Family

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

household, including lective body of persons who reside under one roof, and under a manager; those who descend from one one head, or common ancestor ; kindred; as, the human family; lineage; tribe or race; familia was applied to all persons in the line of ancestors . Among the Romans, daughters, grandchildren and slaves; power of a paterfamilias-as his sons, including all objects of property, even but it was also used in a wider sense, inanimate. The family is the cornerstone of the social edifice. Hence, it has been taken as a model for forming other associations-political, civil, or religious. Among the early early Hebrews, and in of government is only an extension of Eastern countries, the patriarchal form the family relationship. The Greeks regarded the family as a type of the state; and among the Romans the natural basis of the whole social and political power of a father was taken as the organization of the people. The family life is based upon the wants and necessi ties of our nature, and is essentially fitted to develop and foster those habits and affections on which the happiness and welfare of mankind depend. It can, however, exist in a state of purity only where monogamy prevails. In botany, a synonym for ORDER (q. v.). In zoölogy, the group above the genus. An order of animals should be divided into families according to the form of species, but, in fact, the greatest confusion reigns in the classification of the animal kingdom.