Rural-Urban Differences and the Family.

The article focuses on rural-urban differences and the family. A considerable body of theory has arisen dealing with rural-urban differences in the family. The assertion in many cases, and the inference in others, is that the extended family is most important in rural areas and that The nuclear or conjugal family stands as a relatively independent unit in urban localities. There are many researchers who have held that the disintegration of the extended family has proceeded farther in the city than in the country. These and other students of the family in their comparison of rural and urban life also suggest that people are so individualized in the city that they have little or no time to spend with members of their immediate families, and that in urban settings as contrasted with the rural settings there are few if any intrafamilial co-operative activities. This particular hypothesis of the disintegration of the family in urban areas is but one of a number of related hypotheses which collectively and in their simplest form hold that urban areas are strongholds of secondary groups and inimical to primary groups.