Rodzina w świadomości społecznej. Co (kto) tak naprawdę stanowi rodzinę? Społeczne (re)konstruowanie definicji rodziny

“Everyday life” used to be the kingdom of the standard, the principle, the code. It used to be a home to traditions, heritage, habits, and customs [...] It used to be as it had always been because it probably couldn’t have been different [...]. [...] This is what it used to be like. Today, it has changed. Assuming, firstly, that human beings are the prime movers in the social structure because of their ability to produce, reproduce, create the society and its structures by means of free choices in given boundary conditions, and, secondly, that the contemporary Polish family is facing transformation and not a crisis, the author reflects on the social (re)construction of the definition of the family. The author begins with reviewing the definitions of the family existing in the Polish legislation, in the literature on the subject as well as the definition of marriage in the Canon Law. It is followed by the reflection on the definition of the nuclear family, which has been deeply rooted in the literature on the subject since the 1960s (the concept is considered to have been developed by the American anthropologist George Peter Murdock) and the definition of the family proposed by T. Szlendak, which will make it possible to consider the diverse forms of human relationships existing nowadays and, at the same time, to overcome the limitations of Murdock’s definition. The paper confronts the above definitions with the models and patterns of the family life present in the social consciousness, referring both to the naturally occurring data and empirical material based on the author’s research. In collecting the latter, the author employed several research methods and techniques. The results include a socio-visual narrative created by young people presenting their ideas of the family by means of photographs.

Ewa Jurczyk-Romanowska