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Dysfunctional family

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A dysfunctional family is a family in which conflict, misbehavior and even abuse on the part of individual members of the family occur continually and regularly, leading other members to accommodate such actions. Children sometimes grow up in such families with the understanding that such an arrangement is normal. Dysfunctional families are primarily a result of co-dependent adults, and also affected by the alcoholism, substance abuse, or other addictions of parents, parents' untreated mental illnesses/defects or personality disorders, or the parents emulating their own dysfunctional parents and dysfunctional family experiences.
Dysfunctional family members have common symptoms and behavior patterns as a result of their common experiences within the family structure. This tends to reinforce the dysfunctional behavior, either through enabling or perpetuation. The family unit can be affected by a variety of factors.
The table below shows the symptoms of family dysfunction according to three sources (two taken from the same expert). Symptoms that are roughly equivalent are shown in the same row:
Contents [hide]
1 Examples of a dysfunctional family
2 Effects on children
3 See also
4 References
[edit]Examples of a dysfunctional family

Denial (i.e. a refusal to acknowledge the alcoholism of a parent or child/teenager; ignoring complaints of sexual abuse)
Lack of empathy toward family members
Lack of clear boundaries (i.e. throwing away personal possessions that belong to others, inappropriate physical boundaries)
Mixed Messages
Extremes in conflict (either too much or too little fighting between family members)
Symptoms of family dysfunction Signs of unhealthy parenting Parenting styles which cause family dysfunction
Unpredictability "Dogmatic or chaotic parenting" (harsh and inflexible discipline)
Childlike (parents who "parentify" their children. They tend to be needy and incompetent. Usually allow the other parent to abuse children.) using physical means as consequences arbitrarily. Rule by fear. Conditional love
Depriving (parents who control by withholding love, money, praise, attention, or anything else their child needs or wants.)
Stifled speech (children not allowed to dissent or question authority) Cultlike (parents who feel uncertain and "raise their children according to rigid rules and roles".) "Denial of an Inner Life" (children are not allowed to develop their own value system)
Neuharth also includes these signs of unhealthy parenting:
Disrespect
Emotional intolerance (family members not allowed to express the "wrong" emotions)
Ridicule
Neuharth also includes these dysfunctional parenting styles:
Using (destructively narcissistic parents)
Abusing (parents who use physical, verbal, or sexual violence to dominate their children)
Perfectionist (parents who "fixate on order, prestige, power, and/or perfect appearances".)
[1]. [2] [3]
[edit]Effects on children

Children growing up in a dysfunctional family have been known to adopt one or more of six basic roles:[4]
"The Good Child" – a child who assumes the parental role.
"The Problem Child" – the child who is blamed for most problems, in spite of often being the only emotionally stable one in the family.
"The Caretaker" – the one who takes responsibility for the emotional well-being of the family.
"The Lost Child" – the inconspicuous, quiet one, whose needs are often ignored or hidden.
"The Mascot" – uses comedy to divert attention away from the increasingly dysfunctional family system.
"The Mastermind" – the opportunist who capitalizes on the other family members' faults in order to get whatever he/she wants.
They may also:
think only of themselves to make up the difference of their childhoods. They're still learning the balance of self-love
distrust others
have difficulty expressing emotions
have low self-esteem or have a poor self image
have difficulty forming healthy relationships with others
feel angry, anxious, depressed, isolated from others, or unlovable
perpetuate dysfunctional behaviors in their other relationships (especially their children)
lack the ability to be playful, or childlike, and may "grow up too fast"
often learn to live far away from their families.
[edit]See also

Alcoholism in family systems
Harry Stack Sullivan
Karpman Drama Triangle
Triangulation (family dynamics)
[edit]References

^ Farmer, S.: "Adult Children of Abusive Parents", pp. 19-34. Ballantine Books, 1989,
^ Neuharth, D.: "If You Had Controlling Parents: How to Make Peace With Your Past and Take Your Place In the World", pp. 4-5 Quill Books, 2002
^ Neuharth, D.: "If You Had Controlling Parents: Making Peace With Your Past and Taking Your Place In the World", pp. 14-15, Quill Books, 2002
^ http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Dysfunctional-family

South Africa - Family Life In Black Communities, Family Life In Asian Communities, Family Life In Colored Families

South Africa, with its 40 million residents, is a multicultural society with eleven official languages. Although most residents (76.7%) speak an indigenous African language (Xhosa 23.4%; Zulu 29.9%; and Sepedi 12%), English is the language that most people understand (Statistics South Africa 1996). Family life must thus also be seen against the background of cultural diversity and extreme socioeconomic differences. Most families—primarily nonwhites—are poor and struggle to satisfy their daily needs. Contributing in complex ways to different types of family structures are traditional practices, historical events—especially the racially discriminatory and disruptive effect of apartheid laws, which placed restrictions on movement, provided inferior education and limited employment opportunities, and enforced compulsory shifting of families—and the demands of modern society (Ross 1995).

When the first whites arrived from Europe in the seventeenth century, there were various dominant black groups with established cultural patterns in the country. After some internal conflicts between whites and black races (for example, the nine border wars on the Cape's eastern boundary between 1778 and 1878 and the Anglo-Zulu war of 1878), two wars were also fought against domination by the United Kingdom, originally from December 1880 to February 1881 and then again from 1899 to 1902 (Davenport 1978). The Union of South Africa, with a white minority government in power, was established in 1910. Afrikaner nationalism (supported by a white group with Afrikaans as its mother tongue) reached a climax with the formation of the Republic of South Africa in 1961. The National Party had come into power in 1948, and this is viewed as the beginning of legal apartheid (separate development), which lasted until 1994. With the first true democratic election in 1994, a predominantly black political party came into power and immediately began to transform society at all levels—economical, social, and educational. The main focus of this transformation process had as its objective the empowerment of nonwhite South Africans in particular.

