Marriage and Family in the Caribbean

59 Introduction The family has been described as the cornerstone of society. It is the basic unit of social organization, and it is extremely difficult to conceive how human society could function without this institution. In fact, anthropological studies have indicated that the family has existed in every known society. George Peter Murdock, for example, in a study entitled “Social Structure,” took a sample of 250 societies ranging from small hunting and gathering bands to large scale industrial societies, and concluded, based on the evidence gathered, that the family is universal. While recognizing that there are variations in family structure from one society to another, there are significant similarities in respect of roles and functions. The family has traditionally had a number of responsibilities placed upon it, primarily connected with its role in the preparation of children for adulthood. The family is where society’s new recruits first learn the basic values and norms of the culture of the society they will grow up in. It is in the family that children first learn the difference between what is seen as right or wrong, good and bad behavior, the norms governing gender roles, and the acceptance of parental and other adult authority. The family and kinship network plays the major role in maintaining and caring for dependent children—housing, clothing, and feeding them. The family not only provides most of the help and care for the young, but also the old, the sick, and other vulnerable members. Before industrialization, the family was a unit of production. This meant that the family home was also the workplace, and that the family produced most of the goods necessary for its own survival. Children then learned the skills needed for working life from their parents. Since the early nineteenth century, work has been mainly based in factories and offices, not at home. Families do not generally produce the goods they need anymore; they go out and buy them. The skills required for adult working life are, therefore, no longer learned in the family, but at places of work, colleges, or training schools. Changes such as these, which have occurred in the family’s functions, have not diminished its importance in society today. The family into which a child is born is still one of the single most important factors affecting life chances in areas such as health, education, and job opportunities. Talcott Parsons, in his analysis of modern American society, puts forward the view that even where some functions performed by the family are being undertaken by other institutions, there are two basic and irreducible functions which remain in the domain of the family; namely, primary socialiszation and stabilization of the adult personality. The United Nation’s General Assembly in proclaiming 1994 as the “International Year of the Family” (JYF) with the theme “Building the smallest democracy at the heart of society,” gave recognition to both the tremendous potential and needs of the family in the process of societal development. The International Year of the Family focused worldwide attention on the family, reinforced through specific references to the importance of the family in UN Conferences of the 1990s, such as the World Social Summit. In Jamaica, as in the wider Caribbean community, it served to heighten the consciousness of the population to the importance of the family, and promoted increased coordination among the agencies involved in family-related activities. It also facilitated renewed emphasis on policies and programs directed at strengthening the family as part of national development strategies. Of particular significance was the public education campaign aimed at highlighting the role of the family as the basic unit of society responsible for the social and economic well being of its members, notably vulnerable groups such as children, the disabled, and the elderly. The campaign promoted positive values in families and support for families by communities and institutions. The Second World Congress on the Family, convened in Geneva in November 1999, was another milestone in directing global attention to family related issues.