Definition Of Extended Family Essay

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Marriage is the first step in constructing kin-ship based corporate groups. Marriage brings together individuals from different in and corporate group and binds them into one or a new group. Hence, marriage is also considered a socially recognized relationship between two or more people that establish a kin-based group and that provides norms and roles for residence, property ownership and inheritance, labour, sexual relations and child bearing. Marriage can also be defined as a series of customs formalizing the relationship between male and female adults within the family. Marriage is a socially approved union between a man and woman that regulates the sexual and economic rights and obligations between them. It usually involves an explicit …show more content…

Extended families provide large numbers of workers who are necessary for success in both farm production and the marketing of surpluses. Secondly in farm economics where cultivated land is valuable an extended family system prevents the land from being continually subdivided into smaller and less productive plots. Other definitions of the extended family may include the stem family. A stem family is linked with economic and material shortage, in which the possibility that the resources of a family may be lost due to process of division and separation between children and kin is avoided by one household (of a son) actually taking over the residential space of its ancestor. Only one child is co-resident with his parents, and only he will be able to start a family so that upon the death of his parents, such a son will immediately take over the space and material possessions of his father. Thus, any inheritance can pass directly to him instead of being distributed among many sons and their families. Hence, the formation of only one 'stem' creates the continued existence of the

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