Although the white population flourished economically and progressed in various ways during the greater part of the twentieth century, various factors had a negative effect on nonwhite families. Urbanization increased rapidly, especially after the abolishment of the influx control regulations—legislation prohibiting people from moving and settling freely to any part of the country—in 1986. However, with the precarious circumstances in which many families had to live (in cities and rural areas), as well as physical separation between husband and wife in many cases (primarily as a result of the migrant labor system), large-scale family disruption occurred in traditional black, colored, and Indian families.

The arrival of political freedom and power in 1994 did not automatically bring about economic power for the nonwhite majority. Most nonwhite families still cannot satisfy their basic needs. The consequences of the previous political era are, therefore, still visible in the low educational and living standard of many nonwhite South Africans (uneducated 21.6%; Statistics South Africa 1996). As a result, the high crime statistics are ascribed to, among other things, poor socioeconomic circumstances, high unemployment (24%), circumstantial frustration, and the failure of politicians to meet campaign promises. Signs of tension are evident in many families in high divorce rates (whites 357 per 100,000 of the population; Indians 142 per 100,000; coloreds 116 per 100,000; and blacks 23 per 100,000; Statistics South Africa 1996), family violence that takes place in many households, and the high rate of teenage pregnancies and out-of-wedlock births. At the same time, the adverse effects of the AIDS epidemic (11% of the population) are already affecting many families and will continue to do so. Given this context, a general description will be given of family structures as they occur in the various population groups.


South Africa - Family Life In Black Communities
Anthropologically, the black people (77.5% of the population) are viewed as belonging to four ethnic groups, the Nguni, the Sotho, the Tsonga Shangaan, and the Venda. The groups differ in size and origin and have their own cultures, speak their own languages, and have different dialects within the groups.

Black families are traditionally extended, with a dominant father at the head. Large changes in urban families have taken place primarily as a result of urbanization, housing problems, political factors (the migratory labor system), and economic underdevelopment coupled with poverty. However, nuclear families have formed within the high socioeconomic group. The high incidence of outof-wedlock births has resulted in the replacement of the nuclear family with other structures. In many cases the daughter and child live with the mother, which means that many multigenerational families exist (Steyn 1993).

Economic development in the areas of mining, harbors, and industrial growth resulted in the migrant labor system. This meant that the workers (men) moved to other areas alone to work there to earn an income. A portion of the money was then sent to the family in the rural area. In the course of time, family members were allowed to live together near the workplace under certain conditions. However, traditional family structures could not continue in this industrial environment. Differences between families in urban and rural areas can be ascribed to the effect of industrialization, urbanization, and the migrant labor system (Nzimande 1996).

Although ethnically different, all black families share some characteristics: the importance of children, a happy family life, strong family ties, and the nature and implication of being married (Viljoen 1994). Certain practices, such as polygamy and lobola (the giving of something valuable or the payment of money by the groom to the family of the bride), are viewed as strengths because they prevent divorce and marital disintegration. The decrease in the incidence of payment of lobola can be ascribed to the diminishing of parents' authority over their daughters and is an indication of how traditional practices are making way for Western values (Manona 1981). Traditionally, the family unit is viewed as consisting of the husband, wife, and unmarried children, who form part of a larger family structure, the extended family. This is the ideal structure, and when a married son leaves the extended family to begin his own household, the process is known as fission. Viewed over time, black family life can be seen as moving from the extended to the nuclear type. However, the one has not replaced the other.
General extended family patterns are vertical (multigenerational) or horizontal (when brothers with their families live with the oldest brother). A further dimension, also known as composite families, occurs when the husband has more than one wife, and they all live together (with their children). These various extended family forms exist in all African cultures (Nzimande 1996). Generally in extended families, there is a wider group of people who are related by blood or marriage and who identify with and care for one another. The extended family is usually more stable than a nuclear family and extends over longer periods. The development and shrinkage of the extended family is affected by fertility, marriages, divorces, and deaths; in many communities it serves as a social service system that cares for and provides support to various categories of dependents. Notwithstanding the longer lifetime of the extended family, its existence is influenced especially by the greater economic independence of individual members, who tend to move out in order to live more independently in their own nuclear family.

Although the nuclear family functions more independently, its members usually do not totally break ties with the family of origin or other important family members. During problems and in times of crises, members of the extended family are still expected to help and support one another. In many nuclear families a niece, nephew, aunt, or uncle is also present because he or she needs support.

The support system in black communities is based upon regulations, values, and socialization patterns through which a feeling of social responsibility and reciprocal support is created and practiced (Nzimande 1996). The main purpose is to maintain the group's character throughout the extended family. There are indications of a continual decrease of family involvement within the extended family system, which results in a decrease of support resources, especially for those who need them. Because the individual worker becomes economically independent, the extended family increasingly becomes a smaller supportive factor for his or her survival.

Some of the strongest influences changing traditional family life in black communities are poverty, poor housing, urbanization, rising divorce rates, and a decline in traditional institutions, customs, and values (Viljoen 1994). Obedience and respect for parents (or parentlike authority) are among the key values and socialization processes of traditional black families that are being affected in particular. This is why a reformulation of the role of the father in the family (in terms of authority and involvement) is one of the most crucial issues in black family life. Along with these factors is the changing external environment, which, in itself, sets new challenges and presents other values for the younger generation of black families.


Read more: http://family.jrank.org/pages/1613/South-Africa-Family-Life-in-Black-Communities.html#ixzz0ImsA5nXf&C

Read more: http://family.jrank.org/pages/1613/South-Africa-Family-Life-in-Black-Communities.html#ixzz0Ims5WhPd&C
South Africa - Family Life In Asian CommunitiesBetween 1860 and 1911, a total of 152,184 Indians (Hindus and Muslims) came to South Africa from various parts of India to work as laborers on sugar plantations in the Durban area. They formed a diverse group in terms of language and culture, and their ranks included twice as many men as women. Although in their native lands some of these people would not have interacted because they belonged to different castes, common work and problems (e.g., poor working conditions and health care) resulted in the demise of the caste system and other traditional practices. Once their working contracts had expired, some continued their involvement in farming, while others moved to towns and cities and began their own businesses, some of which are still thriving as family businesses. Indian families live all over South Africa (2.6% of the population), with the greatest concentration in Natal ( Jithoo 1996).

