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A Refinement of the Concept of Household: Families,

Coqesidence, and Domestic Functions’

D O N A L D R . B E N D E R

University of Mimesola

The concepts of “houseliold” and “fatn dy” have been given a greater degree of precision i n recent yeurs bythose scholars who have pointed out that the former i s a residence group that carries out domesticfunctionswhile the latter is a kinship group. The concept of “household,” haoing been analytically distinguishedfrom that of ‘yamily,” is still burdened by the inclusion of two s o c a phenomena that are logicdly dis-tinct and vary somewhat independently: co-residence and domestic functions.Social groups based on af-jinal and consanguineal rdat ions hips , co-residence, and domestic functions-ojten thought of as aspectsof a single social phenomenon labeled by the term “family ”-are infact semi-independent variebles.

H IS paper will discuss inadequacies inT

he concept of “household” and providea n alternative conceptual formulation. Al-though the analytical distinction betweenfamilies and households made by severalscholars during the past decade represents asimple but major achievement, the concept ofhouschold is still left in a confused state. Itincludes social phenomena that are logicallydistinct and, under certain circumstances,vary independently of each other.

However, prior to analyzing and refining

the concept of “household,” it may be usefulto back u p a step. T her e is, as yet, no generalconsensus regarding the utility of concep-tually distinguish ing families from households.They are very frequently treated as synony-mous, the terms being used interchangeably,an d a great ma ny definitions of the “family”still incorporate common residence a s an in -tegral part. Under these circumstances, andsince the thesis to be presented here presup-poses th e complete conceptual divo rce of th ehousehold fro m th e family, i t will be of valueto comment first on this distinction.

T H E FAMILY AND THE HOUSEHOLD

There are two basic grounds for making ananalytical distinction between families andhouseholds: first, they are logically distinct,an d second, they are em pirically different. As

to the first point, the referent of the family iskinship, while the referent of th e householdis propinquity or residence. Rohannan, whohas done much to clarify this distinction, has

indicated that kinship and propinquity “dono t even belong to th e sam e universe of dis-course” (1963 :86) ; therefore, families, as kin-

ship units, mu st be defined str ic t ly in term s ofkinship relationships and no t in terms of co-residence. Keesing, in distinguishing familiesfrom households, ha s considered them as beingbased on two distinct principles of organiza-tion, kinship and locality respectively (1958:

271).

If famil ies in fact always formed house-holds and if hou seholds were always compo sedof families, such a conceptual distinctionwould st i ll be warranted, thou gh i t might beconsidered simply a n intere st ing mental ex-

ercise devoid of an y real scientific utility. I nreality, there are numerous societies in whichfamilies normally do not form households,and even more instances in which householdsar e not alwa ys composed of families. Conse-quent ly , adequate t rea tment of such societiesnecessitates that this dist inct ion be m ade.

Th e range of ethnographic si tua t ions i nwhich households and families differ e xte nd sfrom societies like our own, in which familiesideally ought to occupy households and infact most often do, t o societ ies in which fam -ilies and households ideally and in fac t alwaysdiffer. For the numerous instances in our so -ciety-instances th at are considered unfor-tun ate -in which father-husbands or childrendo not reside w ith the other mem bers of theirfamilies, there are other societies in whichthese situations occur normally. One need notgo to the controversial and frequently ci tedNayar as described by Gough (1959, 1962) to

find a society in which father-husbands-ifindeed such can be said to exist among the

Nayar-reside sep arate ly from their families.And one need n ot go to t he equally controver-sial kibbutz asdescribe d by Spiro (1954) to find

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494 A merican Anthropologist [69, 1967

a society in which children normally resideseparately from their parents.

The most frequent situation in which themembers of a family normally do not all re-

side together is that in which the father-hus-band resides separately from the rest of hisfamily. T his situ ation occurs in several kindsof societal circumstances: where the separateresidence of males from females and childrenreflects a sharp social separation between thesexes during adu ltho od ; where sibling house-holds are prevalent; where it is economicallyor militarily adva ntage ous for the husband-father to be sep arated from his family for con-siderable periods of time; an d sometimes wherepolygyny is present.

The former cases, where adult men resideseparately from women and children andwhere siblings reside together but separatelyfrom their spouses, provide the most clear-cu t examples. In societies in which adult menreside permanently in a men’s house, familiesare never residential units. Likewise, siblinghouseholds, found, for example, as a dominantform among the Ashanti (Fortes el al. 1947),preclude the possibility of th e family’s being aresidential unit.

It is unclear w hether families can be consid-ered co-residential units when the husband-fathe r is gone for considerable periods of time ,sometim es years, for purposes of engaging intrade or warfare. And it is likewise unclear ifthe family can be considered a co-residentialunit when, as sometimes occurs among theBlack C arib (Solien de Gonz&les1960: 05), thehusband-father’s job requires him to resideaway from the rest of the family, though heconsiders their dwelling as home. On the otherhand, if i t is unclear whether po lygynou s

families hav e common residence when t he hu s-band and each of his wives have separate b utcontiguous dwellings, it is quite clear thatpolygynous families do not form commonresidential groups when t he wives reside a tconsiderable d istances from each oth er, asamong the Navaho when a man marries un-related women (Kluckhohn and Leighton1946:lOO).

I n addition to the situations in which hus-band-fathers reside separately from the rest

of their families, there are nume rous caseswhere children normally reside separatelyfrom their parents. Among the Ibo, for ex-ample, boys of five or six yea rs of age leavetheir mother’s house to reside with other

boys of t he same compound (O tten berg 1965:22-23). Or there is the well-known case ofSamoan children, who are able to choose thehousehold in which they will reside and, in

fact, a t different times normally reside in avariety of households (Mead 1928:36).

