Guardianship is a legal process that transfers decision-making authority over an individual (a ward) deemed incapable of managing his or her personal or financial affairs to another person (the guardian). Guardians may be appointed for both minors and adults. Modern guardianship has its roots in English common law, a legal system which England then transported to its colonies. Under English common…
A growing body of research has shown that family plays an important role, if not the most important role (Doherty 1993), in shaping our health attitudes and behaviors. This is important because positive health behaviors have been shown to significantly affect physical and mental health (Grzywacz and Marks 1999). Prior to understanding the role the family plays in the adoption of health attitudes a…
As with any large group, the 7.6 million Hispanic/Latino/Spanish families in the United States comprise a socially diverse population. Thus an analysis of Latino/a group composition and diversity challenges the tendency to use stereotypes. The U.S. Bureau of the Census notes, for example, that Hispanics/Latinos may be of any race—including Asian, Native American, European, African, or Middl…
Home refers to the geographic region, place, or dwelling that family members identify as a familiar residence to which they can return. Home is not a physical structure, but a complex symbolic concept. The symbols of home are constructed from references to physical, temporal, and affective, or emotional, dimensions of everyday acts of dwelling. …
Home economics as a field of study in the United States was formed before the start of the twentieth century by a group of women, most of whom were scientifically educated and reform-oriented, as well as men who were interested in applying science and philosophy to improving everyday life. Frustrated by the lack of opportunity for educated women in the male-dominated disciplines, they met at the L…
Homeless families are those that either lack shelter or have shelter that is so inadequate, temporary, or insecure that the situation threatens the social, psychological, or physical health of the family. Homeless families are a departure from the classic homeless image of the single male, detached from society and disaffiliated from kin, friends, and work. Homeless families receive attention in l…
Homeschooling is a form of education for children and youth that is based mainly in the home and is clearly directed by their parents. Parents retain the main responsibility for and authority over their children's education and training, rather than sending them away to classroom institutions where their education would be controlled and conducted largely by nonfamily state or private teach…
The honeymoon is a peculiarly modern creation. Building on wedding customs of Europe in the late 1800s, the honeymoon has evolved into a ritual that nearly all people in the United States and Canada practice and that has grown in popularity around the world (Bulcroft, Smeins, and Bulcroft 1999). What distinguishes the honeymoon of today from its precursor, the wedding night, is the element of dist…
Hospice programs have the mission of supporting a meaningful quality of life for terminally ill people and their families. What exactly is a hospice program? How and why did these programs begin? What kind of assistance do they provide? How can terminally ill people and their families make informed decisions about seeking the hospice option? Questions such as these have been raised with increasing…
Housework is the term used to describe the physical and emotional labor performed in the household, generally in the service of family and typically accomplished by women. …
Housing is a built form, or dwelling, where people engage in daily activities that sustain residents, such as eating, sleeping, economic activities, and socialization. Housing comes in many architectural forms, including single-family detached houses, apartments, or row housing. Housing refers here to the various forms of shelter used by families. The study of housing can be approached from nearly…
Theories of human interaction should provide a way of making sense of events that have happened in the past, and then allow us to make predictions about what may happen in the future. Human ecology theory is a way of looking at the interactions of humans with their environments and considering this relationship as a system. In this theoretical framework, biological, social, and physical aspects of…
Early marriages, a relatively small proportion of single men and women, and a high level of fertility have historically characterized the Hungarian population. The family has traditionally played an important role in Hungarian society. The sociological and demographic analyses carried out during the 1990s have shown that the family is more important for people than other areas of life (e.g., work,…
A husband is a male partner in a marriage. Most cultures recognize this common social status with a specific affinal kinship term. In most times and places, men have been expected to become husbands at some point in their adulthood. The stage at which this happens varies greatly, however, as does the social role a husband may play in a family and the legal rights and constraints of his status. Muc…
The Hutterites are an Anabaptist group, along with the Amish and the Mennonites. Jacob Hutter founded the religion in central Europe in the middle 1500s. The official name of the religion is the Hutterian Brethren. Today, they total about 45,000 members living in more than 400 colonies. They are the oldest family communal group in the Western world, but they consider the community to be more impor…
Immigration is the term used to describe the process of a person entering and settling as a permanent resident in another country; emigration is the process of leaving one's country of origin. When the term immigration is used, emigration is assumed to have occurred first. Emigrating is the beginning and immigrating is the end of the process of international migration. International migrati…
Incest is the sexual exploitation of a person who is legally unable to give informed consent due to age, intellect, and/or physical impairment by an older person having a close family blood tie (e.g., parent, grandparent, sibling, aunt, uncle, or cousin) or a substitute for such a blood tie (e.g., stepparent, stepbrother, or stepsister). In short, incest can be defined as the sexual exploitation o…
The incest taboo is one of the oldest and most perplexing mysteries encountered by students of human society. Historically, western scholars believed that the incest taboo—long proposed as a cultural universal—is vital to understanding the human condition. Thus, interest in the incest taboo has an extensive history. Although the incest taboo varies in meaning by society, it is freque…
India is a secular and pluralistic society characterized by tremendous cultural and ethnic diversity. It is made up of twenty-eight states and seven union territories. There are eighteen different languages and more than 300 dialects spoken by the Indian people. Indians practice many religions. Hinduism is the dominant religion in India, but through the centuries Indians have learned to coexist wi…
The Republic of Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous nation, has 203 million people living on nearly 1,000 permanently settled islands. Java and Madura hold about 60 percent of the nation's population. Some 200–300 ethnic groups with their own languages and cultures inhabit the nation, some numbering in the millions, some in the thousands. The national motto, Unity in D…
Industrialization refers to the mechanization of production, and particularly the substitution of human and animal labor by mineral power, such as coal, water, and steam. Two other processes, however, that preceded mechanization had a major impact on family life: agrarian reform that made the production of food more efficient, at once increasing the quantity of food and releasing human labor from …
Infanticide is the deliberate killing of infants under the age of one year. This restricted definition conceptualizes infanticide as a postnatal abortion procedure rather than as a type of child abuse. Infanticide and abortion are often used as family planning mechanisms, carried out to protect the health of unweaned children, the family economy, or the mother's social standing. Information…
Infidelity is a breach of trust that signifies a lack of faithfulness to a moral obligation to one's partner. Infidelity usually implies sexual infidelity, although some people, particularly women, regard an intense emotional relationship as an unfaithful extramarital involvement, even when there is no physical component. In short, infidelity is feelings or behavior that go against a partne…
Relationships with in-laws are a special category within kinship systems that has not been widely studied. Generally, kin relationships are defined by either blood (consanguine) ties or marriage (affinal) ties. Blood relationships are bound together by genetic lines, but relationships based on marriage are bound together by law and a code of conduct that accompanies them. In-law relationships are …