The joint family was originally the norm for Indian families. However, nuclear families are increasing as a result of modernization. Poverty and unemployment affected and still affect many families, making it hard for parents to pass down traditional values in the nuclear family within the context of greater freedom of thought and new opportunities (Steyn 1993).

Although many joint families exist today (with the father or senior brother as undisputed head), with different generations living together (with different interests and power structures), there has been a transition to families that are more nuclear, especially in the cities. Unlike typical Western nuclear families, traditional values and obligations bind an Indian nuclear family, and its members maintain good contact with the extended family. Nevertheless, there has been a loss of the traditional understanding that promotes cohesion, solidarity, and loyalty in the joint family. The decrease in the incidence of joint families can be ascribed to an increase in kinds of housing, the building of roads, more professional work opportunities as a result of better educational opportunities, and the influence of Western values, with their emphasis on individuality. One of the greatest challenges for Indian families is to adapt to a changing sociocultural environment. The great distances between children, parents, and grandparents as a result of nuclear family life patterns has resulted in a decline in the traditional values and associated support networks. This places greater demands on family members to adapt as a result of less continuity and more uncertainty. Exposure to the media, a more integrated educational system, and the dominant influence of Western culture have all contributed to a culture of family transition for Indians in South Africa. Nevertheless, although structural changes have occurred in Indian families, many remain conservative, and many traditional values and morals have been maintained ( Jithoo 1996).


Read more: http://family.jrank.org/pages/1614/South-Africa-Family-Life-in-Asian-Communities.html#ixzz0ImtqQIAL&C
South Africa - Family Life In Colored FamiliesThe colored people in South Africa (8.9% of the population) stem from slaves, Asians, Europeans, Khoi, and Africans. Consequently, conspicuous differences exist within the colored group with regard to religion, language, and socioeconomic status (SES). Two distinct groups can be differentiated in terms of SES: the high class with stable family relationships as well as social and economic security,

and the low socioeconomic class that, as a result of forced moves, inadequate education, and the like, lived in poverty for generations. The low SES group usually lives in precarious conditions that are characterized by social problems, such as street violence, unemployment, overcrowding, many out-of-wedlock pregnancies, and a poverty-stricken lifestyle. These factors usually contribute to feelings of despair and limited expectations for the future (Rabie 1996).

How the colored family originated differs substantially from that of the Indian family. Colored families and African-American families, however, have in common many factors that shaped them. These promoted a high out-of-wedlock birth rate as well as an unstable family life. Today there are large differences in social class within the colored population. The nuclear family is common in the high-income groups, whereas single-parent families, as part of an extended family with a dominant woman, are common in low-income groups. Living together and desertion are also common in low-income groups (Steyn 1993).

The following are some of the most predominant characteristics and contributing factors to the socioeconomic circumstances of many colored households (Rabie 1996). First, poverty entails that housing with associated services is lacking or inadequate. Units are small, and children are often left alone at home unsupervised. In high-density areas, two or more nuclear families live together, which strains normal family relationships and places excessively high demands on families with inadequate resources. These circumstances are thus largely responsible for the prevalence of well-organized gang syndicates in many neighborhoods. Gang activities are common (especially in the Western Cape, where large concentrations of colored people live) and even schoolchildren are recruited to join these complex competing power structures that have a large influence on many households. Gang membership can last until late adolescence and even early adulthood. A second factor is that approximately 43 percent of births take place outside marriage. This has implications for stable supportive relationships.

Supportive networks in poorer communities are mostly built around gender roles (Rabie 1996). Adolescents spend a lot of time with peers of the same gender. In marriages where the relationship between the husband and wife is not one of attachment, the husband spends almost all of his time with his friends, while the wife directs her affection to their children and family. In addition to the economical contributions that these women make to the households and wider network in many cases, these women also hold the families and networks together. They do so on a daily basis, for example, by lending to others or borrowing from others what is needed (e.g., cash, household ingredients) and providing emotional support when necessary.

A substantial proportion of nuclear families have adopted Western lifestyles. In many of these families both parents work, but in other cases, there is a single breadwinner while the wife (in most cases) looks after the family and household.


Read more: http://family.jrank.org/pages/1615/South-Africa-Family-Life-in-Colored-Families.html#ixzz0Imu82gLa&C
South Africa - Family Life In White CommunitiesHistorically, the family life of whites (11% of the population) is similar to that of the Christian, western European style. Although extended families did exist originally, white families were mostly characterized by large nuclear families, with strong family ties, who were involved in their community and church. The husband was traditionally also the undisputed head of the family. Industrialization and urbanization (especially after World War II) brought about large changes in the family life of white people. The nuclear family became more autonomous from the extended family and began to function independently from it (Steyn 1993).
Read more: http://family.jrank.org/pages/1616/South-Africa-Family-Life-in-White-Communities.html#ixzz0ImuiXuOK&C
South Africa - The Incidence Of Distinguishable Family StructuresIn a comprehensive study involving 1,746 white, 2,024 colored, 2,411 Asian, and 1,199 black families, it became evident that the pure nuclear family is still the most prevalent, although masked differential proportions exist between the groups (Steyn 1993), with the smallest proportion of nuclear families occurring among black people. Although the nuclear structure is the most common among both black and colored people, they make up less than half of the total. Multigenerational families, with either a man (coloreds 11.6% and blacks 16. 2%) or a woman (coloreds 8.2% and blacks 12.6%) as head of the family occur most commonly in these two population groups. For Asians and whites, the incidence of multigenerational families with either a man or a woman as head is 12 percent and 1.2 percent, respectively. The incidence of single-parent families, primarily with the woman as parent, is as follows: coloreds 15 percent, blacks 14.8 percent, Asians 7.7 percent, and whites 6.2 percent. Steyn (1993) concludes that the nuclear family is the predominant family form for whites, while single-parent and multigenerational families are also legitimate family units for both the colored and black communities. For Asians, only the multi-generational family structure (after the nuclear family) has a relatively high incidence.

