Friends (stylized as
F•R•I•E•N•D•S) is an American
sitcom created by
David Crane and
Marta Kauffman, which aired on the
National Broadcasting Company (NBC) from September 22, 1994 to May 6, 2004. The series revolves around a group of friends in
Manhattan. The series was produced by
Bright/Kauffman/Crane Productions, in association with
Warner Bros. Television. The original executive producers were Crane, Kauffman and
Kevin S. Bright, with numerous others being promoted in later seasons.

Kauffman and Crane began developing
Friends under the title
Insomnia Cafe
in November/December 1993. They presented the idea to Bright, with whom
they had previously worked, and together they pitched a seven-page
treatment of the series to NBC. After several script rewrites and
changes, including a second title change to
Friends Like Us, the series was finally named
Friends and premiered on NBC's coveted
Thursday 8:30 pm timeslot. Filming for the series took place at
Warner Bros. Studios in
Burbank, California in front of a live studio audience.
The series finale (the 236th episode), airing on May 6, 2004, was watched by 51.1 million American viewers,
[1] making it the fourth most watched series finale in television history
[2][3] and the most watched episode of the decade.
[4]
Friends received positive reviews throughout its run, becoming
one of the most popular sitcoms of all time. The series won many awards
and was nominated for 63
Primetime Emmy Awards.
The series, an instant hit from its debut, was also very successful in
the ratings, consistently ranking in the top ten in the final primetime
ratings. Many critics now regard it as one of the finest shows in
television history, including
TV Guide, which ranked it No. 21 on
their list of the 50 greatest TV shows of all time.
[5][6][7] In 1997, the episode "
The One with the Prom Video" was ranked No. 100 on
TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All-Time.
[8]
The series made a large cultural impact, which continues today. The
Central Perk coffee house that was featured prominently in the series
has inspired various imitations throughout the world. The series
continues in syndication worldwide. All 10 seasons are available on DVD.
The spin-off series
Joey was created to follow up with the series after the finale.
In
human context, a
family (from
Latin:
familia) is a
group of
people affiliated by
consanguinity,
affinity, or co-residence. In most societies it is the principal
institution for the socialization of children. Anthropologists most
generally classify family organization as
matrilocal (a mother and her children); conjugal (a wife, husband, and children, also called
nuclear family); and
consanguinal (also called an extended family) in which parents and children co-reside with other members of one parent's family.

There are also concepts of family that
break with tradition within particular societies, or those that are transplanted via migration to flourish or else cease within their new societies.
[clarification needed] As a unit of
socialization the family is the object of analysis for
sociologists of the family.
Genealogy is a field which aims to trace family lineages through history. In
science, the term "family" has come to be used as a means to
classify groups of objects as being closely and exclusively related. In the study of
animals it has been found that many species form groups that have similarities to human "family"—often called "
packs." Sexual relations among family members are regulated by rules concerning
incest such as the
incest taboo.
Extended from the human "family unit" by
affinity and consanguinity are concepts of family that are physical and metaphorical, or that grow increasingly inclusive extending to
community,
village,
city,
region,
nationhood,
global village and
humanism.

One of the primary functions of the family is to produce and
reproduce persons, biologically and/or socially. This can occur through
the sharing of material substances (such as semen, and food); the giving
and receiving of care and nurture (
nurture kinship); jural ties of rights and obligations; and moral and sentimental ties.
[1][2] Thus, one's experience of one's family shifts over time. From the perspective of
children, the family is a "family of orientation": the family serves to locate children socially and plays a major role in their
enculturation and socialization.
[3]
From the point of view of the parent(s), the family is a "family of
procreation," the goal of which is to produce and enculturate and
socialize children.
[4] However, producing children is not the only function of the family; in societies with a sexual division of labor,
marriage, and the resulting relationship between two people, it is necessary for the formation of an economically productive
household.
[5][6][7]
A "conjugal" family includes only the husband, the wife, and
unmarried children who are not of age. The most common form of this
family is regularly referred to in
sociology as a
nuclear family.
[8]
A "consanguineal" family consists of a parent and his or her children,
and other people. Although the concept of consanguinity originally
referred to relations by "blood,"
cultural anthropologists[1]
have argued that one must understand the idea of "blood" metaphorically
and that many societies understand family through other concepts rather
than through
genetic distance. A "matrilocal" family consists of a
mother
and her children. Generally, these children are her biological
offspring, although adoption of children is a practice in nearly every
society. This kind of family is common where women have the resources to
rear their children by themselves, or where men are more mobile than
Anthropologist
Lewis Henry Morgan
(1818–1881) performed the first survey of kinship terminologies in use
around the world. Although much of his work is now considered dated, he
argued that
kinship
terminologies reflect different sets of distinctions. For example, most
kinship terminologies distinguish between sexes (the difference between
a brother and a sister) and between generations (the difference between
a child and a parent). Moreover, he argued, kinship terminologies
distinguish between relatives by blood and
marriage (although recently some anthropologists have argued that many societies define kinship in terms other than "blood").

