Households: Changing Form and Function
Households: Changing Form and Function
复制标题
家庭：改变形式和功能
作者：
E. Arnould
家庭这个词对不同的人来说往往意味着不同的东西。用“家庭”取代“住户”是试图用基于观察的单位取代文化定义的单位。作者试图创造一个跨文化有用的家庭定义。人类学家混淆或未能区分家庭作为结构单位（亲属组成或大小）的样子和它们的功能以及它们如何运作。人们普遍认为，家庭组织不同于亲属关系，但家庭是按其核心的家庭类型分类的。重新定义家庭的第一步是删除“功能”一词，代之以“活动团体”或经常与其他人进行模式化联系的人。家庭最经常进行的五项活动是生产、分配、传输、生殖和同居。生产包括家务和家务劳动。家庭必须安排生产任务，并将其按顺序排列。生产系统要么多样化，要么简单。生产性任务越是同时进行，它们越是多样化，家庭就越大。除非有理由使家庭规模扩大，否则小家庭作为一个生产群体仍然更好。第二种家庭功能分布包括消费和资源汇集。在生产和分配方面集中资源的大家庭往往是稳定的，并在几代人之间具有连续性。只集中生产或分配的家庭稳定性较低。当资源受到限制时，家庭可以转让权利，特别是以继承的形式。当婚姻成为一种继承策略时，它往往受到父母的控制。生育往往是家庭的一个功能，但单靠性关系并不能把成员联系在一起。儿童的照料、喂养和社会化增加并改变了家庭对生产、分配和传播的需求。如果子女的价值在年幼时就超过其成本，生育率可能会增加，家庭规模也会增加。生育和结婚的时间因素造成家庭形式的巨大差异。家庭成员身份往往与共同居住同义。分享食物、共同烹饪、睡觉的地方、共同的粮仓和生产上的合作也构成了判断一个群体是否是一个家庭的标准。最重要的家庭成员可能是一个劳动力移民，甚至不是共同居民。家庭活动的组织影响到家庭的结构和形态;家庭形态是往往相互矛盾的压力之间的妥协。
The word household often means different things to different people. The replacement of "household" with "family" is an attempt to replace a culturally defined unit with a unit based on observation. The authors try to create a cross-culturally useful definition of the household. Anthropologists confuse or fail to differentiate between what households look like as structural units (kinship composition or size) and what they do and how they function. Household organization is widely held to be different from kinship yet households are classified by the type of family lying at their core. The 1st step in redefining households involves eliminating the term "function" in favor of "activity groups" or people regularly acting in a patterned association with other people. The 5 activities most often performed by households are production distribution transmission reproduction and coresidence. Production includes housekeeping and domestic labor. Households must schedule productive tasks as well as put them in sequence. Production systems are either diverse or simple. The more simultaneous that productive tasks are and the more diverse they are the larger the household. Unless there is a reason for households to be large the small household remains better as a productive group. The 2nd household function distribution includes consumption and pooling resources. Large households that pool resources in production and distribution tend to be stable and have continuity over generations. Households that only pool either production or distribution have less stability. When resources are restricted households may transmit rights especially in the form of inheritance. When marriage becomes a strategy for inheritance it is often controlled by parents. Reproduction is often a function of households but sexual relationships alone do not knit members together. The care feeding and socialization of children add to and modify household demands for production distribution and transmission. Fertility may increase and household size also if the value of children exceeds their costs at a young age. The timing factors of reproduction and marriage produce large variations in household form. Household membership is often synonymous with coresidence. Food sharing common cooking the location of sleeping quarters common granaries and cooperation in production also constitute criteria for judging a group to be a household. The most important household member may be a labor migrant and not even coresident. The organization of household activities affects household structure and morphology; household morphology is a compromise between often contradictory pressures.