What is the sociological definition of a family?

Encyclopedia of Opinion

Question: What is the sociological definition of a family?
Position‹4 of 6›: Families are defined by what they do
Argument‹5 of 5: Families control members

Families are responsible for keeping each other in check by punishing bad behaviour and reinforcing good behaviour.

The argument

As is often noted by behaviourist psychologists, families have a profound power over the behaviour and development of children. D. Russell Crane notes that parents are "empowered with the responsibility, authority and duty to teach children positive and prosocial behaviour." In adulthood, often the distinction between a group of close friends and a 'found family' is that the latter has some control over aspects of one's life, giving advice which is informed by a long-standing understanding. While close friends can offer support and empathy, only a family member can have a meaningful level of control over the decisions someone makes.

Premises

[P1]Families exert profound power over the behaviour and development of their children, being empowered with the responsibility and authority to teach prosocial behaviour. [P2] What distinguishes a "found family" from close friends is precisely this measure of control — the standing to shape a member's decisions through long-standing understanding, which friends' support and empathy alone do not provide. [C] Because exercising control over members is what families characteristically do, families are defined by what they do.

Counter-arguments

The extent to which a family exerts authority over its members is dependent on the type of family. Some research has suggested that single-parent and stepfamilies have more equalitarian parent-child authority roles, meaning they control the children less, but these families should not be excluded from the definition of family. Moreover, some people are very resistant to direct control from others but still have mutual support with family members. Therefore, family should be about support rather than control.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The quotation supports responsibility and authority to teach, which is not control, and it concerns parents and young children — so the premise generalises a developmental relationship into a defining feature of families as such. [Rejecting P2] Control also fails to distinguish the category, since employers, schools and religious communities exercise more of it than most adult families do, while many families exercise almost none and are still families; and the argument's own example of a found family points the other way, since such relationships are chosen and sustained precisely without the standing to compel.