ABSTRACT
DEVELOPMENTAL SEQUENCE OF THE HOUSEHOLD GROUP THE real starting point of the development of all household groups is the birth of children, and it is around their care and protection that domestic relations tend to crystallize. Some
writers on the West Indies have tended to place the primary emphasis upon the marital relationship, and to classify households according to the type of conjugal union (or absence of it), on which they are 'based' (1). We are approaching the problem from a somewhat different point of view in that we are stressing the functions which all household groups fulfil, and examining the various constellations of relationships which exist within these groups at different stages of their development.