Morgan made a distinction between kinship systems that use
classificatory terminology and those that use
descriptive
terminology. Classificatory systems are generally and erroneously
understood to be those that "class together" with a single term
relatives who actually do not have the same type of relationship to ego.
(What defines "same type of relationship" under such definitions seems
to be genealogical relationship. This is problematic given that any
genealogical description, no matter how standardized, employs words
originating in a folk understanding of kinship.) What Morgan's
terminology actually differentiates are those (classificatory) kinship
systems that do not distinguish lineal and collateral relationships and
those (descriptive) kinship systems that do. Morgan, a lawyer, came to
make this distinction in an effort to understand
Seneca inheritance practices. A Seneca man's effects were inherited by his sisters' children rather than by his own children.
[15] Morgan identified six basic patterns of kinship terminologies:
- Hawaiian: only distinguishes relatives based upon sex and generation.
- Sudanese: no two relatives share the same term.
- Eskimo:
in addition to distinguishing relatives based upon sex and generation,
also distinguishes between lineal relatives and collateral relatives.
- Iroquois: in addition to sex and generation, also distinguishes between siblings of opposite sexes in the parental generation.
- Crow:
a matrilineal system with some features of an Iroquois system, but with
a "skewing" feature in which generation is "frozen" for some relatives.
- Omaha: like a Crow system but patrilineal.
Most Western societies employ
Eskimo kinship terminology. This kinship terminology commonly occurs in societies based on
conjugal (or
nuclear) families, where nuclear families have a degree of relative mobility. Members of the nuclear use descriptive kinship terms:
.jpg)
Such systems generally assume that the mother's husband has also
served as the biological father. In some families, a woman may have
children with more than one man or a man may have children with more
than one woman. The system refers to a child who shares only one parent
with another child as a "half-brother" or "half-sister." For children
who do not share biological or adoptive parents in common,
English-speakers use the term "stepbrother" or "stepsister" to refer to
their new relationship with each other when one of their biological
parents marries one of the other child's biological parents. Any person
(other than the biological parent of a child) who marries the parent of
that child becomes the "stepparent" of the child, either the
"stepmother" or "stepfather." The same terms generally apply to children
adopted into a family as to children born into the family.
Typically, societies with conjugal families also favor
neolocal
residence; thus upon marriage a person separates from the nuclear
family of their childhood (family of orientation) and forms a new
nuclear family (family of procreation). However, in the western society
the single parent family has been growing more accepted and has begun to
truly make an impact on culture. The majority of single parent families
are more commonly single mother families than single father. These
families face many difficult issues besides the fact that they have to
rear their children on their own, but also have to deal with issues
related to low income. Many single parents struggle with low incomes and
must cope with other issues, including rent, child care, and other
necessities required in maintaining a healthy and safe home. Members of
the nuclear families of members of one's own (former) nuclear family may
class as lineal or as collateral. Kin who regard them as lineal refer
to them in terms that build on the terms used within the nuclear family:
- Grandparent
- Grandfather: a parent's father
- Grandmother: a parent's mother
- Grandson: a child's son
- Granddaughter: a child's daughter
For collateral relatives, more classificatory terms come into play,
terms that do not build on the terms used within the nuclear family:
- Uncle: father's brother, mother's brother, father's sister's husband, mother's sister's husband
- Aunt: father's sister, mother's sister, father's brother's wife, mother's brother's wife
- Nephew: sister's son, brother's son, wife's brother's son, wife's sister's son, husband's brother's son, husband's sister's son
- Niece:
sister's daughter, brother's daughter, wife's brother's daughter,
wife's sister's daughter, husband's brother's daughter, husband's
sister's daughter
When additional generations intervene (in other words, when one's
collateral relatives belong to the same generation as one's grandparents
or grandchildren), the prefixes "great-" or "grand-" modifies these
terms. Also, as with grandparents and grandchildren, as more generations
intervene the prefix becomes "great-grand-," adding an additional
"great-" for each additional generation. Most collateral relatives have
never had membership of the nuclear family of the members of one's own
nuclear family.
- Cousin:
the most classificatory term; the children of aunts or uncles. One can
further distinguish cousins by degrees of collaterality and by
generation. Two persons of the same generation who share a grandparent
count as "first cousins" (one degree of collaterality); if they share a
great-grandparent they count as "second cousins" (two degrees of
collaterality) and so on. If two persons share an ancestor, one as a
grandchild and the other as a great-grandchild of that individual, then
the two descendants class as "first cousins once removed" (removed by
one generation); if they shared ancestor figures as the grandparent of
one individual and the great-great-grandparent of the other, the
individuals class as "first cousins twice removed" (removed by two
generations), and so on. Similarly, if they shared ancestor figures as
the great-grandparent of one person and the great-great-grandparent of
the other, the individuals class as "second cousins once removed". Hence
one can refer to a "third cousin once removed upwards."