Once this relatively simple distinction be-tween households and families is made, itseems perfectly obvious. Of course, families do

not cease to exist when their members resideseparately. Nor do persons who reside togethernecessarily form families. Ev en so, the follow-ing statement made by Solien de Gonzaes in1960 for the most part still holds true: “Fewwriters have distinguished between familyand household o n either a theoretical or on adescriptive level” (1960: 101).

THE HOUSEHOLD: A DOMESTICDWELLING UNIT

Some attempts have been made at differ-ent iatin g types of h ouseholds. Solien d e Gon-zQles, one of the few scholars to hav e clearlyconceptualized the difference between house-holds and families, has distinguished tw o typesof households that contain kinsmen thoughnot families. To households composed of only

a married pair, she applies the term “affinalhousehold.” In contrast, she applies the term“consanguineal household” to “a co-residen-tial kinship group w hich inc lud esn o regularlypresent male in the role of husband-father”(1965:1542), a form of household quitewidely found in the world, particularly in theCaribbean and South America.

An alte rnative an d more detailed scheme isprovided by Bo han nan (1963:94-98), who hasclassified households on th e basis of th e mostfund ame ntal kinship relationship found in thehousehold. Of the e igh t social relationshipsfound in the nuclear family, tht most funda-mental is defined as that which is the moststable and enduring, th at which is the last tobe broken in conflict situations. Thus thereare households based on the husband-wiferelationship, on the father-son relationship,on sibling relationships-in sh or t on all of theeight nuclear family relationships with thepossible exception of the mother-son relation-ship.

However, these attem pts a t refining th econcept of the household overlook a basicproblem with th is concept as currently used.Th e principal problem with the concept of thehousehold is not so much t ha t i t has remained



U E X D E R ] A Refinement of the Concept of Household 495

relatively undefined and undifferentiated,though in fact i t has, bu t t ha t i t contains ele-ments th at are both logically an d empiricallydistinct. I n this sense, the sa me problem now

exists with the concept of the household thatexisted with the concept of the family beforethe two were distinguished. Just as familiesand households can a nd d o vary somewhat in-dependently of each other, so households con-tain aspects that can and do vary independ-ently.

Although Bohannan, Keesing, and Soliende Gonzdes all have indicated that the re-fe re nt of th e con cep t of the household involvespropinquity or locality, this is not exactly th ecase. The concept actually implies more thanmerely an aggregate of people residing to-gether. In addition to common residence, itimplies a group of person s who together car ryou t domestic functions. As Solien d e G onzldesha s indicated, “the household . . . impliescommon residence, economic cooperation, andsocialization of child ren” (1960: 106). Simi-larly, Bohan nan has stated th at the householdusually acts to fulfill the functions of provid-ing food and s helter an d of bringing u p chil-dren (1963:98). I n one sense, “household”

refers to those persons who reside together;in another sense, it refers to a group of peoplecarrying ou t domestic functions. I n the formersense, a household need not carry out domes-tic functions. I n the lat t er sense, a householdneed not reside together as a unit.

It is important, then, analytically to dis-tinguish between co-residential groups anddom estic functions. Co-residential group s haveas their referent propinquity, while domesticfunctions have as their referent social func-tions.

I t is quite obvious th at persons residing to-gether d o not always carry out domestic func-tions. One need not leave our own society todemonstrate this. Also, there are numerousethnographic instances in which domesticfunctions are carried out tiy groups whosemembers do not reside together. Such is thecase in many societies in which men dwell ina special men’s house. Among the Mundurudof South America (Murphy 1960), for example,villages ar e composed of t wo typ es of co-

residential units: one composed of adul tmales, the o the r composed of women and chd-dren. The nuclear family forms a domesticunit in the sense that the husband-fatherprovides his wife with game an d fish. On th is

level, then, the nuclear family forms a domes-t ic uni t bu t not a co-residential unit , an d to usethe term “household” in this context would beinaccurate, s ince the nuclear family forms a

household only in the one sense, not in theother. Bu t althou gh the nuclear family is sym-bolically a domestic unit , for all practical pur -poses i t is not. Th is is because dom estic func-t ions are for the most pa r t ca rr ied o ut throughreciprocal interaction between the two groups:adul t males and adul t females . That i s , menusually hunt cooperatively, while all of thewomen of each women’s house cooperate inthe prepara tion of food (with sometimes a sim-ple division of labor occurr ing among thewomen). I n a sense, then, men as a uni t pre-sent game an d fish to the women, who in tur nprocess it as a uni t an d d i s t r ibute th e preparedfood to their husbands and children. At thislevel, the whole village forms the domesticunit, the sexual division of labor in domesticactivities being at the village level.

Another si tuation in which domestic func-tions are not al l carried ou t b y co-residentialgroups is found in societies in which marriedsiblings reside together, which precludes thepossibility of h avin g hu sb an d an d wife live

together. Among the Ashanti , for example,the most common residential pattern is foreach member of a married pair to reside withhis own matri l ineal kinsmen. Though not a

co-residential unit, th e family still carries ou tdomestic functions. “A m an m us t provide hiswife and children w ith clothes at certain timesof the year , and she must cook for him an d thechildren, adding her self-grown foodstuffs to

the meals” (Fortes el al. 1947:168).One is dealing, then , no t with tw o dist inct

social phenomena-families an d households-

but with three distinct social phenomena:families, co-residential groups, and domesticfunctions. All three frequently correspond,both ideally and i n fact (this is reflected in at

least one meaning of our folk term “home,”which implies a family residing together andfunctioning as a domestic unit). The threealso can and sometimes do va ry independently.Th er e are, of course, th re e logically possibleways in which any two of the three couldcombine. I n the Ashanti case mentioned,

families carry out domestic functions but donot reside together. The si tuation in whichdomestic-residential units (“households”) donot contain families is very widespread. Itmight be mentioned here th at even in our own



496 American Anthropologist [69, 1967

society, where families ideally and in factmost often d o form dom estic-residential units,there are numerous instances in which house-holds are not composed of families? I know of

no ethnographic case that fits the th i rd com-bination, t h at is, where famil ies form residen-t ial but not domestic units, though it is cer-ta in ly conceivable th a t such an arrangemen tcould exist.

