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Home and FamilyAnswering Service > Call Center Resource > Home and Family >Home is a place where a person lives, spends much of her time, or feels generally comfortable with. While a house (or other residential dwelling) is often referred to as a home, and is home to many people, the concept of "home" is broader than a physical dwelling. Home is often a place of refuge and safety, where worldy cares fade, with things and people you love becoming the focus. Home is central to one's life, primarily emotional, and partially physical. (http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Home) Family, a basic unit of social structure, the exact definition of which can vary greatly from time to time and from culture to culture. How a society defines family as a primary group, and the functions it asks families to perform, are by no means constant. There has been much recent discussion of the nuclear family, which consists only of parents and children, but the nuclear family is by no means universal. In the United States, the percentage of households consisting of a nuclear family declined from 45% in 1960 to 23.5% in 2000. In preindustrial societies, the ties of kinship bind the individual both to the family of orientation, into which one is born, and to the family of procreation, which one founds at marriage and which often includes one's spouse's relatives. The nuclear family also may be extended through the acquisition of more than one spouse (polygamy and polygyny), or through the common residence of two or more married couples and their children or of several generations connected in the male or female line. This is called the extended family; it is widespread in many parts of the world, by no means exclusively in pastoral and agricultural economies. The primary functions of the family are reproductive, economic, social, and educational; it is through kin—itself variously defined—that the child first absorbs the culture of his group.Evolution of the Western Family The patriarchal family, which prevailed among the ancient Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans, is often associated with polygamy (see marriage). In Rome, the paterfamilias was the only person recognized as an independent individual under the law. He possessed all religious rights as priest of the family ancestor cult, all economic rights as sole owner of the family property, and power of life and death over the members of the family. At his death, his name, property, and authority descended to his male heirs. The Roman system was transferred in many of its details into both the canon and secular law of Western Europe. (http://www.reference.com/browse/columbia/family) Subcategories- Alternative Energy- Antiques - Babies - Barbecue - Books - Clocks - Crafts and Hobbies - Elderly Care - Family Planning - First Aid and Safety - Flower Arrangement - Furniture - General Home and Family - Gardening and Landscaping - Genealogy - Gift Ideas - Hobbies - Holidays - Home Accessories - Home Improvement - Home Miscellaneous - Home Repair - House Cleaning - Home Security - Household Tips - Interior Design - Kids - Landscaping - Parental care - Parenting - Pets - Pregnancy - Marriage - Scrapbooking - Self Defense - Sewing - Toddlers - Woodworking |