Is family socially or biologically constructed?

[Mannify]

I don’t know if this is a subject that is of any remote interest to anyone else, but I am both personally and intellectually interested in how the concept of family is constructed within various societies. Although reason dictates to me that there isn’t a universal truth on the matter, ultimately I have a stronger belief in family as a social construct, rather than a biological one.

 

For many in our Minority World society family is primarily biologically constructed, and acknowledgement of social constructions of family are viewed as an enlightened concession. So, tellingly, it wasn’t until the 1920s that the Adoption Act was passed which actually legitimised adoption as a form of family, and towards the end of the last millennium a ‘father’ sued the mother of a boy for allowing him to think that he was his son and raise him as his own. The court ruled in his favour, underscoring the high value placed on consanguinity within the UK.

 

In many other cultures, however, family is not so clearly defined; social factors override, and in some cases sweep aside, any notion of parental relatedness based on biology. The Nuer tribe in Africa, for example, have the custom of ‘ghost marriage’ whereby an older, infertile woman can ‘marry’ a young woman who then takes lovers. Any children borne of this union are the older woman’s – her desire for the children being considered the act of conception. Aboriginal tradition has it that the ‘mother’ and ‘father’ merely take care of the spirit children, both biologically during gestation and physically thereafter by caring and attending to the child. Even within Minority World societies there are relatively recent examples of families constructed by many factors other than purely biological connection. One such is ‘The Flats’ in America in the 1970s. This compact community in a poor quarter of an American city displayed a fluid concept of family in which children lived with friends and friends of family according to convenience, desire to care for children and financial situation.

 

The global context suggests that consanguinity is by no means the only way to construct family. My own personal experience is of meeting my real father when I was 18, and not experiencing that rush of blood recognition that people tend to expect of such reunions. I know that some people experience such ‘completion’ when they meet family, especially parents or siblings, for the first time. But I wonder whether this is actually a kind of placebo effect? Does society dictate such reactions to the extent that such feelings are realised? Personally, I tend to agree with J. Millum (2010), who proposes that an ‘investment of care’ is a more reasoned marker of family and parental rights. My own experience of socially constructed (i.e. step) family has not been great. Nonetheless, I still deem it more meaningful (not inevitably in a positive way, of course) than what I believe to be the somewhat arbitrary criterion of blood-relatedness, which has only become provable with the advent of DNA testing, anyway. Of course, biological connection is most often the foundation on which family is built, but I would argue that social construction is the overriding influence, whether there is consanguinity or not.

 

Anyway, that’s what I think, and it may be a load of rot, but it’s something that fascinates me and a subject on which I am interested other people’s views.

[Sa Skimrande]

I believe family to be a social construct and that because I have lived in an extended family by marriage and the family concerned I was at one time closer to than my own family. You see I came from a family that did not do hugs, but the family I married into did and it took me a long time to understand the closeness that can exist in families.

 

Added to that the whole family thing where someone in our family which has done the genealogy thing and discovered our family surname is incorrect something went wrong in the nineteenth century leaving us all wondering where we are, do we stick with what most of us don't like through the irritable rhyming connotations because that is the way it is or do we change it back to where it should be. But then none of then males in the family seem to be having offspring so our branch of the family name will be dying out this century anyway.

 

But even with other parts of the family, they don't do hugs either, so this closeness thing I do understand comes from well closeness, actual bodily contact, the intermingling of auras even, not the fact you came from the same human as humans that don't hug perhaps don't feel close.

 

Edited to add, but that is my perspective as an ASD person where it is believed ASD people can't feel close, yet I dispute that for we can but it takes a while, because we tend to engage the brain to work out what it is we are feeling and is it good, bad or indifferent and do we need it or can we do without it.

Edited November 3, 2012 by Sa Skimrande

[Mannify]

Cool, another one in the social construct camp. Thanks for posting, Sa Skimrande.

[Shnoing]

On the topic of adoption: for some time the Roman Emperors adopted the one they wanted to rule after their death. So at least there you have the social construct of a family of rulers.

 

On the personal level: I've got two step-daughters and they are pretty much family in the same sense as the (blood-related) sons.

 

And the incest taboo works between people who have known each other from early on, regardless of their "blood status". (Siblings who were separated after birth don't feel that taboo).

Edited November 3, 2012 by Shnoing

[LancsLad]

If I was to base this on personal experience I would have to put a foot in both camps. A lot of that would be based on experience of foster care and being involved in some pretty unconventional situation because a lot of our work was about integrating kids back into family scenarios rather than holding on to them up to the age of 17.

