Communities consist of different types of families which resulted from different kinds of marriages.
Reference should be made to my previous write up on types of families and types of marriages. Human community, as a matter of fact, is a tree with it'd branches as families forming a unit through which the development of the branches of the tree produce the leaves which manufacture food for the tree. The branches alone cannot produce the leaves without the support of the tree itself. The family, therefore, depends on the community to a great extent for its survival. Hence , the community has overriding power over the family.
Laws and customs are prescribed by the community as a whole for its members. Therefore , it Is the community that provides the means of learning them. In every community , there are institutions which serve ad means of societal customs and laws which serve the purpose of teaching and learning them.
The family is one of the various institutions. Others are the church, the school, ,the village, the mosque, etc.
At various levels of a person's life, he learns through the institutions provided by his community.
People are expected to behave in certain ways as expected by the community. For instance. The church provides teaching on morality as supported by the community and it is the family which sees to it that once teachings are provided they are put to practical use by it'd members.
A family may be branded as bad if any of its members behave in certain ways contrary to the expectation of the community. And for such behaviour certain forms of punishment may be metted to the family as a whole by members by members of the community. Such punishment can take the form of total rejection of the family by the members of the family or withdrawal of community members from associating with the peculiar family. Therefore , rules of proper conduct are approved by the community.
Roles and duties of each family are defined and prescribed by the community.
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