Once these analytical distinctions are made,more a ccu rate com parisons are possible. I’res-ently, the term “household” is being appliedto noncomparable phenomena.

Ev en more basic, with ethnographers aw arethat domestic functions, co-residential groups,

an d families d o not necessarily correspond,more accurate observations and descript ionswould u ndoub tedly result. I t is well establishedthat once social scientists identify a socialphenomenon with a label, there is a grea tdanger tha t they may over look importantvariat ions that the label is unable to handle.Although in good ethnographies one can fre-quent ly de termine the exac t na ture of th esocial unit termed a “household,” the termvery often adds more confusion than clarifi-cation.

Equipped w ith these dist inctions, Irene Ot t ,a Universi ty of Minnesota graduate studentwho has carried out a prel iminary study ofextended families in a rural Minnesota Ger-man-American communi ty , ha s found th a t a ttimes in o ur own society families, co -residentialgroups, and domestic functions d o not direct lycorrespond. The families studied extendedover three and four generat ions and werehighly variable in their form. Whereas variou s

sub units within th e extended famil ies (no talways nuclear families) were frequentlyfunctionally significant for different reasons,all extended families as completc units werefunctionally significant in that the adultmale members joint ly operated the farm orfarms involved.

Residence was consistently virilocal andusually also patrilocal, though this tells littleof the na ture of the co-residentialgroups. Com-plete extended families sometimes occupied

a single farm house, sometimes two farmhouses on the same farm, sometimes farmhouses on contiguous farms, and sometimesfarm houses on noncontiguous farms. Somedegree of residential privacy existed for aU

nuclear families with young children and forolder couples whose children were grown,though in some cases th is may have meantmerely a pr iva te bedroom, wi th th e rest of the

house shared by other extended-family mem-bers.

Although i n some instances nuclear familieswere almost completely functionally autono-mous, except for the joint operat ion of thefarm land, in many instances domestic func-tions were distributed to various segments of

the extended family. A description of a singlecase will illustrate the point.

This three-generat ion extended family wascomposed of a man , his wife, an d two sons andtheir families. The eldest male, his wife, andone son and his family occupied the familyfarm house, the older couple having a bedroomon the f i rs t floor and the younger couple andtheir children occupying bedrooms on the sec-ond floor. Rooms other than the bedroomswere sha red in common by bo th the na ta l andconjugal families. The second son and hiswife and children occupied a trailer, also onthe family farm.

Th e ent i re uni t c learly formed a single ex-tended family. When quest ioned regarding

whom th ey considered to be members of the irfamily, they indicated that al l three nuclearfamilies composed their “family,” thoughthey also fel t that the term could be appliedto the nuclear famil ies as well. T h e farm wasrun by al l three nuclear famil ies, or morespecifical ly by the three a du lt males. T he eld-est male handled the finances and recordkeeping, while the tw o sons did m os t of th emanual labor. General farm expenses werehandled o ut of the general farm income, atl-ministered by the eldest male. Each son re-

ceived a percentag e of th e income from adairy operat ion for some of the needs of theirown con jugal families. O ne son raised chickensto increase the money he could have for hisconjugal family.

Fo r some purposes, the tw o nuclear famil iesoccupying the family farmhouse formed a

single domestic unit , involved with the prep-arat ion and consumption of food and withhousework. Within this domestic unit , a di-vision of labor existed. The eldest male and

his wife were responsible for redecorat ing thehouse and providing household furnishingsf o r t h a t p a r t of the house used in common.Food was general ly purchased by them forthe entire domestic unit , whereas i t was pre-



BENDER] A Refirtemenl of the Concept of Household 497

pared by the eldest female and her daughter-in-law. The two adult women also took careof the cann ing and freezing of food .

Normally, these domestic activities carried

out by the two nuclear families occupyingthe single house were carried out independ-ent ly by the conjugal family occupying thetrailer.

For the most part, then, domestic activitieswere carried out by the groups that residedtogether in th e same house. However, for pu r-poses of ch ild rearing, each nuclear familytended to be independent. And, in anothercontext, all three nuclear families formed asingle domestic unit in tha t the eldest female

did the gardening and handled the care andmaintenan ce of clothing for the ent ire extendedfamily.

CO-RESIDENTIAL GROUPSAND DOMESTIC FUNCTIONS

Thus far, no precise meanings for the con-cep ts “co-residential group” an d “domesticfunctions” have been designated, though theirmeanings can be inferred from the manner inwhich they are used. In the context in whichthey are used, the meanings may seem quite

obvious. However, concepts tha t seem quite ob-vious frequently become very allusive uponclose analysis. It is undoubtedly for this reasonthat deceptively obvious concepts such as“family” often are left undefined, defined onlyvaguely, or defined in term s of exam ples.Ra th er th an leave the concepts of co-residen-tial group and domestic functions deceptivelyobvious, an attempt will be made to identifythem precisely and in such a manner th at theymay be useful conceptual tools.

