28) Marriage : types and norms, marriage as contract, and as a sacrament.

Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people called spouses that establishes rights and obligations between the spouses, between the spouses and their children, and between the spouses and their in-laws. The definition of marriage varies according to different cultures, but it is usually an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged. When defined broadly, marriage is considered a cultural universal. In many cultures, marriage is formalized via a wedding ceremony. People marry for many reasons, including: legal, social, libidinal, emotional, financial, spiritual, and religious. Marriages can be performed in a secular civil ceremony or in a religious setting. The act of marriage usually creates normative or legal obligations between the individuals involved. Some cultures allow the dissolution of marriage through divorce or annulment. Polygamous marriages may also occur in spite of national laws. Marriage can be recognized by a state, an organization, a religious authority, a tribal group, a local community or peers. It is often viewed as a contract. Civil marriage is the legal concept of marriage as a governmental institution irrespective of religious affiliation, in accordance with marriage laws of the jurisdiction. Forced marriages are illegal in some jurisdictions.

The type, functions, and characteristics of marriage vary from culture to culture, and can change over time. In general there are two types: civil marriage and religious marriage, and typically marriages employ a combination of both (religious marriages must often be licensed and recognized by the state, and conversely civil marriages, while not sanctioned under religious law, are nevertheless respected). Marriages between people of differing religions are called interfaith marriages, while marital conversion, a more controversial concept than interfaith marriage, refers to the religious conversion of one partner to the other's religion for sake of satisfying a religious requirement.

29. Family : types, functions and changes.

The two related questions pursued in the study being reported in this paper are the following: (1) What changes have occurred in family types and functions among the Yoruba of Southwestern Nigeria in the past 50 years? (2) How significant are the changes to children's well-being? Since it is a monolithic group, the sample was small (N = 551), but it spread across the group's geographical location, and comprised male, female, Christian, and Muslim people, all older than 55 years of age. The questionnaire that they responded to requested they indicate on a scale how common some family types and functions were before 1960, 1961 to 1980, 1981 to 2000 and are since 2001 to the present. It was found that the extended family form has been decreasing only slowly. Polygamous marriage shows marginal decreases and monogamous marriage shows marginal increases. Unmarried parents and single parents are increasing fast. Educational and socialization functions of the family have reduced significantly but companionship is enduring satisfactorily.

Family structure, like society at large, has undergone significant changes. Most of the time when a person imagine of the definition of a family, the figure of a mother, father and children is what comes into the mind. The form or structure does not show how healthy the it is or how they function.

Structures are the substantial makeup of the members in relationship to each other without respect to roles and function. There are famous four types of a families structure; Nuclear, Single Parent, Extended, and Childless. These four types of family structure give the variety of forms they may appear to.

The first structure from the four types of is Nuclear. A nuclear family consists of a mother, father, and their biological or adoptive descendants, often called the traditional family. This was the most admired from the four types of structure. It can be can be a fostering environment in which to hoist children as long as there is love, time spent with children, emotional support, low stress, and a constant economic upbringing.

The second structure from the four types of family structure is the Single Parent. Its one most outstanding transform from the four types of family structure was the amplified of Single Parent. Children are most likely to live in a single parent structure for reasons other than the death of a parent.

One in four children is born with their mothers not married, usually teenage mothers. One of the most luxurious things for a single parent is child care. Single families frequently have less pressure compared to the pressure in families before divorce. Usually parents and children are more eager to work together with each other to find solutions to solve household chores in single parent families.

The third structure from the four types of structure is the Extended Family. Extended family is two or more adults from unlike generations of a family, who share a household. It consists of more than parents and children; it may be a family that includes parents, children, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, foster children. At times children are raised by their grandparents when their biological parents have died or no longer can take care of them. Extended families can be found all over the world in different communities and countries. In the four types of structure nuclear family is more probable to become an extended family than any other family type.

The fourth and last structure from the four type of family structure is the Childless Family. A childless family is basically a group of people from all variety of backgrounds and all walks of life who, for whatever reason, have never had children. Others will perhaps have children at sometime in the future, but are not prepared just yet, and some sought to have children but were unable to because of a variety of social and/or biological forces that obstruct and result in unplanned childlessness. To replace children, childless families usually have pets as a substitute.