Cousins of an older generation (in other words, one's parents' first
cousins), although technically first cousins once removed, are often
classified with "aunts" and "uncles." Similarly, a person may refer to
close friends of one's parents as "aunt" or "uncle," or may refer to
close friends as "brother" or "sister," using the practice of
fictive kinship.
English-speakers mark relationships by marriage (except for
wife/husband) with the tag "-in-law." The mother and father of one's
spouse become one's mother-in-law and father-in-law; the female spouse
of one's child becomes one's daughter-in-law and the male spouse of
one's child becomes one's son-in-law. The term "
sister-in-law"
refers to three essentially different relationships, either the wife of
one's sibling, or the sister of one's spouse, or, in some uses, the
wife of one's spouse's sibling. "
Brother-in-law"
expresses a similar ambiguity. The terms "half-brother" and
"half-sister" indicate siblings who share only one biological or
adoptive parent
.jpg)
The different types of families occur in a wide variety of settings,
and their specific functions and meanings depend largely on their
relationship to other social institutions.
Sociologists have a special interest in the function and status of these forms in stratified (especially
capitalist) societies. The term "
nuclear family"
is commonly used, especially in North America and Europe, to refer to
conjugal families. Sociologists distinguish between conjugal families
(relatively independent of the kindred of the parents and of other
families in general) and nuclear families (which maintain relatively
close ties with their kindred). The term "
extended family"
is also common, especially in North America and Europe. This term has
two distinct meanings. First, it serves as a synonym of "consanguinal
family" (consanguine means "of the same blood"). Second, in societies
dominated by the conjugal family, it refers to "
kindred"
(an egocentric network of relatives that extends beyond the domestic
group) who do not belong to the conjugal family. These types refer to
ideal or normative structures found in particular societies. Any society
will exhibit some variation in the actual composition and conception of
families. Much sociological,
historical and
anthropological research dedicates itself to the understanding of this variation, and of changes in the family that form over time.
Times
have changed; it is more acceptable and encouraged for mothers to work
and fathers to spend more time at home with the children. The way roles
are balanced between the parents will help children grow and learn
valuable life lessons. There is great importance of communication and
equality in families, in order to avoid role strain. [17]
According to the work of scholars
Max Weber,
Alan Macfarlane,
Steven Ozment,
Jack Goody and
Peter Laslett,
the huge transformation that led to modern marriage in Western
democracies was "fueled by the religio-cultural value system provided by
elements of Judaism, early Christianity, Roman Catholic canon law and
the Protestant Reformation".
[18]
Contemporary society generally views the family as a haven from the world, supplying absolute fulfilment.
[citation needed] Zinn and Eitzen discuss the image of the "family as haven [...] a place of
intimacy,
love and
trust where individuals may
escape the competition of dehumanizing forces in modern society".
[23] During
industrialization,
"[t]he family as a repository of warmth and tenderness (embodied by the
mother) stands in opposition to the competitive and aggressive world of
commerce (embodied by the father). The family's task was to protect
against the outside world."
[24]
However, Zinn and Eizen note, "The protective image of the family has
waned in recent years as the ideals of family fulfillment have taken
shape. Today, the family is more compensatory than protective. It
supplies what is vitally needed but missing in other social
arrangements."
[25]
.jpg)
"The popular wisdom", according to Zinn and Eitzen, sees the family
structures of the past as superior to those today, and families as more
stable and happier at a time when they did not have to contend with
problems such as illegitimate children and
divorce. They respond to this, saying, "there is no golden age of the family gleaming at us in the far back historical past."
[26]
"Desertion by spouses, illegitimate children, and other conditions that
are considered characteristics of modern times existed in the past as
well."
[27]
Others argue that whether or not one views the family as "declining"
depends on one's definition of "family". The high rates of divorce and
out-of-wedlock births indicate a decline in the institution of the
family
[citation needed].
Married
couples have dropped below half of all American households. This drop
is shocking from traditional forms of the family system. Only a fifth of
households were following traditional ways of having married couples
raising a family together.[28]
No longer are marriages arranged for political or economic gain, and
children are not expected to contribute to family income. Instead,
people choose mates based on
love.
This increased role of love indicates a societal shift toward favoring
emotional fulfilment and relationships within a family, and this shift
necessarily weakens the institution of the family.
[29]
Margaret Mead considers the family as a main safeguard to continuing
human progress. Observing, "Human beings have learned, laboriously, to
be human", she adds: "we hold our present form of humanity on trust,
[and] it is possible to lose it" ... "It is not without significance
that the most successful large-scale abrogations of the family have
occurred not among simple savages, living close to the subsistence edge,
but among great nations and strong empires, the resources of which were
ample, the populations huge, and the power almost unlimited"
[30]
As an agent of socialization, family is the primary source of
influence behind the formation of personality and the growth of a child,
[31]
due to its influence on the basics of personality and its role
providing gender identity. This impact is large as the family confers
its
social position onto the child when it is brought into the world.