Another family type that exists is where other relatives live with a family. This occurs mostly among black families (21.3%), followed by Asians (20%), coloreds (18.3%), and whites (6%). The incidence of reconstituted families (man or woman marries for the second time) is as follows: whites 13 percent, blacks 6.1 percent, coloreds 6 percent, and Asians 2.3 percent.

Sean Jones (1991) provides a good description of how the movement of family members between urban and rural areas occurs in families of migrant black workers. This gives families a movable characteristic, with support resources dependent on locality and the nature of the crisis. Research done by Fiona Ross (1995) confirms Jones's description of mobility between areas (rural to cities and vice versa). However, Ross also provides a description of the mobility of family members from colored families within settlements (rural). Support for family members comes from friends, neighbors, and even a fictitious family—the people in the immediate environment who help from time to time in order for the family members to survive. This fluidity questions the existence of the conventional family for these people.



Read more: http://family.jrank.org/pages/1617/South-Africa-Incidence-Distinguishable-Family-Structures.html#ixzz0Imv9JtB8&C
South Africa - Women In The Labor MarketMost white women enter the labor market after the completion of their education, although a small percentage between the ages of twenty and thirty years stay at home during their childbearing years. An increasing number of women also re-enter the labor market at a later stage. Black women tend to enter the labor market later in life than do others. Many of them are single mothers upon whom high demands are made by the extended family. Colored and Asian women tend to work until the birth of their first child and then remain at home (Gerdes 1997).
Read more: http://family.jrank.org/pages/1618/South-Africa-Women-in-Labor-Market.html#ixzz0ImvNXCUU&C
South Africa

http://family.jrank.org/pages/1620/South-Africa.html#ixzz0ImrQR5U1&C

Timeline results for the history western family structure in south africa

1880-2009
1991
Jan 1, 1991 - In addition to language and family structure, a third major factor in contemporary ethnic identification in Zambia is the heritage of precolonial state structures ... Zambia has the highest percentage of urbanization in black-ruled Africa, second on the continent only to South Africa. ...
From Zambia: Chapter 2C. Residual Precolonial Administrative/Political Structures - Related web pages
www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-28386986.html?refid ...
1993
Aug 27, 1993 - Her thesis on South African elections, said African history professor Kennell Jackson, was "in the top one-tenth of one percent" of undergraduate ... The slain woman's father, Peter Biehl, recalled that his daughter often complained that whites killed in racial violence in South Africa ...
From Slain Student's Efforts to Heal South Africa Recalled - Related web pages
pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/60369002 ...
1994
Jun 29, 1994 - In the long history of the Western, few players have dominated a tournament the way Price did. He was the first wire-to-wire winner in 25 years ... Born in South Africa and raised in Zimbabwe, Price made a long, hard climb to the top. He first came upon the PGA Tour by winning the 1983 ...
From WESTERN OPEN DEFENDING CHAMP NICK PRICE HERE'S ANOTHER NICE GUY WHO CAN FINISH … - Related web pages
pqasb.pqarchiver.com/chicagotribune/access ...
1999
May 27, 1999 - The history of white retreat from colonial Africa has always had two fronts: the northern route back to Europe and the southern route to Africa's ... The Western Cape is considered one of South Africa's better-off provinces. Public schools have the country's highest passing rate on ...
From SOUTH AFRICA: UNFINISHED REVOLUTION; Good Hopes for Better Life Send Whites to … - Related web pages
pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/41936787 ...
2000
May 1, 2000 - Family research in sociology has concentrated on the national-level determinants of family structure and process. ... world these institutional forms in variable degree have been established in the remainder of Europe, as well as in Central and South America, Asia, Oceana and Africa. ...
From Family and Economic Growth: A World-System Approach and a Cross-National … - Related web pages
www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-66456986.html?refid ...
2001
Jun 24, 2001 - I believe governments in East Asia can arrest the erosion of family solidarity before it resembles the examples Western family. ... Political history has taught us that even the most elaborate and best-conceived anti-poverty programs are doomed to failure because of corruption in high ...
From Peace in the family, peace among the nations; Educator's Speak.(Opinion/ … - Related web pages
www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-75784666.html?refid ...
2002
Jul 3, 2002 - UNAids say that in the face of such large numbers of Aids orphans - estimated at 11 million in sub-Saharan Africa - traditional family structures and coping mechanisms are breaking down. But while western donors are criticised for failure to substantially increase funding for the Aids ...
From Kenya: Alarm Over HIV/Aids Orphans - Related web pages
allafrica.com/stories/200207030040.html
2003
Aug 6, 2003 - ... ... dwarfing the Church of England's 2 million active members – a size roughly equal to that of Anglican churches in Kenya, South Africa and southern ... As a bridge between the Old World and the New, it is easy to see how Britain has often been the black sheep of the western family. ...
From Anglican Church walking a tight-rope - Related web pages
www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/3594714 ...
2004
Dec 6, 2004 - In transitional economies, migration and urbanization are chipping away at traditional family structures--and with them, old people's status and support networks. ... In South Africa the elderly are frequently attacked by their relatives for their money, reports HelpAge's Nhongo. ...
From The Golden Age; The number of old people in the world is soaring. Soon they will … - Related web pages
www.accessmylibrary.com/premium/0286/0286 ...
2006
Jul 16, 2006 - The family's home in the Western Cape's rural hub of Greyton is filled with warmth and laughter -- scenes deftly captured by Davids in a series of ... So we have many family structures where grandparents take care of their children, and their children's children," said Martin. ...
From South Africa: Through the Eyes of Children - Related web pages
allafrica.com/stories/200607170553.html

