by Mir Saadi

Created on: May 14, 2008

Families in Transition

Families are universal phenomenon and the concept of the family is perhaps the most basic one in the social life. Family is the most common and the most important organization for socialization. Families manifest themselves in diver's forms and functions; subsequently there is no single view of the family, nor there can be an universally applicable definitions.

One of Webster's definitions of family is "the basic unit in society, having as its nucleus two or more people living together and raising children." Even so, common sense and experience tell us that people coming together to create families of many different kinds.

"Happy families are all alike every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." These opening words of the Anna Karenina, have not lost their validity since they were written more than one hundred years ago. One of the major universally acceptable statements about the family concerns its diversity and dynamism. The United Nations General Assembly in its resolution proclaimed 1994 as the international Year of the Family and 15 May as International Family Day.

A heart sheltered by a roof, linked by another heart, to symbolize life and love in a home where one finds warmth, caring, security, togetherness, tolerance and acceptance this is the symbolism conveyed by the emblem of the international family day. The open design is meant to indicate continuity with a hint of uncertainty. The brushstroke, with its open line roof, completes an abstract symbol representing the complexity of the family.

Global concern for the family is not born out of the nostalgic desire for simple times, when rules and roles were less clouded by ambiguity, and the future less uncertain. Indeed, the so-called uncomplicated world of yesterday was in many ways not the sort of the society that people might want to live in tomorrow; rather notably, for example in respect of the elderly and persons with disability.

The family, like the rest of the society, has undergone a process of wholesale, transformative change. In this process, the family has been both the source and the recipient of change; sometimes acting as its agent or, alternatively, being transformed by external forces. In some cases, the process has been adapted, in others, destructive threatening the survival of the family.

Whatever the specific causes, many of the things that are nostalgically understood to constitute a family, for better or worse, are now lost to history. In addition, many of

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