ZIMSEC O Level · Family and Religious Studies · Form 1, Form 2
The family is the basic unit of society where values, beliefs and skills are first learnt.
Types of family
- Nuclear: parents and their children.
- Extended: includes grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins.
- Single-parent, child-headed and blended families (step-families).
- Polygamous families, practised in some traditional and religious communities.
Roles and responsibilities
Parents provide food, shelter, education, love, discipline and moral guidance. Children respect and help parents and care for them in old age. The extended family supports members in times of need, such as illness or death.
Marriage
Traditional African marriage involves the payment of roora/lobola, which unites two families, not just two individuals. Religious marriages follow the rites of each faith; civil marriages are registered under the law.
Challenges facing families
Poverty, unemployment, migration of parents to work elsewhere, HIV and AIDS, divorce, domestic violence, and drug and alcohol abuse.
Check yourself
- Distinguish between a nuclear and an extended family.
- Give two purposes of roora/lobola.
- State two challenges facing families today.
Show answers
- A nuclear family is parents and children; an extended family includes other relatives such as grandparents, uncles and aunts.
- Any two: unites the two families, shows respect and appreciation to the bride's family, makes the marriage legitimate in tradition.
- Any two: poverty, migration, HIV and AIDS, divorce, domestic violence, substance abuse.
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