QUOTE
It's a seemingly simple question: \"What is family?\" A few decades ago, most Canadians would have answered something along the lines of: \"A married man and woman with at least one child.\"
Today, with so many more visible forms of family -- from single-parent and blended to same-sex and even no-sex -- characterizing society's basic unit is a much thornier proposition at a time when just four in 10 families fit the traditional nuclear mould.
What is a family?:Today, with so many more visible forms of family -- from single-parent and blended to same-sex and even no-sex -- characterizing society's basic unit is a much thornier proposition at a time when just four in 10 families fit the traditional nuclear mould.
"The Vanier Institute of the Family takes a broad view of families. It defines a family as any combination of two or more people who are bound together over time by ties of mutual consent, birth and/or adoption or placement and who, together, assume responsibilities for combinations of some of the following:
Physical maintenance and care of group members
Addition of new members through procreation or adoption
Socialization of children
Social control of members
Production, consumption, distribution of goods and services, and
Affective nurturance -- love.
For the 2001 national census, Statistics Canada defined a family as referring to a married couple, with or without children; or a couple living common-law (either of the opposite or same sex), with or without children; or a lone parent living with one or more children."