Symbolism of the flag

History and meaning of the flag
This became the first flag of a united South Africa on 27 April 1994, at the same time that South Africa held its first democratic elections and Nelson Mandela became president.
Red, white and blue are common in historical flags of South Africa, including colonial flags of Britain and Holland, while green, black and gold were often colours of the African people. The colour combinations of the new flag can be interpreted differently by different people.
The main design of the flag, the green 'Y' starting at the flag post and coming together in the centre of the flag, can be seen as the coming together of the different people of South Africa, who then take the road ahead together.
This idea of unification links up with the motto of the National Coat of Arms:
!ke e:/xarra //ke
written in the Khoisan language of the /Xam people, which means 'diverse people unite'
Flying the National Flag
When the National Flag is displayed vertically against a wall, the red band should be to the left of the spectator with the hoist or the cord seam uppermost; when it is displayed horizontally, the hoist should be to the left of the spectator and the red band uppermost.
When the National Flag is displayed next to or behind the speaker in a hall or other meeting place, for example with him on a stage, it must be placed to the speaker's right hand. When it is placed elsewhere in the hall or meeting place it should be to the right of the audience.
When the National Flag is displayed together with:
any other flags, it must be hoisted first and lowered last;
the national flags of other countries, all the flags should be of approximately equal size and must be flown at an equal height, and the National Flag of the Republic of South Africa must be on the right side of the building or platform (that is to say, on the left side from the observer's point of view);
any other flags, not being other national flags, on separate flag staffs, the National Flag must be in the middle or on the left side from the observer's point of view or at the highest point of the group;
any other flags on the same flag staff, it must be at the top;
any other flag on crossed staffs, the National Flag must be to the spectators' left and its staff must be in front of the staff of the other flag;
another flag or flags in procession, the National Flag must be on the marching right. If there is a row of flags, the provisions of the third point above apply.
http://www.scouting.org.za/visitors/flag.php
Origin and colours of the new flag

The strips are red/orange and blue, the same of the previous flag. The added colors are the same of African National Congress's flag, which is composed of three equal horizontal strips: black, green and yellow. Therefore I argue that the new flag is the merge of the two flags. Apart from strips' colors (orange and blue instead of red and green), the colour of the second fimbration (green instead of black) and the absence of a coat in the triangle, the new South African flag is very similar to Vanuatu's.
Giuseppe Bottasini
C-SPAN (Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network), reporting on the election in South Africa, showed the "interim" flag which will be used for the next five years; the new parliament will choose a permanent flag. In English blazon, it is: Tierced in pairle couchy sable, gules and azure, a pairle couchy vert fimbriated or to dexter and argent to chief and base.

I think the interim flag for South Africa is said to be composed of the colours of flags of past administrations. Which is as plausible as anything, since it includes all the heraldic tinctures.
Anton Sherwood

The current South African flag was designed by Mr Fred Brownell, State Herald of South Africa.
Bruce Berry, 26 Mar 1999

Colour Specifications
Album 2000 gives the official (Pantone) and approximate (CMYK) specifications as follows:

Red: 179c C0-M90-Y90-K0
Green: 3415c C100-M0-Y80-K20
Yellow: 1235c C0-M25-Y80-K0
Blue: Reflex Blue c C100-M80-Y0-K0

Ivan Sache, 15 Jan 2002

The South African flag pantones as I have them are:

Uncoated surfaces: Coated surfaces:
Blue: 287u 288c
Red: 485u (x2) 485c
Yellow: 116u 1235c
Green: 355u 349c
Black
White
Source: SA Bureau of Standards - Specifications for the National Flag, 2nd ed.
Bruce Berry, 21 Jan 2002

Symbolism of the flag

The colours of the South African flag do not really have symbolic meanings in themselves. People do sometimes assign meanings to the colours (such as red for blood, yellow for mineral wealth etc.) but this is not the case with the current South African flag. According to Mr. Frederick Brownell, the former State Herald who played a large role in the original design, while the colours of the flag do not have any official symbolism, they do represent a synopsis of the country’s flag history. The design in turn, represents a converging of paths, the merging of both the past and the present.

Black, gold and green, which were first incorporated into South African national flags in the 19th century, also feature prominently in the flags of the liberation movements, particularly the African National Congress (ANC), the Pan-African Congress (PAC) and Inkatha. These colours can thus be said to broadly represent the country's black population.

Blue, white, red and green reflect the British and Dutch (later Boer) influence, as shown in the earliest flags flown in South Africa, and also featured prominently in the old South African National Flag (1928-1994) and thus represent the white population of South Africa.

The green pall (the Y-shape) is commonly interpreted to mean the unification of the various ethnic groups and the moving forward into a new united South Africa.

The South African flag is the only national flag to contain six colours as part of its primary design (excluding those flags which contain various colour shades as part of the detail of coats of arms or other charges etc.).
Bruce Berry, 14 Feb 2000
http://flagspot.net/flags/za.html

http://www.krugerpark.co.za/africa_shangaan_tsonga.html

South Africa - Family Life In Black Communities

http://family.jrank.org/pages/1613/South-Africa-Family-Life-in-Black-Communities.html

African family structures in the immediate post-emancipation era

by Mellissa Ifill
Stabroek News
September 17, 2003
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This article is the first of a two-part series that addresses the family structures among newly freed Africans in the immediate post-emancipation era. The articles aim to avoid the tendency to view African family forms as dysfunctional, fully cognizant of the fact that the tendency is based on the notion that the European family structures were/are the ideal types and any deviation from these were aberrations.
It is also important to note that the articles are also constrained because the majority of sources on the African family tended to focus on the lower classes in the African Guyanese communities and the family patterns of these classes became commonly associated with the African family form in every class. However, a few studies have suggested that there were notable differences, for instance, between the family lifestyles of middle-class as against lower-class Africans. Most studies have not adequately taken into account this difference, possibly and understandably because the overwhelming majority of Africans in the post-emancipation era were located in this lower class.

Part 1 in this series highlights the family types and household arrangements discerned, and discusses two of the imperatives that influenced such construction of these households: slavery and the plantation system, and the post-1838 economic and social circumstances.

The following are the Caribbean family union types that were discerned and the manner in which households were arranged:

* Visiting Unions - this family form was more commonly associated with the African lower class and was depicted by one partner, usually the man, visiting the other for companionship and sexual intercourse. The man was required to assist in supporting the woman and any resultant offspring. Many visiting unions subsequently resulted in female-headed households with a number of children by different fathers.

