The nuclear family or elementary family is a term used to define a family group consisting of a pair of adults and their children. This is in contrast to a polygamous family, single-parent family, and to the larger extended family. Nuclear families typically center on a married couple, but not always; the nuclear family may have any number of children. There are differences in definition among observers; some definitions allow only biological children that are full-blood siblings, while others allow for a stepparent and any mix of dependent children including stepchildren and adopted children.
Family structures of a single married couple and their children were present in Western Europe and New England in the 17th century, influenced by church and theocratic governments. With the emergence of proto-industrialization and early capitalism, the nuclear family became a financially viable social unit. The term nuclear family first appeared in the early twentieth century. Alternative definitions have evolved to include family units headed by same-sex parents, and perhaps additional adult relatives who take on a cohabiting parental role; in this later case it also receives the name of conjugal family.
The concept that a narrowly defined nuclear family is central to stability in modern society has been promoted by modern social conservatives in the United States, and has been challenged as historically and sociologically inadequate to describe the complexity of actual family relations.
Read more about Nuclear Family: Usage of The Term, Compared To Extended Family, Changes To Family Formation, American Conservatism
Famous quotes containing the words nuclear and/or family:
“The problems of the world, AIDS, cancer, nuclear war, pollution, are, finally, no more solvable than the problem of a tree which has borne fruit: the apples are overripe and they are falling—what can be done?... Nothing can be done, and nothing needs to be done. Something is being done—the organism is preparing to rest.”
—David Mamet (b. 1947)
“The family environment in which your children are growing up is different from that in which you grew up. The decisions our parents made and the strategies they used were developed in a different context from what we face today, even if the “content” of the problem is the same. It is a mistake to think that our own experience as children and adolescents will give us all we need to help our children. The rules of the game have changed.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)