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As a definition, "a family or domestic group is matrifocal when it is centred on a woman and her children. In this case, the father(s) of these children are intermittently present in the life of the group and occupy a secondary place. The children's mother is not necessarily the wife of one of the children's fathers."
The mother's role in the family is celebrated on Mother's Day. Ann Jarvis originally organized Mother's Work Day, protesting the lack of cleanliness and sanitation in the workplace. [37] [38] Jarvis died in 1905 and her daughter created a National Mother's Day to honor her mother. [37]
According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), matriarchy is a "form of social organization in which the mother or oldest female is the head of the family, and descent and relationship are reckoned through the female line; government or rule by a woman or women."
Mother–daughter parentification is also more common than father–daughter parentification. [20] Daughters are likelier than sons to be an emotional anchor. [20] In a mother–daughter relationship, the mother might oblige her daughter to take on the caregiving role, in a betrayal of the child's normal expectation of love and care. [19] [21]
In 1956, the concept of the matrifocal family was introduced to the study of Caribbean societies by Raymond T. Smith. He linked the emergence of matrifocal families with how households are formed in the region: "The household group tends to be matri-focal in the sense that a woman in the status of 'mother' is usually the de facto leader of the group, and conversely the husband-father, although ...
A putative mother is a female whose biological relationship to a child is alleged but has not been established. A stepmother is a non-biological female parent married to a child's preexisting parent, and may form a family unit but generally does not have the legal rights and responsibilities of a parent in relation to the child.
The family as a model for the organization of the state is a theory of political philosophy. It explains the structure of certain kinds of state in terms of the structure of the family (as a model or as a claim about the historical growth of the state), or it attempts to justify certain types of state by appeal to the structure of the family.
Family relations can be represented concretely (mother, brother, grandfather) or abstractly by degrees of relationship (kinship distance). A relationship may be relative (e.g. a father in relation to a child) or reflect an absolute (e.g. the difference between a mother and a childless woman).