* Common law unions - this was a more permanent residential union than the visiting relationship, but it lacked legal recognition in the post-slavery era. Common law or consensual union entailed sharing a home, sexual relationship and the combining of resources by the couple for the upkeep of the family. Within this form, strict gender-role expectations generally prevailed where the woman was expected to care for the home and children while the man was expected to be the wage earner. The man also exercised a significant amount of control over the woman such as the rights to prohibit movement and to administer ‘discipline.’

* Legal marriage - this was particularly prevalent among the upwardly mobile African groups and was viewed by them as the ideal family form. While some lower-class women perceived it as desirable, its desirability was premised on the ability of the male to offer satisfactory accommodation and support for the family. The model for this type of union was provided by the dominant, controlling, strong European male planter and his protected, domesticated, dependant wife. This form gained among many, the reputation as the ideal scenario, although the practicalities of daily life for Africans in the post-slavery era were vastly different from that of the dominant planter class.

Studies show that there was often a progression from one type of union to another, and the resultant households were subjected to several transformations. The demographic historians have argued that family units including co-residential husbands and wives were common, at least on fairly large estates, during the periods prior to and after the emancipation of slaves. The consensus seems to be that unofficial sexual liaisons were typical among the young slaves but that fairly stable monogamous (consensual) unions were the norm for older adults. The most prevalent family types present on the plantations were mother-children units and units consisting of a conjugal couple with children (hers, theirs, and his, less often). These households that were headed by females existed in a variety of circumstances - in some instances the father was absent in terms of residence with the women being the primary breadwinners in whom power resided. In other instances, a spinster, childless village woman would ‘adopt’ a child or children from a poor family and create her own female-headed household. Irrespective of the household form, the entire village was invariably instrumental in ensuring the welfare of children was addressed.

I will now look at two of the imperatives that influenced the construction of the African family in the immediate post-emancipation era.

Slavery/plantation system generating unstable family units
Africans, like all other immigrant groups, attempted to cling to as much of their culture as they possibly could. However, this recreation was stymied by the determined efforts of the colonial masters to stamp out all forms of African life and society in their effort to reduce resistance on the plantations. The plantation system actively discouraged building family structures and as a consequence conjugal unions had to fit the realities of the plantation economy. In effect, the demands of plantation production were hostile to the welfare of slave families.

Enslaved women paid an extremely high penalty for their forced participation in the plantation economy. Their dreadfully low fertility was due in large part to their exhausting labour in the field gangs during their reproductive years. Other causes were poor diet, disease and an intentional control of fertility by contraception and abortion. In addition, many planters thought it more profitable to purchase fully-grown slaves rather than to bear the cost of rearing a slave from birth, since during the early years, the child had to be fed, clothed, etc, but would not have actively contributed to the plantation. Such planters therefore made no attempt to improve the fertility of the female slaves nor made any attempt to reduce infant and child mortality until after the slave trade was abolished and they were forced to find alternative strategies for acquiring slaves.

The exigencies of plantation life dictated that couples live apart and they were listed in plantation records separately; this continued even in the post-slavery period. Only co-residential couples were recorded as married. Some of those couples living apart or as part of extended family networks considered themselves married although they did not reside with their partners. ‘Family,’ in other words, for the Africans had a meaning above and beyond what it meant for European-oriented observers.

Moreover, European-type or Christian marriages contradicted the slave code: each partner at all times faced the risk of being taken away or sold. Further, the child of a slave woman received status from the mother’s legal status, consequentially becoming the property of his mother’s owner. Attempts at encouraging reproduction sometimes meant special allowances to the mother and to the plantation overseer or managers, but this dispensation was never offered to the father. The African man’s role under the slave regime was evaluated in terms of his stud value, while the African woman’s role was assessed in terms of her breeding capacity. Not surprisingly, therefore, many slave conjugal units were characterized by instability - not overlooking the reality that the plantation master as overseer could have access to the woman even though she was in a union. In other words, plantation slavery destabilized any attempt at building family structures and assigned the males a peripheral (if any) role in the family - hence the prevalence of female-headed households - and this peripheralization some argue, continued in the immediate post-emancipation era.

Creation of family structures based on realities of ex-slaves’ immediate circumstances
The survival and welfare of the family group were probably paramount for most of the freed people in the unsettled aftermath of August 1, 1838. Their concerns were not restricted to the material development of the family unit and the desire to succeed independently of the plantation; freed people were also eager to build up networks of social ties (primarily but not totally kinship ties) within which they saw family life functioning suitably.

Ex-slaves expected that freedom would mean the chance to unite the family unit and recreate kin groups torn apart by slavery. Consequently in the weeks after August 1, many freed people were moving around the territory, migrating in some cases to different areas to repair family relationships. Although the evidence of family reconstitution after emancipation is rather slim, it is likely that a few ex-slaves did succeed in this goal.

Emancipated Africans had to confront the issue of the vulnerability of women and children during slavery and apprenticeship, and wanted to assure them a degree of protection and security. One strategy used was to remove them wherever possible, from the direct control of estate management and the plantation and to relocate their productive labour within the household and the family farm. It seems likely that women in stable co-residential unions might have had more opportunities to withdraw from the plantation than those solely responsible for child support.

The evidence clearly suggests that one of the primary motives behind the withdrawal of women from estate labour was to allow them to give more time for attention to child rearing. As a consequence of the withdrawal from slave labour by many African women, their health and the health of their children improved significantly. The freed woman was described throughout the region as both fruitful and successful in bringing up her children. Clearly, as Walter Rodney argued, withdrawal from labouring twelve hours a day and focusing on the children by ex- slave women promoted family welfare in the most basic sense: its physical survival and continuity.

