Gregory -- Makowski

As discussed in class last Tuesday (1/26), the term household has different connotations when spoken in different languages. Our interpretation of the term household in English included ideas such as people who eat and live together, people who share a common responsibility, and people/structures holding each other together. The term household is much more specific than the term family because the term household not only implies a relationship between a group of people, but also that the people physically live together. The term family simply implies a relationship between a group of people. This idea about the term family exemplified in one of the readings from this week:

In the Bible passage number 26, the term family is used to refer to all of the people of Israel, bonded into the unit of a family by nationalism. These people do not all physically live together and are therefore not part of a household, but they all share a common responsibility for their country, thus making them a family. The responsibility mentioned in this passage specifically falls upon the children of Israel over the age of twenty that are able to go to war. All of those who are able to go to war must accept this responsibility of fighting for their country as a type of family duty. Of course everyone else also does their part, but this is just one example. Essentially, the difference between household and family is as follows: a household is specifically those who physically live together whereas as a family can be any group of people united by a common responsibility, such is the case with the people of Israel.