Co-residence

In anthropology, residence has been con-ceptually tied directly to kinship. Residenceis nearly always trea ted i n ter m s of residenceclassification, and the latter has been con-cerned with kinsmen and where they live.Moreover, traditional residence classificationhas been formulated on the basis of a singlekinship relationship, the marriage relation-ship. O n such a basis, of course, a minimumam ou nt of info rmation is given regarding th e

nat ure of residential groups. Fu rthe rm ore ,since husband and wife live separately insonic societies, not all cases are classifiable.Thus, of the many residence terms that havebeen formulated to apply to married couples,

the only term th at comes close to coping withsuch cases is the negative term “duolocal,”indicating simply that husband and wife re-

side separately. The shift in the application

of residence terms from the married pa ir t oth e married individual made b y Fischer (1958)resolves this particu lar problem and others aswell, though this usage still tells little aboutco-residential groups.

Bo han nan has shifted th e focus of residenceclassification from the marriage relationshipto the household. In doing so, he keeps resi-dence tied directly to kinship by basing hisclassification on th e most fun dam ent al of th eeight basic nuclear family relationships found

in th e household. In a limited sense, this sys-tem of classification is consistent with B ohan -nan’s emphasis on the fact that families donot necessarily form households and thathouseholds do no t necessarily contain families.I n a more basic sense, however, B ohan nan isinconsistent. I n distinguishing families fromhouseholds, he has indicated that familiesare kinship groups th at m ust be defined strictlyin terms of kinship relationships. I n contra st,households ar e based on a distinct definitionalcriterion-propinquity (Bo han nan 1963: 6-

87). From this it follows that it is no morelegitimate to classify households in terms ofkinship relationships than it is to classifyfamilies in te rm s of residence, unless i t is speci-fied th at on ly one category of households isbeing classified-that category which includeshouseholds containing kinsmen.

There is no reason why residence should betied exclusively to kinship. No necessary con-nection exists between the two. On the con-tra ry, no t only are kinship groups of various

forms sometimes dispersed, but co-residentialgroups are sometimes nonkinship groups.Since residence classification developed as anaspe ct of k inship studie s, i t is understandablethat residence in anthropology has been tieddirectly to kinship. But no matter how im-portant residence classification may be in thearea of kinship, to be a useful concept in thepresent context the concept of residence mustbe separated from kinship.

I n addition to being used exclusively in therealm of kinship, th e concept of residence has

the additional problem of h avin g multiplemeanings, often confused and not al l equallyappropriate in the com parativ e stu dy of socialorganization. In our own society, with a highlysede ntary popu lation, th e conc epts of residence




and dwelling are often equated with specificphysical dwellings, fixed in one place. Suchusage is of li ttl e value in th e cross-culturalstud y of residence. Co-residential social un its

need occupy neither physical dwellings norspecific places. Nomadic or transhumant pop-ulations, for example, may occupy physicaldwellings, and people, houses, and materialitems may be arranged in a definite spatialpatte rn, b ut the dw ellings themselves may bemoved at regular intervals. Likewise, thereare a few societies in which co-residentialgroups occupy neither a physical dwelling nora specific place, the N amb ikwa ra of So uthAmerica and the native Australians being

examples.Rather than focus attention on the placeswhere people reside or on the physical dwel-lings in which they reside, the object of s tudyhere is the social group that forms the co-residential unit. Specific places, dwellings,material objects, and th e like become relevantonly as they are culturally defined as impor-ta n t characteristics of co-residing groups.

Placing an emphasis on the group thatforms a co-residential uni t, rather tha n on theplace, allows the distinction to be made be-

tween aggregates of p eople th at occupy spacein a patterned and systematic manner andthe situation in which groups form co-resi-dential groups: there is a difference b etweena group occupying an apartment and the en-tire aggregate of p ersons who occupy the ap art -ment building. All social groups can have aspatial dimension, can be localized for onepurpose or anothe r. Co-residence, as used h ere,is not synonymous with th e tot al range of sit-uations in which there is group propinquity,

bu t rather represents one va riet y of gro uppropinquity. It here refers to living together,which is minimally characterized by a proxi-mity in sleeping arrangements and a senti-ment similar to that expressed in our folkconcept of home.

Co-residential groups can exist on differentlevels within the same society. Just as a n ex-tended family may function as a group forsome purposes while the constituent nuclearfamilies function a s groups for oth er purposes,so the former may be a co-residential group

occupying, perhaps, contiguous dwellings,while the latter form smaller co-residentialunits occupying single dwellings. Such a pat-tern is frequen tly found in polygynous familiesin Africa, where mother-child units form the

smallest co-residential units, the entire poly-gynous family forms a larger co-residentialunit, and the entire compound forms a stilllarger co-residential unit. Actual physical

boundaries separating co-residential groupsmay be minimal, as when m embers of a familyoccupy contiguous hammocks in a large vil-lage house.