There is a great deal of evidence to show that children under the age of sixteen or seventeen were not usually allowed by their parents to do field work on the estates in the post-1838 years, especially not on the plantations on which they resided. Planters therefore complained loudly that the young people were idle, but while children were being kept away from plantations, they were however employed on their parents’ grounds or family farms or were taught a trade in the case of boys. According to a magistrate in Berbice, “dire necessity alone would induce parents to allow them to perform field labour.” Although some parents did send children over the age of eleven or twelve to plantation employment, these seem generally to have been the poorest families who needed their small earnings to survive. Moreover, parents were extremely anxious to send their young children to school - especially immediately after 1838 - proud when one of the children learned to read, believing that education was the key to their children getting ahead and prospering socially and religiously. Emancipation therefore did not give rise to western values such as individualism and personal autonomy and advancement, rather family and community goals were generally given priority over individual advancement.

Loss of economic opportunities caused by the introduction of several immigrant groups to the colony also made the economic survival of the family unit a critical issue. Many African males therefore migrated from the villages to the towns and the interior and the gold and diamond fields where they were able to find work and contribute to the upkeep of their families. Their relocation had significant implications for the families of which they were a part. With the absence of the male, women remained oriented around the estates, farmed the family plots and by virtue of their role as providers, assumed the leadership role in the family.

Part 2 in this series will address the other two imperatives which are believed to have influenced the African family constructs that emerged after 1838: European gender norms and West African matrilineal traditions.

This article is the second of a two part series that addresses the family structures among newly freed Africans in the immediate post-emancipation era. As noted in the first installment, both articles aim to avoid the tendency to view African family forms as dysfunctional, fully cognizant of the fact that the tendency is based on the notion that the European family structures were/are the ideal types and any deviation from these were aberrations.

Both articles are also constrained because the majority of sources on the African family tended to focus on the lower classes in the African Guyanese communities and the family patterns of these classes became commonly associated with the African family form in every class. However, a few studies have suggested that there were notable differences for instance between the family lifestyles of middle class as against lower class Africans. Most studies have not adequately taken into account this difference, possibly and understandably because the overwhelming majority of Africans in the post emancipation era were located in this lower class.

Part 1 in this series highlighted the family types and household arrangements discerned and discussed two of the imperatives that influenced such construction of these households: Slavery and the Plantation System and the Post 1838 Economic and Social Circumstances.

European gender norms influencing African family structures
This second part addresses the other two imperatives which are believed to have influenced the African family constructs that emerged after 1838: European Gender Norms and West African Matrilineal Traditions.

The literature suggests that a significant number of ex-slave women who had small children or were married withdrew from the regular labour force of the sugar estates after 1838. Many commentators, when addressing the issue at the time, thought it natural and expected that African women would take up their ‘proper’ avocation i.e. maternal and domestic duties. Moreover, these commentators were certain that it was exposure to European gender ideologies that was responsible for this development. European policymakers, antislavery activists and clergymen - good men and women as many of them were - all embraced a Eurocentric and racist philosophy that assumed that middle class western family was the ideal family model and should therefore be mimicked by ex-slaves.

The European gender structure was that husbands should be the head of the family, the main breadwinner, responsible for family maintenance and endowed with power over wives and children; wives should be dependent and domestic. Lifelong monogamy built on Christian marriage should be the custom. Men must both be in command of and care for their wives and daughters, practices that slavery had made impossible. Wives and mothers must bring up their children and provide a respectable, happy and Christian home. Governor Light, in the months after the end of apprenticeship in 1838 encouraged a group of free labourers to work hard to maintain their families and develop a preference for familial comforts “learn to appreciate the advantages of a comfortable home ..... there is no reason why, having finished your day’s work, you should not return to a clean room and a decently served meal”.

Europeans frowned upon married women and mothers who were occupied in independent wage labour and therefore were absent from the home. Arduous labour in the fields was irreconcilable with 19th century European ideas of femininity and an element of this ideological package was contempt for the woman who took on hard manual labour; she was defeminised, seen as hard and brutish and lacking in feminine virtues of modesty and style.

Moreover, estate labour was also deemed dangerous for female morality except it was organized in a family unit. While the end of slavery meant the end of blatant and regular sexual exploitation of females by plantation staff, in the post emancipation period, free female estate labourers were still at great risk; men and women toiled together in gangs and might be accommodated together in barracks. In other words, African females might either be vulnerable to unwanted sexual advances or might engage in promiscuous activity, and both were seen as an attack on the decent man and his family.

There is some debate concerning the extent to which these European gender norms exerted an influence on freed slaves. Many whites in their correspondence noted the increase in legal and Christian marriages after 1838, the improved harmony in African households and the upgrading in their housing, clothing, diet and furnishings, believing that the decision taken by men and women to keep mothers out of the estate labour force if it were possible, undoubtedly fostered more stable family units and the greater domestic comforts within the limitations of persistent poverty.

Several witnesses to the 1842 Select Committee gave evidence that there was a noticeable sense of family responsibility among ex-slaves particularly where couples had married. The witnesses also noted that the freed people felt responsible for their children and aged or ill relatives, feelings “alien to a state of slavery” as one put it, and worked hard to maintain them. To these witnesses, most parents endeavoured to send their children to school and almost always had them baptized. They further discerned that respectable married people in the main respected their vows and arguments and violent disagreements in the home occurred less often.

Indeed as some whites noted, some amount of influence was exerted on those Africans who were upwardly mobile and who were strongly influenced by the churches. It was chiefly in the church dominated villages that the wives and mothers left estate labour and concentrated almost exclusively on domesticity and household production. Invariably the capacity to let their wives sit down and dedicate their time to home and children became an indicator of status for many ex-slave men.

Despite the preceding, however, the British gender ideology of the mid 19th century was not generally accepted by the majority of the ex-slaves, men and women. They did not eagerly adopt monogamous Christian marriage, apart from the period in the immediate aftermath of August 1838 and even then, this was in all probability only among a minority; they disagreed with the idea that confinement to domesticity and economic dependence on a husband were essential to female decency. In the post slavery era in the region, African women clung to their right to economic independence and they did not view such a right as indicating any resultant loss of status for the women’s husbands. The notion of male economic control within the family and home was not imbedded as deeply as in the West, except among the small and emerging middle and upper strata.

