"Blood is thicker than water"

Following this week’s readings, I was particularly intrigued to learn how the definition of the family has evolved overtime in the United States. The term has indeed become vague and flexible to accommodate a number of relationships and living arrangements between two or more people. Besides the traditional family arrangement of father, mother and child (ren), it is now common place to find nontraditional family arrangements, which include nonmarital, heterosexual, cohabiting relationships and homosexual cohabiting relationships amongst others. I thought even more interesting is the fact that while a “liberal” definition of the term family has been Lawfully adopted in some states like New York, in others like Minneapolis the Law does not recognize same sex partners as spouses or dependants. These disparities from place to place offer a good background in understanding the development, enactment and implementation of Family policies in the United States.
Back in Nigeria where I have spent most of my life, the term family is extremely important to most Nigerians and Africans as a whole. In Nigeria the term still has a traditional meaning. It is generally recognized by the formal and informal institutions as a group of people who are related by blood or marriage. There are simply two types of families in Nigeria. The first is the nuclear family which consists of a man his wife (or wives in polygamous homes) and their children. Some families may include adopted children. The second type of family which is more common not just in Nigeria but in the African continent as a whole, is the extended family. It is composed of two or more nuclear families. It goes beyond a man, his wife or wives to include other relatives. It often includes three generations, children, parents and grandparents. Not all members of the extended family live together in one household, usually the extended family is split into smaller nuclear units, each within its own household within a compound. In most families there exists a strong family bond often emphasized by the common phrase “blood is thicker than water”.
Naturally Nigeria is gradually being influenced by urbanization and migration, resulting in more nuclear family arrangements. Many of these however still bear traces of the extended family system, echoing overtime still that, “blood is thicker than water”.