History of the family History of the family The history of the family is a branch of social history that concerns the sociocultural evolution of kinship groups from prehistoric to modern times. The family has a universal and basic role in all societies. Research on the history of the family crosses disciplines and cultures, aiming to understand the structure and function of the family from many viewpoints. For example, sociological, ecological or economical perspectives are used to view the interrelationships between the individual, their relatives, and the historical time. The study of family history has shown that family systems are flexible, culturally diverse and
Etymology The word "etymology" derives from the Greek word (), itself from (), meaning "true sense", and the suffix "-logia", denoting "the study of". In linguistics, the term "etymon" refers to a word or morpheme (e.g., stem or root) from which a later word derives. For example, the Latin word "candidus", which means "white", is the etymon of English "candid". Etymologists apply a number of methods to study the origins of words, some of which are: Etymological theory recognizes that words originate through a limited number of basic mechanisms, the most important of which are language change, borrowing (i.e., the adoption