T he degree to which co-residence, as a formof group Propin quity, forms a significant as-pe ct of social group s varies greatly. In sta nc esrange from those in which co-residence is al-most completely epiphenomenal to the socialgrouping to those in which the group is basedprimarily o n propin quity. Co-residence isepiphenomenal t o ano the r principle of socialgrouping to the extent that groups simplytak e up sp ace in th e process of their mem bers’living together. There are many instances,however, in which co-residence is n ot merelyepiphenomenal to other principles, but is, inpa rt, th e basis for the existence of th a t group.Such is the case in many societies in whichth e principles of kinship an d propin quity arecombined to form what are frequently des-ignated a s household groups-groups com-posed of persons, usually but not necessarily

family members, who occupy a specific dwel-ling. The Burmese ain-daung is an example,referring to a dwell ing and to the group th atresides there, usually composed of familymembers but also frequently including moreremote kinsmen and servants. I n addition toacting as a principle of so cial grouping, pro-pinquity can be a causal factor in the forma-tion of groups, as when the mere proximityof aggregates of peop le who reside near eachoth er results in the formation of formalized

relationships and groups, a kind of situationwell documented by Michel (1954). Undersome circumstances kinship features can beepiphenomenal to co-residence. All the w omenand children occupying a women’s houseamong the Mundurucd are, in fact, relatedthrough uterine links, since residence is ma-trilocal. This matrilineality is epiphenomenalt o the fa ct of co-residence an d m atrilocality,since descent is formally traced patrilineallyamong the MundurucG (Mu rphy 1960).

Domestic FunctionsAs a folk concept, our term “domestic”

refers to those activities associated with thehousehold or the home. Furthermore, it con-notes female activities more than male ac-



BENDER] il Refinement of the Concept of Household 499

tivities. Where the term has been used bysocial scientists, it is generally used with nomodification from it s vagu e folk meaning,

Boh annan ha s used the idea of dom estic

rights in an analysis of the marriage co ntr act .Following the distinction between families,which are kinship groups, and households,which are local or spatial groups, Bohannanha s distinguished kinship rights from dom esticrights in the marriage contract. He has statedtha t

the rights in a wife, which a man acquires atmarriage and which form the basis of the house-hold, can be called “domestic rights.” Such rightsinclude his right to live with her and to form withhe r a basic unit defined by the division of labor

between the sexes.. . The precise and detailedcontent of those rights varies from one culture tothe next. What does not vary is that whereverthe family does form a basis for household forma-tion. .. here are domestic duties and there is adivision of labor between the sexes [1963:78].

This analysis makes sense when it is as-sumed that households represent a singlesocial phenomenon. However, when it isrealized that co-residence and domestic func-tions do not necessarily coincide, then a fur-

the r com plication arises, for if th e dom esticrights that are exchanged between husbandan d wife at marriage are those associated withco-residential groups, then i t follows th at thesame rights an d duties ar e not dom estic rightswhen husband and wife reside separately asmem bers of d ifferent co-residential groups.Because the rights are no t necessarily any dif-ferent under the two circumstances, it doesnot seem reasonable to make such a distinc-tion. Among the Ashanti, for example, thereis no indication that the right of a husband toexpect that his wife will prepare his mealsan d the right of a wife to expect that her hus-band will help provide for her an d her childrendiffer a t all in those cases in w hich husbandand wife reside separately and those less fre-qu en t cases in which they reside together.

The basic feature of “domestic” activitiesis not that they are necessarily associatedeither with families or with co-residentialgroups, but that they are concerned with theday -to-d ay necessities of living , including th e

provision and prepa ration of food and the careof children. They differ from various o the r eco-nomic and social functions in that they arewell suited to be carried out by small groupsin a wide range of societal circumstances. Fo r

this reason, they are most frequently carriedout, at lea st in par t, b y co-residential families.They can be, and often also are, carried outby co-residential units that are not families,

and in a few instances they are carried out,in part, by families th at are not co-residentialunits. Within the same society, domesticfunctions are frequently carried out by moretha n one kind of small group, a nd in highlyspecialized industrial societies they can be toa great ex tent efficiently tak en over by special-purpose groups. And hum an ingenuity is suchthat nearly all domestic functions can be car-ried out by special-purpose groups; witnessthe Israeli ki bbu tz as described by Spiro.

DEFINING THE FAMILYSTRUCTURALLY

I have said that families, co-residentialgroups, and domestic functions representthree distinct social phenomena. Implicit hereis that the family is a strictly kinship phe-nomenon and, as such, is best deiined strictlyin terms of kinship relationships. This is be-cause families, as a variety of kinship group-ing, va ry indepe nden tly of co-residen tialgroups an d of do mestic functions. T o include

the criteria of co-residence an d domestic func-tions in the definition of the family results inthe absurdity of having t o deny t he existenceof families when their mem bers do n ot residetogether or when they do not form domesticunits.

Th is in no way implies any so rt of primacyof social structure over social functions, nordoes it deny th e importan ce of co-residence.I n fac t, viewed from one poi nt of view, socialfunctions can be considered to be more basictha n specific forms: it is frequently said t ha t

social groups exist to carry out certain func-tions that are requisites for biological or forsocietal survival, Likewise, co-residence canbe equally as impo rtant as kinship as a basisfo r forming .social groups, a nd in some in-stances kinship may be epiphenomena1 to CO-

residence. I n fact, it is widely recognized tha tunilineal descent systems may in some in-stances have resulted from a particular formof residence. It does not follow from this,however, that kinship is a residential phe-

nomenon or vice versa.That families as structural units need notbe co-residential units has been clearly dem-onstrated and requires no further discussion.Th e relationship between th e family as struc-



500 American Anthropologist [69, 1067

tura l type a nd as social function does requirefu rth er consideration, however. T he generals ta tement h as been made th a t domestic func-tions should be distinguished from families

on logical grounds, and that in fact the twovary independently of each other. It has no tbeen demonstrated that there are no specificdomestic functions that are invariably associ-ated with families. Likewise, it is possible thatthere are social functions other tha n dom esticthat are invariably associated with famil ies.Although logically it seems most consistentto define kinship phenomena-in this in-stan ce th e family-strictly in te rm s of kin-ship relationships, empirically it would not

be incorrect to include certain social functionsin the de finition of t he fam ily so long as thesefunctions were invariably associated withfamilies. This problem does no t arise with n on-familial kinship groups or with nonkinshipgroups, because it is recognized that whereassuch groups may carry ou t a var ie ty of func-tions, no specific function is invariably as-sociated with a given type of structu ral unit .It is the family that is said to be universal lyassociated with specific social function s. Mo re-over, it is no t families in all their varied form s

tha t a re sa id to universally carry out specificsocial functions, b u t one particular form of thefamily-the nuclear family. I n addition, thefrequ ent assumption t ha t this associat ion is a

necessary one makes i t possible t o explain t heassumed universality of the nuclear family interms of social functions th at a re requisitesfor societal survival.

