ABSTRACT
The family is a localized element in a society, an element that is orientated to the task of dealing with the arrival of a new individual. The nature of the family naturally varies with the pattern of the society. Behind the idea of the family is recognition of the individual small child’s initial need of a simplified version of society, until development brings about in the child a capacity for using a wider circle, and indeed an ever-widening circle. Societies vary in their conscious support of the family as the unit known to be of the right size and kind for meeting the need of the child as he emerges out of a two-body relationship to the mother and develops a capacity for making a three-body relationship. A rough outline of the dynamics of family life will include those factors in parents tending to form and maintain the family structure and those tending to disrupt it.
