Government, Politics, Family Structure & Social Hierarchy
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[edit] The Family Unit
Nothing defines a society so much as the standard family unit. Before you jump into this part of your setting, it pays to have considered the issues regarding gender and sexuality for they impact the logic of the family unit. Is it common to have couples of opposite gender, or same sex marriages for instance? Who in the family unit bring in the resources?
Family in this case is described as those sharing common ancestry, where as the family unit is the commonly found unit in which a group of family live together under one roof, sharing resources.
[edit] Extended Family
The extended family is the traditional family unit of the pre industrial age on Earth. An extended family consists of three or more generations of the same family. That could include grand parents, uncles etc. Now, it is also possible to have this with for instance a matriarchal society. Envision a family that centers around the matriarch and her daughters and granddaughters remain at home, while the men move into this family. Possibly men form a side unite, living separately from the women, with uncles taking care of their nephews.
Often people live in extended families because all hands, including female ones, are needed to run a farm. Or when the genders are more separated because all female hands are needed to raise the kids, gather nuts and keep the house safe, while the men are off hiking (and occasionally hunting). Nomadic tribes are also commonly organized as extended families.
[edit] Nuclear Family
The nuclear family is the unit that became popular in the Industrial Age of Earth. It consists of two generations: parents and their children. This of course only made possible because of the steady income of the unit, so that it can survive without the support of other generations. It is possible that only one parent works and the other raises the kids and keeps the house, or when gender differences matter little and society provides for day time occupation of kids (in school or daycare) for both parents to work.
[edit] Odd Ones Out
Not everybody confirms to the standard perfect family of society. So how does society look upon odd families, such as:
- single parents
- orphaned children raised by another
- stepfamilies
[edit] Outside the Family: Social Hierarchy
Social hierarchy is a multi-tiered pyramid-like social or functional structure having an apex as the centralization of power. Traditionally society will be judged according to layers or classes. For your setting you need to judge what those are. Are there lower and higher classes? Are some jobs more appreciated than others?
You can consider the distribution of political power. Another point is the distribution of wealth. They both combine with factors such as eduction to define social status.
[edit] Distribution of Political Power
- Autocracy: One individual retains complete and absolute power over others. This is also known as despotism or dictatorship.
- Monarchism: A king or queen has ultimate control over the power, often claiming divine right. Power is usually transmitted by heredity— in the primogeniture system, for example, the eldest son of a king will ascend to that position when the current king dies or resigns, while in modern versions the oldest child (whether girl or boy) will inherit. This presumes the existence of nobility, or to use the English term peerage.
- Constitutional Monarchism: Rather than having a divine right the monarch is bound by the constitution and therefore the acts of the monarch are officially that of his ministers. The oldest example is England, with its basis in the Magna Carta. The link with the monarch is maintained mostly because on local symbolic grounds they would be a particular nation's link to the past, as well as not being beholden to politicians of any party. This often co-exists with democracy.
- Oligarchy: Political power is vested in a few individuals (patricians), who usually pass power by a hereditary system.
- Gerontocracy: A form of oligarchical rule in which an entity is ruled by leaders who are significantly older than most of the adult population.
- Nepotism : the showing of favoritism for relatives or friends based upon that relationship, rather than on an objective evaluation of ability or suitability. A variation is cronyism, which is partiality to long-standing friends, especially by appointing them to positions of authority, regardless of their qualifications.
- Republic: Known as indirect democracy, trapped democracy or representative democracy. Voting citizens elect representatives who in their stead chose lawmakers who propose, make, and enforce laws instead of citizens directly affecting the government.
- Democracy: Citizens directly vote in lawmaking, or directly vote for their representatives in the lawmaking body.
- Anarchism: No laws and no government rule whatsoever. A decentralized grassroots participatory system of free associations and institutions where there is an absence of hierarchy.
- Ochlocracy: What some argue to be the end product of an unstable lawless system, a system known as "rule by organized crime". Such a system emerges when powerful gang-like organizations arrogate power and develop a semi-legitimate status.
- Plutocracy: A society in which power is distributed according to wealth.
- Meritocracy: a system of a government or other organization wherein appointments are made and responsibilities are given based on demonstrated talent and ability (merit)
[edit] Distribution of Wealth
See Also Economic System
- Capitalism - Wealth, human and cultural capital determine a persons leverage, often causing a group of wealthy bourgeois people being in charge while the poor people or proletariat have no means. It heralds the freedom of the individual.
- Socialism - This includes communism & kibbutzim, where wealth is often distributed from the rich to the poor in order to narrow inequality, often with government determining many if not all aspects of life. It heralds the importance of the collective.
- Anarchism - Considers all humans equal, and refuses any law or government to regulate them for the people have an inherent sense of freedom. Both globalism (the extreme of capitalism) and dictatorial government (the extreme of socialism) are considered enemies, with the absent of state being considered preferable. Economic distribution is not by trade, but by need.
