Tradition
Nuclear family
Overview
A nuclear family – also called an elementary family, atomic family, or conjugal family – is a family group consisting of two parents and their children (one or more), typically living in one home residence. The term is used in contrast to both a single-parent family and a larger extended family (which may include more than two parents). A nuclear family typically centers on a married couple that may have any number of children.
Definitions differ among observers. Some definitions restrict the term to only biological children who are full-blood siblings, others consider adopted or half- and step-siblings a part of the immediate family, but another definition allows for a step-parent and any mix of dependent children, including stepchildren and adopted children.
Some sociologists and anthropologists consider the extended family structure to be the most common family structure in most cultures and at most times for humans, rather than the nuclear family.
The term nuclear family was popularized in the 20th century. Since that time, the number of North American nuclear families has been gradually decreasing, while the number of alternative family formations has increased.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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The meaning of the term was then extended to the government of that great family, the State. To distinguish these two senses of the word, the latter is called _general_ or _political_ economy, and the former domestic or particular economy. The first only is discussed in the present discourse. Even if there were as close an analogy as many authors maintain between the State and the family, it would not follow that…
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The social contract & discourses
States what Nuclear family is; the author is tied to Nuclear family in the knowledge graph.
The members of this body are called magistrates or kings, that is to say, rulers. This body, as a whole, considered in relation to its members, is called the prince, and considered in its actions it is called the government. If we consider the action of the whole body upon itself, that is to say, the relation of the whole to the whole, of the sovereign to the state, we can compare this relation to that of the…
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile
States what Nuclear family is; the author is tied to Nuclear family in the knowledge graph.
In both these forms it carries on its task of binding men and women to one another, and it does this with greater intensity than can be achieved through the interest of work in common. The casual and undifferentiated way in which the word ‘love’ is employed by language has its genetic justification. In general usage the relation between a man and a woman whose genital desires have led them to found a family is…
Sigmund Freud, Civilization and its discontents
States what Nuclear family is.
Philosophers who discussed Nuclear family
Related ideas
- Family
- Child
- India
- Latin
- Western world
- Oxford English Dictionary
- Merriam-Webster
- Scientific Revolution
- Tradition
- Pew Research Center
Place in the tradition
Part of Conservatism.