 

On one side of the argument biological ties are imensly strong in a lot of individuals. No matter how destructive and abusive relationships have been family is still family and that means something because there is often no real alternative. A lot of people would be surprised that even after being on the recieving end of a lot of pretty severe abuse of all kinds and severe neglect kids can still be very loving to their family members even when they facilitated the abuse. So I would have to say there is a massive biological element in our coding in respect to familly.

 

On the other hand I see the very same kids as being survivors and part of survivability is adaptation. They can have a very transient approach to what is family and even for a short period of a few weeks or months they can be a very real part of a meaningful social group. Because we had places and a place might be two siblings and we were involved in emergency care the structure of our family was very often changing on a monthly basis, the only constant being me and my partner and very often one of us was out in respect to work or other responsibilities. As a result social positions were changing all the time and the role of the oldest child might for example not be based on age but on occupancy of a bed as that entailed knowing where food was, what the local area was like, giving the low down on the two adults etc... So I can see family very much as a flexible social construct.

 

I believe at the end of the day we see what we want to see as our family and I believe a lot of that decision making is based on serving each others needs. When out needs might not be met by biological associations we often turn to something within our existing social scenarios, who is to say what is wrong or right just as long as things work for both parties.

[justine1]

I think a bit of both. My family is very diverse so I think social from that aspect. My mum's father left her when she was 4 and she was raised(then adopted)by her step father and father of her siblings. We grew up knowing him as grandpa and she never knew anyone other than him as her dad. She has always felt the need to find him but at the same time I think she has accepted things how they are and knows the relationship she had with her "dad" will never be replaced.

 

I have four kids with my ex,two of them do not wish to see him and we are going through the courts to sort things. My current partner "fills that gap" for Sam but not so much my eldest son. I don't think he is missing out but he does sometimes say he wishes he had a father figure. He has my brother and father in his life and they try and support him as much as possible but I just think he feels he was born into the wrong family and in some ways just accepts this.It is hard as I wish he would get along with his father but can understand why this may never happen.

 

I to had a strained relationship with my father,I did'nt think he did enough for us when my mother re-married he wanted him to pay for everything,I did'nt see him for about 4-5 years. Anyway we now get on much better since I had my own kids. In that aspect biology definatley played a bigger role as I did'nt feel any connection with my step father to accept him as a substitute father.

 

Having had my own kids I know the immense feeling I had when they were born and nothing can replace that. I would love to be a foster parent(my mum done so for 15 years and even went to adopt at one point) but I am not sure if the feelings I have for a child I care for will ever be as great as what I feel for my own kids. I would love and care for them,but I love and care for my niece and nephew and its nowhere near what I feel for mine.

[Mannify]

And the incest taboo works between people who have known each other from early on, regardless of their "blood status". (Siblings who were separated after birth don't feel that taboo).

 

Yeah, the Westermarck effect found in Kibbutzes and communities like that.

 

On one side of the argument biological ties are imensly strong in a lot of individuals. No matter how destructive and abusive relationships have been family is still family and that means something because there is often no real alternative.

 

But could that be based on the initial early years bonding, however dysfunctional that may be? I just wonder.

 

I to had a strained relationship with my father,I did'nt think he did enough for us when my mother re-married he wanted him to pay for everything,I did'nt see him for about 4-5 years. Anyway we now get on much better since I had my own kids. In that aspect biology definatley played a bigger role as I did'nt feel any connection with my step father to accept him as a substitute father.

 

But again, could this be in fact a social factor based on the bonding of early childhood?

 

Thanks all for your thoughts. These anecdotes are really interesting. I still tend to come down on shared experience being the most significant factor; like Justine, though, I find it hard to sweep aside as insignificant that tremendous rush of love you feel as your children are born.

[raydon]

I think the basis of a family is the biological bond between parent and child. This is then modified by socio-economic factors. For example, in remote locations, an extended family can be fully self sufficient and will be kept together by a stronger need for survival than is necessary for families in a city where there are external support systems. The extended family will tend to have their own system or traditions which are passed down through the generations. In small communities families can join forces, share and trade different duties.

 

In modern society there is a lot more personal independance and less control from the family, so the extended family is not as necessary for survival. The state has in some ways filled this gap and tried to normalise families by outlawing certain practices. Both systems have their pros and cons, but that is not the question. My answer is yes, the family is a social construct.

[Sa Skimrande]

 

 

Thanks all for your thoughts. These anecdotes are really interesting. I still tend to come down on shared experience being the most significant factor; like Justine, though, I find it hard to sweep aside as insignificant that tremendous rush of love you feel as your children are born.

