Kin groups have been the matrix from which every other form of social organization evolved. In the simplest societies, almost every aspect of life was centred within the family. Kin-groups were all-purpose organizations that provided for their member’s political, economic, educational, religious and recreational needs.
This could not last for long. As societies grew in size and complexity, relationships had to be established between individuals who were not related to one another. And people who were related had to become involved in relationships that violated the norms of the kinship system – for for example, an individual of inferior rank in an extended family was put in a position where he exercised political authority over relatives of higher rank in the kin group.
While the functions of kin groups began to change thousands of years ago, no type of society has ever gone as far in altering their role as modern industrial societies.
The changes are as follows:
- Structure of family – in advanced industrial societies ties of kinship are greatly reduced The extended family is often so scattered that meaningful relations among its members are nearly impossible, Furthermore, the nuclear family is no longer the basic unit of production, as it was in agrarian societies. Productive activities have been transferred to corporations, state enterprises and other such organizations, in politics, family ownership has been eliminated. Finally, the schools have assumed many of the family’s responsibilities of training and supervising children.
- Basic functions of family – Today, the family’s basic function is to order the private and personal aspects of the lives of its members. This means continued responsibility for some of its historic functions reproduction, child-rearing, and the channeling of sexual behaviour – as well as new or enlarged responsibilities with respect to personality development, effective relationships, and the consumption of goods and services.
- Marriage – one of the clearest indications of the change is in the area of courtship and marriage, in most horticultural, herding, agrarian and maritime societies, marriage was thought of largely in economic terms. This was reflected in the practice of arranged marriages, in which the parents took the major responsibility for deciding whom their son or daughter would marry, and also bride price or dowry.
- Divorce – if the marriage fails to line up to expectations, there are relatively few economic, moral or legal impediments to its dissolution. Smaller families, the development of nursery facilities, and above all, more job opportunities for woman make it much easier for divorces to establish and maintain their own households. Thus, divorce in an industrial society does not usually force a woman to return to her father’s household or become dependent on a brother or uncle, as it would in an agrarian society
- widowhood and re-marriage – In agrarian societies , a very high proportion of families were broken during the child-bearing and child rearing years of families were broken during the child-bearing and child rearing years by the death of both or one of the parents, in most countries this pattern resulted in frequent marriages. Marriages between widows and widowers were common and led to merged families with complicated combinations of half-brothers and half-sisters. In modern industrial societies, widowhood before middle age is relatively infrequent; This means that the likelihood of the nuclear family’s disruption was actually considerably greater in agrarian societies despite the rise in the divorce rate in many industrial nations.
- Loosening of ties – Another basic change in family life is the loosening of ties among the members. The agrarian family, tended to be a work group, this was almost true, in the case of peasants and was typical in case of artisans. The place of work and the place of residence were normally the same, and all members of the family, including children, shared in the work.
In industrial societies, very few men work at home and most work too far away to return even for the midday meal, The same is true of married women and the schools now draw children out of the family for a major part of their working hours and time.
Yet for all the short comings of modern industrial societies, it is doubtful that many people would elect the older agrarian way of life with its widespread poverty, hunger, injustice, ignorance, exploitation and disease. Taken as a whole, the agrarian way of life was inferior to the industrial, and the best evidence of this is the eagerness that most of the members of agrarian societies, migrate to industrial societies when they have the chance, and the reluctance of members of industrial societies to migrate to agrarian societies.
Therefore, industrial societies, for all their defects, represent a significant advance over agrarian societies, while a few individuals may not share this judgment, the vast majority clearly do.