CULTURAL, SOCIAL AND POLITICAL INSTITUTION

What is Family?

- It is the basic social institution and the primary group in society

- a social group characterized by common residence, economic cooperation and reproduction.
- A group of persons united by ties of marriage, blood or adoption, constituting a single household, interacting
and communicating with each other in their social roles of husband and wife, mother and father, son and
daughter, brother and sister and creating and maintaining a common culture. (Burgess and Locke)

KINSHIP - refer to the web of social relationships that form an essential part of the lives of most humans in most
societies.
- The bond of blood or marriage which binds people together in group.
- According to the Dictionary of Anthropology, kinship system includes socially recognized relationships based
on supposed as well as actual genealogical ties. These relationships are the result of social interaction and
recognized by society.

AFFINAL KINSHIP - Relationships based upon marriage or cohabitation between collaterals (people treated as the
same generation)
CONSANGUINEOUS KINSHIP Connections between people that are traced by blood

DESCENT AND MARRIAGE

DESCENT – refers to the origin or background of a person in terms of family or nationality. A descent group is a social
group whose members have common ancestry.

Types of Descent:
Unilineal - This traces descent only through a single line of ancestors, male or female. Both males and females
are members of a unilineal family, but descent links are only recognized through relatives of one
gender.
Bilateral – affiliates a person with a group of relatives related though either his or her parents.
Matrilineal – a descent of individuals that belong to their mother ; includes the mother’s brother who in some
societies may pass along inheritance to the sister’s children or succession to a sister’s son.
Patrilineal – individuals belong to their father’s descent group.

MARRIAGE – an important institutional element of the family; a cultural mechanism that ensures its continuity .
- An institution consisting of a cluster of mores and folkways, of attitudes, ideas, and ideals of definitions and
legal restritions.
- Is the foundation of the family, an inviolable social institution.
-
People marry for combined reasons: love, economic and emotional security, the parent’s desire, escapes from
solitude or forlorn home situation, money, companionship, protection, adventure or common interest. Sex or sexual
attraction is the least consideration, but marriage makes sexual intercourse legitimate that sanctions parenthood and
provides a stable background for rearing of children. - BOWMAN

Family Code of the Philippines (August 3, 1988): Marriage is a special contract of permanent union between
man and woman entered into in accordance with law for the establishment of conjugal and family life.
 As a contract, it only applies to man and woman, permanent unlike ordinary contracts. Our law prescribes
penal and civil sanction like criminal action for adultery and concubinage, legal separation or action of support.

Requirement of Marriage under Philippine Law:

a. Legal capacity of the contracting parties who must be male or female
b. Consent freely given in the presence of the solemnizing officer.
c. Minimum age: 18 for women and 21 for men
d. Authority of the solemnizing officer

KINSHIP BY MARRIAGE

Forms of Marriages:
1. Monogamy – allows or permits a man to take only one spouse at a time.
2. Polygamy – plural marriage and c assume three forms:
a. Polygyny- is the marriage of man to one or more women at the same time
b. Polyandry – is the marriage of women to two or more men at the same time.
c. Group Marriage - It is one more type of polygamy, in which several or many men marry to several or many
women. It is practised in some indigenous societies.

RESIDENCE PATTERN

Major residence patterns:

Neolocal Residence - is most common with North American couples. This is where the couple finds their own house,
independent from all family members.
Bilocal Residence – a choice of staying with either the groom’s parents or the bride’s parents, depending on the
factors like the relative wealth of the families or their status, the wishes of the parents or personal preferences
of the couple.
Patrilocal Residence - is most commonly used with herding and farming societies. It’s where the married couple lives
with the husband’s father’s family. By living with the husband’s family, it lets all the men, (the father, brothers,
and sons) continue to work together on the land.
Matrilocal Residence - is most familiar among horticultural groups. It’s where the couple moves to live where the wife
grew up; usually found with matrilineal kinship systems.
Avunculocal Residence - is also related in matrilineal societies however in this case the couple moves to live with the
husband’s mother’s brother. They live with the most significant man, his uncle, because it’s who they will later
inherit everything from.

SELECTION OF MARRIAGE
Endogamy – refers to the norm which dictates that one should marry within one’s clan or ethnic group (religious
group, locality or social class)
Exogamy – one can marry outside one’s clan or ethnic group.
KINSHIP BY RITUAL (COMPADRAZGO)
- Ritual kinship in the form of godparenthood
- Parents selected godparents for a child at his or her baptism, confirmation, and marriage. The godparents
were then tied to the parents as coparents.
- Ideally co-parents should be a married couple; they were preferred because their unions were typically more
stable and they were more likely to be able to provide a home for the child should the need arise. In most
communities, however, there were not enough couples to serve as godparents for all children, so single
women of good reputation were frequently chosen. It was important that the person asked should be of
proper character and good standing in the community.

FAMILY AND THE HOUSEHOLD

Family of Orientation is the family into which one is born and where one is reared or socialized. The family of
procreation is the family established through marriage and consist of a husband, a wife, sons and daughters.

NUCLEAR FAMILY - a family consisting of a married man & woman and their biological children.
-The main issue for children is to help them under- stand that their two-parent, heterosexual family is a fine
family, and is one kind among many other kinds of families

EXTENDED FAMILY - a family where Grandparents or Aunts and Uncles play major roles in the children’s upbringing.
This may or may not include those relatives living with the children. These family members may be in addition
to the child’s parents or instead of the child’s parents.

RECONSTITUTED FAMILY – a blended family, also called a step family, or a complex family, is a family unit where one
or both parents have children from a previous relationship, but they have combined to form a new family. The
parents may or may not then have children with each other.

CONDITIONALLY SEPARATED FAMILIES - a family member is separated from the rest of the family. This may be due to
employment far away; military service; incarceration; hospitalization. They remain significant members of the
family

TRANSNATIONAL FAMILY - These families live in more than one country. They may spend part of each year in their
country of origin returning to the U.S. on a regular basis. The child may spend time being cared for by different
family members in each country

POLITICS OF KINSHIP
KINSHIP POLITICS - is commonly found in tribal societies across the world where kin genealogy is applied to determine
the system of communal leadership. It is the traditional pattern of bequeathing political power family
members.
-built based on the classic political principle: blood is thicker than water. It asserts that power should be
distributed among family members.

For the sake of family security, power should not be seized from those who have kinship connections and must
be circulated only among those who are tied by blood.
 Political dynasties have long been present in the Philippine political structure. Political dynasties started
emerging after the Philippine Revolution when the First Republic of the Philippines was established. Over the years,
newer dynasties emerged as some of the initial ones became inactive. Majority of the positions in the Philippine
government are currently held by members of political dynasties. Notable Philippine political dynasties include the
Aquino and Marcos families.
Political Dynasty – generally refer to families whose members are involved in politics. In the Philippines, political
dynasties can be seen in families that have been part of the government for several generations.

Political Alliance – referred to as political coalition or political bloc

- an agreement for cooperation between different political parties on common agenda, often for a purpose of
contesting an election. They intend to mutually benefit from the alliance by collectively clearing election
threshold taking advantage of the voting system, or forming a government after elections.

A coalition government is formed when a political alliance comes to power or when only a plurality (not a
majority) has been reached and several parties must work together to govern.

THE CARNEGIE EFFECT (Holtz-Eakin, Joualfaian and Rosen, 1993) refers to the idea that inherited wealth harms
recipient’s work efforts, and possesses a key role in the discussion of taxation of intergenerational transfers.