A FAMILY, I cherish

I saw a monkey called Bobo grow up to be the leader of a group of monkeys although it had been adopted by the nursing mother of another group of monkeys just after bobo's mum died during birth.
HAD BOBO A FAMILY?
And why would a 'monkey' adopt the abandoned offspring of another?

A family is defined sociologically as a group of two or more people living together and related by birth, marriage or adoption.

And when we live with these people what do we have in common? What do we share with each other? Values, norms? Or just oxygen and vanity?

Knowledge in this area can be related to:
Family diversity e.g. Relations with wider kin forms of extended family, old age,
Economic e.g. consumption, production, survival, etc
Political e.g. socialisation, social control, identity etc
Cultural e.g. reproduction, sex, education, health, religion etc
Psychological e.g. love, trust, affection, stability - for emotional support functions

My sociology teacher once defined 'culture' as the accepted way of doing things in a particular society.......single out the word "'particular'" .
But what is the accepted way? and why do we accept a particular way?
I asked this question 15yrs ago and I still remember that he said.........YOU, FAMILY, community, SOCIETY.
He said it was like fitting little bowls into other bowls with each one larger than the other. BUT making sure that you began with the right one because you have got to fit all of them!
So how do we define a family? if we cannot fit it into a community or society?

In Africa, a family even ends up being a group of people with a common background, some eat in the same plates what ever their ages, others build compounds in other to be nearer each other, others have matrilineal successions where the child succeeds the uncle, others own land.....BUT NONE will abandon another in a storm or in the rain or outside when it is cold because he/she is not family.

But it comes with a Dark Side, which can be:
Organisational: e.g. division of family labour
Class: can bring out the difference between different social classes
Cultural: can also bring out the difference between different ethnic cultures
Life-course can also bring out differences in family relationships at different stages in an individual's life

I understood why in the popular mafia film "The GODFATHER" Marlon Brando makes a catch phrase that even those that had no bases of a family could repeat...................'never go against the family'.
I wonder what his definition of the family in that movie was...............blood relations, Or relationship? We all know how far he defended 'his'.
Pride is one of the deadliest sins BUT I do not think it is as deadly as the idea of going against the family..................what ever the reason.
How do we make each other understand our differences? How could we fight greed, gluttony, envy, jealousy, anger, laziness.........................by the way, which definition of 'family' will be the right one in a world in which NO BODY compromises?... or Should we change the WORD?
to favour what ever we are thinking in our favour?

What would you do if a person came from a different background and told you that you should change the definition of a family? i.e. reduce it to mother, father and child ( that is a standard nuclear family) instead of broadening it to mother, father, child, uncles, aunts, cousins, nephews, grandpa, grandma (an extended Family).
What reason would such a person give you apart from the few afore mentioned, like pride, envy, anger, jealousy, fear, gluttony, sluggishness.
And what would you think of such a person?

I sometimes wonder if there is a typical family structure in ANY society because most societies are typified by diversity of family structures and forms resulting in a general worldwide increase in single-parent family structures also known as FAMILIES, if our expert definition still holds.

The main causes of these single structure families can be;
Death: which this time is not to be commented upon.
Divorce: Where allowed, Separation and Desertion
Choice: Lifestyle choice………….. Is it really a choice?
Decline in religion: Is it as a result of our moral decadence

In Fact, we all know that even in diversity, majority spend some of their life in a conventional nuclear family arrangement. It sometimes involves different relationships and experiences. But it ends up with the fact that the core of our society remains with the family no matter the definition we take to sooth our views! What then will be our reason to care whether it is a nuclear or extended family/ if we cannot stay away from a form of family?

I do thus adhere to what ever it is that they call a family.