Saturday, July 25, 2009

FAMILY (n.)

DEFINITIONS OF FAMILY
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Family, as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau:
"A family includes a householder and one or more people living in the same household who are related to the householder by birth, marriage, or adoption. All people in a household who are related to the householder are regarded as members of his or her family. A family household may contain people not related to the householder, but those people are not included as part of the householder’s family in census tabulations. Thus, the number of family households is equal to the number of families, but family households may include more members than do families. A household can contain only one family for purposes of census tabulations. Not all households contain families since a household may comprise a group of unrelated people or one person living alone."
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Family, as defined by a 1970s Long Island, New York housing code (upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1974):
"One or more persons related by blood, adoption, or marriage, living and cooking together as a single housekeeping unit, exclusive of household servants. A number of persons but not exceeding two (2) living and cooking together as a single housekeeping unit though not related by blood, adoption, or marriage shall be deemed to constitute a family."

Three Views of "Family," by the U.S. Supreme Court:
1. a traditional “nuclear family” of two parents and their children, and where the parents are presumed to be acting in the best interests of their children. In such a family, there is no need to give the children their own voice – even when parents do such things as institutionalize their children;
2. an extended-kind model of family made up of a community of parents, siblings, grandparents and other relatives which should be recognized as a primary family, even if the blood-ties are not as strong as a nuclear family; and
3. an individualist model where family members are fairly autonomous and that individuality should be respected.

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Family, as defined by Statistics Canada:
"[A] now-married couple, a common-law couple or a lone-parent with a child or youth who is under the age of 25 and who does not have his or her own spouse or child living in the household. Now-married couples and common-law couples may or may not have such children and youth living with them. Now-married couples and common-law couples are classified as husband-wife families and the partners in the couple are classified as spouses." (not anymore)
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Family, as defined by the Netherlands Cabinet:
"a social unit where one or more children are being cared for and/or brought up."
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As long as you're under my roof . . . .
The National Statistical Service of Greece counts all the people who live under the same roof as a family – even if they aren't related.
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House -
Similarly, the Zinacantecos of southern Mexico don't have a word that is equivalent to our concept of family as a parent-child relationship. Instead, their basic social unit is a "house" and that can mean just one or as many as 20 people who live there.
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Oxford English Dictionary
first defines a family as the servants of a house, or the household. The second definition is everyone who lives in a house or under one head. It isn't until the third definition that it defines family as a "group of persons consisting of the parents and their children, whether actually living together or not."
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Guo + Jia
The Chinese word for "nation" consists of the combination of two other characters: "guo"country and "jia"family.
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It doesn't just take a village – it is one –
Up until the mid-1800s, a Japanese family unit was considered those who worked together in a single village.
In 1889, Japanese law defined a family to be based on blood lineage, with a father as head of the household, passing on down to his eldest son. Since the determining factor was paternal blood relations, that included polygamous families: all children who had the same father were considered to be in the same family.

uchi:
The contemporary Japanese term for family, following post-World War II changes in the nation's laws and society. It may refer to a nuclear family of parents and unmarried children, but it can also mean a household as a unit of production or consumption.
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The Arabic equivalent to American concept of family is: ‘aila.
The root of that word means: “to support.”
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Family, as described by George Santayana:
"one of nature's masterpieces."
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* Family, as described by Kayla Moryoussef - to come.
Current information on this working definition suggests that it will be constructed on the basis of LOVE as the basic unit, and Humanity as the ultimate family. The definition will be intended as an example equation using Love as a constant, and Love=Humanity as the solution.
Given that the variables for the equation are profoundly infinite, the purpose of the definition will act as an invitation to participate in collecting as diverse and as many definitions as possible - to the point that the 'known' 'traditional' 'official' definitions implode into oblivion. At which point the universal collection of definitions is reduced back to the original common denominator, so that all that is left to define family is LOVE=FAMILY=HUMANITY.

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there's more! a lot more...
guess what i just found --
THE FACTBOOK:
EYE-OPENING MEMOS ON EVERYTHING FAMILY

an organized collection of research on family - memo after memo on various topics, synthesizing facts, statistical data and opinions - 100 of these memos online. They vary in length from a single page to over 20 pages.
Those memos are the core of
The Factbook.
The Factbook draws from over 600 different source materials and is several hundred pages long.
i suggest starting with the "How To Use This Site" page

i'm screwed. in the best way possible

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