Rather than deal with al l of t he m any func-t ions tha t at various t imes have been said to befamily functions, the focus here will be on

those functions identified by Murdock (1949)as universally associated with the nuclearfamily. Of those who have a t tem pte d t o iden-tify family functions, Murdock is the mostfrequently cited, undoubtedly because hisconclusions ar e based up on a sys t ema t ic sam -pling of societies throughout the world. Thefour function s identified by him as universallyassociated with th e nuclear family are: sexual,economic, reproductive, and educational.

There i s no doub t th a t the functions of th eregulation of sexual acti vity an d of re produc -

t ion do take place within the family. Never-theless, to relate these functions universallyto the nuclear family is a somewhat dubiousprocedure. It represents a case 01 misplacedemphasis-misplaced in two ways : by focusing

on the nuclear fami ly as such and by over-looking the exact nature of the relat ionshipbetween kinship and man as a biologicalcreature.

It is certainly true, as Mu rdock has pointedou t , th at a n exchange of sexual r ights alwaysaccompanies the marriage relat ionship. Thisexchange of rights is associated specificallywith the marriage relationship, however, notwith the nuclear family. These rights exist inmarr iages tha t have not resul tcd in chi ldrenand they exist in fami ly types other than nu-clear, as in polyandrous families when a wo-ma n receives sexual r ights in several b rothersand they in turn in her. The referent i s not th enuclear family, but marriage. Sexual relation-ships are prohibited between parents andchildren and usually between siblings. Again,the referent is not th e nuclear family as such,b u t the incest taboo, which, though i t includesth e nuclear family, includes other kinsmen aswell. Control of sexual activity occurs in thenuclear family because the lat ter contains a

marriage relationship and because some of i t smembers a r e inc luded under a n incest taboo,but not because the sexual function is as-

sociated w ith th e nuclear family a s such.

As to the relat ionship between t he reproduc-t ive function and the nuclear family, twopoints may be m ade: th is funct ion i s n ot uni -versally associated with the nuclear familyexclusively, and nuclear families can existwith out th is function. B oth social an d biolog-ical aspects of reproduction must be consid-ered. If one considers the biological aspect,then, in societies in which premarital or extra-marital relationships are allowed for females,it is not the nuclear family as such tha t i s

necessari ly the reproductive unit , thoughit

may be the child-rearing unit. T h e s a m e i st rue in t he ca se of polyandrous families, inwhich biological pa tern ity is impossible to de -termine. If, on th e o ther hand , i t i s the soc ia laspec t t ha t i s considered, th en it would be pos-s ib le t o say t ha t i t does no t ma t t e r who thegenitor is as long as a social fa th er is identified.O n this basis, however, the Tr obria nd nuclearfamily is n ot a reproduction u nit , because bio-logical pa ter ni ty is not recognized an d childrendo not h ave fa thers , only mothers’ husban ds.

And, of course, nuclear families exist that dono t engage in th e reproductive function whenchildren ar e adopted.

Rather than associate sexual and reproduc-tive functions with the nuclear family as such ,



BENDER] A Refinement of the Concept of Household 50 1

i t is m ore m eaningful to look at the relation-ship between man’s biological nature andkinship. Kinship is a social phenomenon th athas a referent in biology. The term “biological

family” places emphasis on the fact that nu-clear families can be considered as resultingfrom a sexually coha bitating pair having off-spring. It is generally recognized, however,th at the nuclear family is more accurately con-ceived of as a social unit than a biologicalunit. The relationship between biology andkinship is an indirect one. Biological factorsas they relate to kinship may be emphasized,de-emphasized, ignored, or in some casesdenied. Biological phenomena are alwaysgiven social meanings. Sexual reproductionitself may be viewed in a variety of ways: itmay be considered inseparable from sexual re-lationships: partially separable, or, as amongthe native Australians and the Trobriand Is-landers, completely separable as a biologicalphenomenon.

I t is because man is a sexually reproducinganimal, and because the family in one form oranother is universal or nearly so, tha t familiesare usually, though not always, involved insexual reproduction. Sexual reproduction is a

prerequisite for both biological and societalsurvival and usually takes place in the con-text of the family. But reproduction and thefamily are different orders of phenom ena, t hefirst being biological, the second social, sothat reproduction can, and frequently does,occur separately from t he family. It is for thisreason that sexual rights may be exchangedindependently of any rights over potentialchildren, as in concubinage; that parent-child relationships can be created throughadoption rather than reproduction; that bio-

logical fatherh ood can be ignored or denied;and that the entire sexual reproductive pro-cess can, under some circumstances, takeplace outside the family.

Another function said by Murdock to beuniversally associated with the nuclear familyis the economic function. Unlike the sexualand reproductive functions, th e significance ofassociating economic functions with the nu-clear family, with families in general, or even\\it11 kinship groups is doubtful, fo r nearly

every social group has some economic aspectsto its activities. Moreover, Murdock’s caserests on the economic cooperation that issaid to exist between husband an d wife (basedon the division of la bor by sex), between p ar-

ents and children (based on the division oflabor by age), and between siblings.

