A Social Institution – the Family

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A Social Institution – The Family The social institutions around the world from the beginning of man’s existence have always had an enormous impact on the ideology, construction, and interaction of individuals within what we call society. While there are many social institutions that impact our society only one stands out as the institution with the most influence and that institution is called the “Family”. Family is the most influential institution because it is where every individual in our society garner the basic concepts, ideologies, and moral understanding of behavior that he or she are expected to display within the social network of any society. There are many factors that impact as well as influence the concepts, ideologies, and moral understanding of behavior that any family adopts or adhere to which will ultimately be the determining factor in how well the individuals of any given society interact with each other whether it be in an amicably or contentiously manner. It was during the 1800’s when scholars began their studies of the unit called “Family”; during their studies these scholars described the family unit as consisting of a father, a mother, and the child or children. Their studies provided data that indicated that the parents were the ones who were solely responsible for supplying the care, housing, sustenance, education, and support that each individual in the family would require in order to become a productive and viable member of society. For many decades this was the accepted understanding of just about all the scholars who at that time were doing research on how the structure and philosophy of the parents would eventually impact the accepted norms and interactions of all individuals in our society. As time went on the study of the family unit began to expand to the point where researchers began to realize that
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