ABSTRACT
There are varied interpretations of what constitutes a family. The family can be thought of as a social institution set up to perform various functions (Leslie 1982). Leslie goes on to elaborate that a social institution is a system of social norms with regard to rules of conduct for its members. The rules of conduct are introduced to new members through the process of socialization, thereby learning the culture of a given society. These ideas would apply to the various countries that make up modern day Africa. There is likely to be a diversity of rules of conduct across the continent to reflect size of the geographical land mass. Scott (2001:48) offers his view indicating that institutions are social structures that have attained a high degree of resilience. The family would meet the resilience criteria despite modifications and the changes that have occurred within the last century. However, Giddens (2006) suggests that in some remote regions in Africa, traditional family systems are little altered. I would argue that these remote regions are likely now to be a minority because changes have been occurring since the beginning of the twenty-first century and many more African people have access to international information via cell phone network systems. Some of the changes relating to family systems in Africa are linked to new attitude formation as highlighted by Mvududu and McFadden (2001:74) in their WLSA study on reconceptualizing the African family in Southern Africa. WLSA studies show that there can be no one definition of the family – families exist which reflect the diverse and ever changing relationships through which identity, rights, entitlements, resources and power are contested, negotiated and distributed or accessed. Among the many functions performed by the family within the framework of the ever changing relationships, they could be classified into four units, namely: reproduction, socialization of children, economic cooperation
and common residence. How such functional units are organized is dependent on cultural norms. Functionalists, according to Giddens (2006), have regarded the nuclear family as fulfilling certain specialized roles in modern societies. Such a nuclear family would be composed of two adults living together in a household with their children. The nuclear family has become the norm in Western countries because the demands of modern industrialized societies are best served by such an arrangement of family life. Advocates of the nuclear family see it as the ideal in family living.