But to say that the nuclear family alwayscarries out economic functions because a

division of l abo r by age an d sex occurs withinthat group is to misplace the functions. Thedivision of labor by age and sex exists in thesociety as a whole and thus also in an y socialgroups th at contain persons of both sexes andof differentages, including all type s of families.This is not strictly a nuclear-family phe-nomenon. It may be that in some instancesparticular economic aspects of the division of

labor can be only carried out by parents inrelationship t o their children, no t by unmarriedpersons or by married persons without chil-dren. It is also true th at i n some societies, asin our own, any economic roles played byparents in relationship to their children canalso be played completely outside of thefamily situation. It is not only in the Israelikibbutz th at economic cooperation tak es placeprimarily outside th e realm of t he nuclearfamily and that the division of labor by sextakes place in the society as a whole: thesame is to a great extent true in the case ofthe M un du ru d, a lready mentioned.

The fourth universal nuclear family func-tion identified by Murdock-considered bysome as the mo st basic-is socialization. Th ereare two issues involved here, one raised byMurdock and one raised by Parsons andBales (1955). Murdock’s contention was thatthe nuclear family is everywhere the prim arysocializing agent. Parsons and Bales, in con-trast, feel th at there are certain aspects of thesocialization process related to personalityformation that can only be carried out by asmall, nuclear-family-like group, which thus

accounts for the universality of the nu clearfamily.

It is very questionable whether the nuclearfamily as such is always the p rim ary socializingagent. During infancy, children are frequentlyin almost continuous contact with theirmothers, fathers playing at best a relativelyminor direct role, particularly in societies inwhich there is a sharp social and physicalseparation between the sexes. Young boys, it

is true, frequen tly learn male ta sks from their

fathers, and girls from their m others, though insocieties in which boys reside with theirmothers away from their fathers, the father’srole may still be relatively minor. Wherechildren are free to live in households other




t ha n tha t of their parents, where children arein continuous contact with a wide range ofkinsmen, where children live with their peers,and where nurses and servants are important,

it is not unreasonable to suppose th at thenuclear family may actually be of secondaryimportance as a socialization agen t.

If there are certain as pec ts of the socializa-tion process that can only be camed out bythe nuclear family, then the percentage ofsocialization carried o ut by th e nuclear familymay not be relevant. Parsons and Bales haveformulated a psychoanalytically based, social-psych ological theory of socialization, whichholds that adequate personality developmentrequires a small group in which both adultmale and female roles are performed. Theideal and the most obvious social group thatis structurally adeq uate to carry ou t this func-tion is the nuclear family. It does not auto-matically follow, if the theory is correct, that

the nuclear family is the only kinship grouptha t can carry o ut this function, a point madeby Fallers and Levy (1959). N or does itautomatically follow th a t such a group need bekinship based. In fact, there is the dis tinctpossibility th at a society could exist with som e-

wh at less than ideal socializing agencies. Th ereare, of course, specific insta nce s in our ow n andother societies in which socialization takesplace in groups that are structurally inade-quate by the criteria of Parsons and Bales. Itmight be argued that a society can exist witha few inadequately socialized individuals,though the majority must be adequatelysocialized. On the other hand, it is equallyarguable that all individuals in a given societycould be socialized by a structurally inad-equate g ro u p th o u g h , if the theory is cor-

rect, i t would follow t h a t all members of t h a tsociety would achieve somewhat less thanideal personality development,

Because there is strong evidence to indicatethat the nuclear family is not always quanti-tatively the most im porta nt socializing agen t,and because there is not conclusive evidenceto indicate th a t any aspect of th e socializa-tion process requires t h e nuclear family as thesocializing agent, to incorporate the socializa-tion process in the definition of the nuclear

family is of questiona ble value . It would beeven less useful to incorporate it in the defini-tion of families in gen eral, for extended fam iliesare frequently economically impo rtant a t thesame time that they play almost no role in

socialization. By incorporating the socializa-tion function as a pa rt of th e definition of thefamily, one runs th e danger of discoveringsocial groups that are structurally nuclear

families but are not primary socializingagents.

As Goldschmidt has pointed out (1960),there is no reason to assume that specificfunctional requisites for societal surviva l mu stnecessarily be carried out by particular in-stitutions such as marriage or the nuclearfamily. The search for functions that areuniversally associated either with families ingeneral or with nuclear families in particularis certainly a legitimate task. Since families,however, have been defined and classified pri-marily in terms of their st ruc tur e, the in-clusion of specific func tions a s a p a r t of thedefinition can only lead to confusion, unless itis reasonably certain that the relationship be-tween form an d function is an invariable one.For if the y do no t necessarily go together,then one is left with the alternative of exclud-ing from the category of “family” all cases inwhich the function is not associated with theform. Spiro (1954) ran in to this problem withhis study of an Israeli kibbutz: a t first, hr

considered the position t ha t the nuclear familydid not exist because it did n ot carry o ut th enuclear-family functions identified by M u r -dock, and that the whole kibbutz could heviewed as an extended family.

There is a much broader problem involvedhere, w hich has to d o with th e classification ofsociety in general and the related problem of

the relationship between social structure andsocial functions. Society has been broken upand categorized in a variety of ways, fre-

quently in the same book by the same author.

One means of classifying all social group s an dsocial institutions is in terms of so-calledprinciples of social structure or principles of

social grouping. Thus Lowie (1948) has iden-tified the following principles of so cial group-ing, on which supposedly all social groupingsare based: sex, age, kinship, co-residencean d consciousness of kind. Fi rth , in his tu rn ,has identified sex, age, locality, and kinshipas some of the most fun dam ental principles oi

social structu re (1958:82).

