Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck with Wife and Children
Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck with Wife and Children, oil on canvas by Pierre-Paul Prud'hon, c. 1801–02; in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. 263.5 × 200 cm.
Nuclear family
anthropology
Also known as: elementary family, two-parent family
Nuclear family, in sociology and anthropology, a group of people who are united by ties of partnership and parenthood and consisting of a pair of adults and their socially recognized children. Typically, but not always, the adults in a nuclear family are married. Although such couples are most often a man and a woman, the definition of the nuclear family has expanded with the advent of same-sex marriage. Children in a nuclear family may be...