Extended family

Extended family (or joint family) is a term with several distinct meanings. First, it is used synonymously with consanguineous family. Second, in societies dominated by the conjugal family, it is used to refer to kindred (an egocentric network of relatives that extends beyond the domestic group) who does not belong to the conjugal family. Often there could be many generations living under the same roof.

In extended families, the network of relatives acts as a close-knit community. Extended families can include, aside from parents and their children, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, foster children etc. This is in contrast with the smaller nuclear family.

In the cultures where the extended family is the basic family unit, growing up to adulthood does not necessarily mean severing bonds between oneself and one's parents or even grandparents. When the child grows up, he or she moves into the larger and more real world of adulthood, yet he or she doesn't, under normal circumstances, establish an identity separate from that of the community.

Around the world
Broader definitions of "immediate family" also persist notably - though mostly rurally - in Middle Eastern and African families, in the family traditions of Greece, Italy (including Sicily and Sardinia), Spain, and Portugal; and throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. In many cultures, such as in those of many of the Africans, the Middle Easterners, the traditional Jewish family of central Europe, the Spanish-speaking Latin Americans, the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, the Indians, the East Asians (Chinese, Japanese, Korean etc.) and the Pacific Islanders, extended families are the basic family unit (in contrast to the conjugal or nuclear families which Western cultures are more familiar with). Cultures in which the extended family is common usually happen to be collectivistic cultures.

Australian Aborigines are another group for whom the concept of family extends well beyond the nuclear model. Aboriginal immediate families include aunts, uncles and a number of other relatives who would be considered "distant relations" in context of the nuclear family. Aboriginal families have strict social rules regarding who they can marry. Their family structure incorporates a shared responsibility for all tasks.

Polygamy
Polygynous and polyandrous families (collectively, 'polygamous', although this term is sometimes applied only to polygyny) were common in the past in places such as the Asia and the Middle East but are not accepted in modern western cultures. Social anthropologists use evidence to suggest that for most of human existence man has been polygamous, indeed in some parts of the world polygamous and polyandrous families live in social harmony. The “social function of polygyny” supplies the families of Ghana great benefits. The polyandrous kin-group provides solutions for Ghanaian biological, psychological, ecological and social problems.