Creation of family structures based on West African traditions
Some social scientists have argued that there is a strong possibility of continuity between the family forms of African immigrants in the Caribbean, including Guyana and their cultural background in West Africa. These scholars, such as Raymond T. Smith and John and Leatrice MacDonald, argue that African family ideology in the southern Caribbean (especially in the rural areas) adopted principles of family structures from the cultures of origin, hence the pervasiveness of female headed households.

The data reveals that a large number of Africans who were brought to Guiana originated from the region in West Africa where the Akans - a group of people whose kinship structure is built on the matrilineal principle, have traditionally been and still are located. Smith notes that there are many traits among rural Africans traceable to the tradition of the Akans such as day names and obeah, food taboos and rituals associated with birth. He further notes that Africans who had matrilineal kinship background seemed to have had considerable influence over other groups brought to Guyana. While accurate figures on slave trading between Africa and British Guiana are difficult to obtain, J. G. Kruickshank has provided statistics on tribal origins during the 19th century which show that approximately 70 percent of Africans taken to British Guiana came from the matrilineal belt (between 1803-1807, some 6,607 out of a total of 9,056).

Smith argues that in light of the above, it was crucial to reconsider the concept of matrifocality as it relates to rural Africans in Guiana. He contends that undoubtedly the Africans attempted to transfer their kinship system and domestic life, however they were only able to preserve a core element of the domestic unit: a matrifocal structure. Smith recognizes the differences between the kinship structures of the two groups and contends that the changes can be attributed to several social forces including:

* The slave trade that caused forced separation of kin
* The pressures of slavery and the plantation system
* The impact of Christianity

Scholars who articulate this view point to the land ownership and tenure arrangement among the Akans, which was determined by the matrilineal kinship structure and compare this to the Africans in British Guiana. Smith argues that the freed slaves “as if guided by a common sense of Africanity” settled in villages. Smith utilized the notion of cultural symbolism and suggests that such an attempt cannot simply be explained as a deep desire for independence but also as a desire to obtain property and, operate and share such property in a communal manner comparable to that they enjoyed in their native West Africa. He continues that although there were no unilinear descent-groups among rural Africans in British Guiana, there were a large number of persons in the household who had binding relations with the mother, and, that kin relations through the female were more powerful than relations by the male line. This, Smith notes is similar to the situation among the Akans, where it is usual for an Akan family to be assembled around “an effective minimal matrilineage or part of it consisting of children and the daughters’ children of one woman”.

In post emancipation Afro-Guyanese families, the mother-child unit has remained the base of the primary household grouping: a matrifocal household. Thus Smith discusses close and remarkable similarities between the rural Africans in British Guiana and Akan domestic units - the chief similarity being the depth of the mother and child relationship, and the propensity for the unit of a woman, her children and her daughters’ children to emerge as a solitary unit often representing the core of the domestic unit. While Smith concedes that similarity in specific elements of cultural systems does not necessarily mean cultural links, he argues that when added to the other borrowings and adoptions of Akan cultural traits indicated previously, it appears reasonable to conclude that the Akan matrilineal kinship structure could be the model of the rural African Guyanese matrifocal family.

Conclusion
The task of determining the origins of the African family in Guyana and the Caribbean is a complex one with a fierce ongoing debate about which factor had the greatest input into the construction of African families. Despite differing on the issue of origins, most of those currently involved in the debate have nonetheless sought to legitimize African Caribbean family forms and household groupings (whatever their manifestations) and reject the deviant label attached to them - firm in the conviction that African family models were different from those of the Europeans and the yardstick used to measure the latter would be inappropriate for any analysis of the former.

Family Structure Comparative Essay - English

We are living in a world where lie many different cultures, surprisingly when we start to compare and analysis different culture toward our own culture; the first thing that we feel is the sense of superior for
our own culture. This is what called ethnocentrism,
which means the belief that our own cultural ways are correct and superior to others. However in reality, there is no such thing as “superior” in any culture since every culture has its own advantages and disadvantage. Therefore, the reasonable way to approaches different culture is to combine its advantages and renovate a new way of looking at two different cultures. In this case, we will focus on the advantage and disadvantage on an aspect of a culture. The aspect that we will focus is the family structure between two cultures, Asian’s family structure and Western’s family structure. In the following paragraphs, you will view at both of the families’ structure and find its pros and cons to discover a new way of approaching two cultures.
Since I am an Asian person, Asian family structure is a very ordinary matter to me. To illustrate Asian family structure, the words love and respect would be the words I’ll apply to it. In an Asians family, we have a strong sense of respect toward our own elders. Despite this fact, it can influences a negative results; since the elders tend to be more involved in their children’s life and sometimes even make decision for them instead of allowing the children to make their own decisions. As the matter of fact, Asian kids become very protective and dependent toward their parents rather than depending on themselves. Even though, Asian parents might seem to be very strict, we must not forget the true reason behind this wall and this reason behind this wall is love. Through my entire life, I have a very close relationship with my parents. I have always been guided by my parents on how to live my life productively. Generally, I followed their guidance, but sometimes I would ignore their advices and rather do everything my own ways. Yet, as time passes, I realized how much I regret those little advices and suggestions I ignored. The guidance that I should had listened to and converted it into actions instead of throwing it away.

In contrast, the western

Asia family
Ad
- Closer relation with his or her parents
- Guidance for their kids since parents have experienced
- Make the right decision most of the time

Disad
- Strict
- Parents more involved
- Parents makes decision
- More protective

In contrast, Western family

Ad
- Individual – out going
- Have the right to speak up
- Can rely on oneself

Disad
- By the time u reach 18 you are considered as a adult and u’ll go off and live alone
- Closer relation to friends instead of family – personality shaped by friends more than parents
- Make their own decision (sometime wrong)

Conclusion
- Both of these two structures have their own advantage and disadvantage, however if you renovated these two structures together and combine its advantages we would be able to come up with a novel approaches of family structures.
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