number of contradictory impulses underlying these statistics. For a start, it is worth noting that a majority is always willing to extend the defintion as broadly as possible -- even the case of the 54% who are willing to extend the definition to an unmarried couple with no children, this is still a small majority (although it is the smallest percentage of those recorded in the 2010 poll). I think this indicates a good start, as I personally would be willing to extend the definition as broadly as possible. But the other impulses seem to be conflicted -- certainly an element of bigotry enters into the 36% of people who would deny the word "family" to a gay or lesbian couple raising a child. But overall it would seem that people in general are willing to acknowledge that any household which contains children would seem, functionally, to be a family -- yet the largest percentage, 88%, wish to extend the definition to cover a married couple without stigmatizing childlessness. I think the most reasonable conclusion to reach is that all of these social groupings are recognized as families by over half of the respondents in the poll.