Social institutions are a complex of institutions, rules and norms. Their existence is associated with the group activities of people. The family is one such institution.
Instructions
Step 1
In the process of institutionalization, experimental and spontaneous behavior is replaced by regulated, predictable and expected behavior. The key stages of this process can be called: the emergence of needs that can only be satisfied as a result of joint organized actions, the emergence of special rules and norms in the course of social interaction, the adoption and application of these rules, the formation of a system of statuses and roles.
Step 2
The family is a socially sanctioned and relatively permanent association of people related by marriage, kinship or adoption, living together and economically dependent on each other. It implies the implementation of special social functions, such as, for example, raising children, and its social values are based on the intertwining of statuses and roles.
Step 3
Certain norms are characteristic of any social institution. In the family, they are family prohibitions and allowances. Loyalty, respect, affection, responsibility, love can be named as family-specific attitudes and patterns of behavior. The symbolic signs of this social institution are marriage rituals and wedding rings. Utilitarianly, a family is characterized by a common house, an apartment, and the furniture in it.
Step 4
Social institutions perform the function of consolidating and reproducing social relations. It is associated with the standardization of established social ties and the standardization of behavior in certain areas. We can say that the function of a social institution is to set the rules of the game.
Step 5
The family performs the reproductive function, the function of transferring status and estate property, as well as the function of emotional satisfaction of its members. In addition, it carries out sexual regulation, provides socialization (transfer of accumulated experience from generation to generation), performs communicative, protective and economic functions (family members usually run the household together).
Step 6
There are different types of family structures. In form, the family can be nuclear, consisting of parents and children dependent on them, or extended, if it includes any other relatives. A marriage can be monogamous or polygamous. If a marriage is concluded within a certain group, they talk about the endogamous choice of a putative partner, if outside a certain group - about exogamous.