 

You see I asume it is mostly males answering this question and as males we have no concept of what you have said above, so our experience is limited and so perhaps those best qualified to answer would be women who have given birth ?

[Mannify]

Ultimately, I still feel social factors are the overriding influence, though, because surely that rush is hormonally induced to promote bonding. But I'm sure bonding could happen without it. I'm open to persuasion, though.

[david3]

I assert that there is a difference between a biological family and, say, a social family. A biological family is the family a person is born into. These families are not always successful. By success I mean the members of a family are satisfied with membership of the family. A social family is a family a person builds around his or herself, or rather, it is a set of individuals, who, while not being biologically related, are satisfied with membership of such a group.

For example. a pair of homosexuals who are not biologically related to each could form a happy family.

I suppose that what I am saying is without the social factor linking peope the biological bond is pretty useless. I don't have to live with the peope I am biologically related to if I think the relationship between us stinks.

Norman Wisdom's father was not in his life when he was growing up and when Norman found his biological father later in his life, this father treated him like dirt.

[Shnoing]

 

... I still tend to come down on shared experience being the most significant factor; like Justine, though, I find it hard to sweep aside as insignificant that tremendous rush of love you feel as your children are born.

You see I asume it is mostly males answering this question and as males we have no concept of what you have said above, so our experience is limited and so perhaps those best qualified to answer would be women who have given birth ?

About that: I felt that overwhelming affection, too when I held my sons for the first time: one immediately after birth, the other after about 14 hours (I was working 100 miles away, and he came 2 months too early). It seems that this is due to the famous Oxytocin.

 

I don't know, though, whether my feeling would have been influenced in case they had had some other father (without me knowing, of course).

[Mannify]

I assert that there is a difference between a biological family and, say, a social family

 

But what a social constructionist would say is that either construct is realised by 'mattering'. If a community deems that the biological mother has no inherent relationship to the child, then does the relationship exist?

[darkshine]

And if the community says there is a relationship when the biological mother does not does that make the relationship exist?

[Mannify]

Yes

[Shnoing]

But what a social constructionist would say ...

Who in RL would know what a "social constructionist" has to say???

[Mannify]

Who in RL would know what a "social constructionist" has to say???

 

Well, I assure you, I do exist in real life

[Shnoing]

That may be the case, but are you listened to? In RL, I mean.

[Mannify]

Heck, no. That's exactly why I posted on here

[justine1]

About that: I felt that overwhelming affection, too when I held my sons for the first time: one immediately after birth, the other after about 14 hours (I was working 100 miles away, and he came 2 months too early). It seems that this is due to the famous Oxytocin.

 

I don't know, though, whether my feeling would have been influenced in case they had had some other father (without me knowing, of course).

 

On your last line,I personally know of two men who had the experience. One was with the partner throughout the pregnancy and childbirth,assumed it was indeed his baby,only to discover 6mths down the road it was'nt. The minute the baby was born he said he had a feeling the baby was not his but I think out of trust etc he did not raise the issue until it became too much,the feeling/bonding was just not there.

 

The second man did not know he had a child until the child was 4 years old,he said he was reluctant to bond as he was awaiting DNA testing but as soon as he hugged her for the first time he felt the "rush of love" and connection.

 

So again I think biology plays a huge part.

[Mannify]

Well, I still believe there's no universal truth on this matter, so you're as right as I am, Justine. I can think of social and circumstantial reasons for those two anecdotes, but maybe your take on it is more accurate than mine

[justine1]

Well, I still believe there's no universal truth on this matter, so you're as right as I am, Justine. I can think of social and circumstantial reasons for those two anecdotes, but maybe your take on it is more accurate than mine

 

I also thought of that... generally speaking it is definatley a bit of both I think....however my own view of life is biology does play a huge role in everything we feel,say and do. Like the story of the twins from china both adopted by separate families(I believe both American but unsure) but they have shown photo's over the years where they have the same interests,same facial expressions etc,it is very interesting regarding the nature v nurture debate. Of course there's that expression "you sound just like your mother/father" sometimes it maybe a grandparent saying that and the person has never even lived with mum/dad so no idea what they "sound like." Thats just my opinion though.

[Mannify]

When I met my father for the first time, I could see similarities between us. My husband said that we sat in the same position and that there were mannerisms alike. That heredity is involved in the formation of who we are cannot be denied. Did that make him family, though, despite a total lack of shared experience and certainly no 'investment of care'?

Edited November 19, 2012 by Mannify