On a functional level, society is categorizedfor analytical purposes in a complementarymanner. T hu s there ar e political systems, reli-gious systems, economic systems, an d the like.The concept of institution is sometimes o n



B E NDE R] A Refinement of the Cowe pt of Household 503

this level of analysis, though a t other times i tis also on the structural level. In the formercase, associated with each function there aresocial groups, b u t n othing is implied regarding

their structure. A wide variety of social grou pscan carry ou t a single function, a nd , converselya single type of social group ca n carry ou t a

variety of social functions. W hen used on astru ctu ral level, however, the concept of in-stitution implies a given social form, such as

the institutions of m arriage and t he family.In contrast to the position taken in this

paper-that th e family is best defined struc-turally since there are no conclusively estab-lished, invariable connections between specificfamily forms an d particular family functions-Fallers and Levy (1959) conclude on th e samebasis that the family is best defined function-ally. They reason th at the family as a conceptis ill adapted for comparative analysis be-cause of th e incorrect assumption t h at specificstructu ral units are invariably associated withspecific social functions. Such a n assump tionis no longer made by anthropologists in thestu dy of o the r social phenomena, they n ote:for example, in th e stu dy of political systems,to associate specific kinds of social groups with

political functions is to overlook the factstha t a wide range of social grou ps can carryout the same political function and that so-called political groups can carry ou t nonpoliti-cal functions. Of all of t he func tions th at ha vebeen attributed to the nuclear family, theybelieve socialization to be th e most im po rtan t.The y agree with Parsons and Bales tha t smallgroups in which both adult male and femaleroles are played are structural requisites foradequ ate socialization, but they do n ot agreethat this group need be the nuclear family-any small, kinship-structured group would beadequate. On this basis they conclude th at themost useful definition of the family for generalcomparative purposes would be “any small,kinship-structured unit which carries outaspec ts of th e relevan t function s” (1959:Sl).

There are major weaknesses in Fallers’ andLevy’s argument. They correctly indicate thati f it is the adult male and female roles in asmall-group situ atio n th at are of prim ary im-portance in the socialization process, it does

not follow that the nuclear family is the onlystructurally adequate socializing agent; butthey do not follow the argument to its logicalconclusion: that the socialization agent neednot be a kinship-based group.

There is a much more important problemwith defining families functionally, however.Th e term “family” is now legitimately used byalmost all anthropologists and sociologists to

refer to a vari ety of kinship group s th a t con-tain both affinal and consanguineal relation-ships; as such, i t has proven to be a n indis-pensable tool. Bu t if Fallers’ an d L evy’sdefinition were to be used, then nuclear fam-ilies, polygynous families, polyandrous fam-ilies, and extended families would be ‘Yam-ilies” in some instances and not in others.Under these circumstances, some other desig-nation would have to be formulated for thesesocial forms. If there ar e cert ain aspects of th esocialization process that are invariablyassociated with some sort of small, kinship-structu red unit, which may be of a variety offorms, certainly such a unit should be identi-fied with a label, but not with a label that hasproven of gre at utility in ano ther context.

The issue as o the relat ive utilit y of focus-ing on social structures or social functions forpurposes of comparative analysis is an im-po rtan t one, particularly when th e desire is todiscover structures or functions that areuniversal because they are requisites for

societal survival. As Fallers and Levy havepointed out, it has proven more useful forcomparative purposes to define political sys-tems and other such institutions functionallyrather than structurally. Goldschmidt too hasmade a strong case for what he terms “com-parative functionalism,” the comparativestud y of fun ctiona l requisites for societalsurvival and of how they are institutionallycarried out. He maintains that there are noinvariable connections between forms andfunctions: while there are certain necessaryfunctions that are usually associated with“marriage,” for example, these functions canbe take n care of in par t or entirely outside thisinstitution.

The point to be stressed, I believe, is oneth at has long been accepted i n social science:social structure and social function are com-plementary concepts. Bu t the fac t tha t specificforms of th e family m ay n ot h ave universalfunctions, or th a t specific forms of th e familymay not be universal, does not negate the

util ity of defining families structu rally . On th econtrary, because people in all societies recog-nize kinship relationships and use these rela-tionships as a basis for forming social groups,and because these relationships can be organ-




ized in only a certain number of logically pos-

sible ways, it is extremely useful to classifykinship groups in terms of structural types.N ot all typ es need be found i n all societies, nor

need they be equally functionally importantwhen they are found.

SUMMARY

Families (as specific type s of kin ship st ruc-tures), co-residence, and domestic functionsare three distinct kinds of social phenomena.Hi ther to, co-residence and domestic functionshave been mistakenly considered as inherentattrib utes of families. Th e first major analy ti-cal breakthrough came when families were

distinguished from households, the former hav -ing as their referent kinship, the latt er havingas their referent presumably propinquity orlocality. In fa ct, this distinction left th e jobonly half done, since th e concept of the house-hold, as formulated, included two distinctkinds of social phenomena: co-residentialgroups and do mestic functions. While all threevery frequently correspond, they also can an dd o vary independently.

NOTES

I This paper is a revised and expand ed version of one read a tthe annual meetings of the Central States Anthropological So-

ciety in St . Louis, April 28, 1966.

2 No numerical data are available in this regard. The censusdefinition of households differs from that used here, consistingof all persons occupying a housing unit. According to th e 1953

census, 28.6 percent of household u nits actu ally containedfamilies (Click 1957).

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