ménages

Ménages is the plural of ménage, a French term used in English to refer to the people who live in a dwelling and to the domestic management of a house. In everyday English, ménage is sometimes used in the singular to mean a household organization or the work of running a home; its plural ménages is chiefly used in French or in statistical and sociological writing. The concept is central to demography and statistics, where a "ménage" or "household unit" denotes the occupants of a housing unit who share living arrangements and fiscally and socially interact. Distinctions can be drawn between a household and a family: a ménage may include relatives, roommates, or non-relatives sharing a home, and can be multi-generational or cohabiting unrelated adults.

Historically, ménage also referred to the staff employed to run a large household—servants, cooks, and cleaners—collectively the household establishment. In modern usage, that sense survives in historical or literary contexts, while the primary meaning in social science remains the living unit of analysis. The expression ménage à trois, literally "household of three," is a well-known phrase indicating a triadic domestic arrangement, though it is not a necessary focus of the concept.

In summary, ménages denote the basic unit of residence used in demography and sociology, encompassing the people and the domestic structure they share, and it exists alongside broader notions of family and household.