ABSTRACT
The family is one of the primary groups of society, concerned with face-to-face relationships. Throughout man's history, however, and throughout the world both the family and the institution of marriage display a considerable cultural variability. There are two main types of family, namely the extended family and the nuclear family. The extended family or kin-group is found in the West Indies and in such countries as India and Pakistan, and includes a span of three generations within the total household. The family also has a reproductive function as distinct from the mere exercise of the sexual function. The nuclear family, however small, is a social cell or social microcosm, through which society is perpetuated and recreated. The child has to learn how to live within the differentiated subsystem of society', that is, his family or home; but this is simply the playground, as it were, of socialization.
