What is....a Family?

Question:

What is....a Family?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Excellent question. Remind me to put the star on this one.

Because obviously, there are many, many different answers possible, depending on a great many variables. In law? Oh, what a sticky wicket! That's a whole great big branch of law.

Household is a better word for a lot of situations. People who live together and feel like a family, but also have family or family-feeling links to people who live elsewhere and visit often. Hang out with you a lot. This, too, can be a family, especially if you have hippies in your Family.

Tribe is another word. For many anthropologists, the line between "tribe" and "family" is a rich source of detail and complexity. The Chief or the Matriarch of a tribe is usually not literally the parent or grand parent of them all, but of substantial numbers of them, and integrated with marriage into the tribe. That, too, can go matriarchal or patriarchal. There are advantages and disadvantages to each.

In the end, a family must be essentially self-defined. We are a family because we say we are. So there. Like it or lump it.