SOC 100- Family

family as a structure

A group of persons defined by ties of marriage, blood, or adoption

• legal relationships

• used by US Census Bureau

• benefits accrue to those who fall under this definition

• privileges marriage

marriage declining

Americans are marrying later in life, and a rising share have never been married

why has marriage changed in the USA

• economic and labor market changes

• increased educational attainment

• changing gender roles

• cultural shifts

modern American family

• has undergone significant change since 1970

• no longer one predominate family form

• Americans experience family life in diverse ways

family as household

constituting a single household

• residential unit within which resources are shared

• approximately 1/3 of households “nonfamily”

• families may cross households

• transnational families

family role-based

social roles of husband and wife, mother and father, son and daughter, brother and sister

• note gender differentiation and heterosexuality

family as interactionist

creating and maintaining a common culture

• families created through interaction (“doing family”)

• family as pattern of shared activities rather than roles sharing meals, celebrating holidays, taking vacations

nuclear family

familial form consisting of a father, a mother, and their children

extended family

kin networks that extend outside or beyond the nuclear family

endogamy

marriage to someone within one’s social group

exogamy

marriage to someone outside one’s social group

monogamy

the practice of having one sexual partner or spouse at a time

polygamy

the practice of having more than one sexual partner or spouse at a time

polyandry

the practice of having multiple husbands simultaneously

polygyny

the practice of having multiple wives simultaneously

functionalism and families

views society as a set of social institutions that performs specific functions to ensure continuity and consensus

• families perform important tasks to maintain social order

• primary socialization

• personality stabilization

symbolic interactionist and family

emphasizes the contextual, subjective and ephemeral nature of family interactions, power relations, and interpersonal communication

• family members continually negotiate, define, and redefine their roles

• socialization bidirectional

feminist approaches and family

families provide support, comfort, love, and companionship

• or exploitation, loneliness, and inequality

• division of household labor

• unequal power relationships/physical abuse

• carework/second shift

cohabitation vs marriage

• likelihood of first marriage resulting from cohabitation associated with higher education, absence of children during cohabitation, and higher family income

• cohabitation less stable than marriage

same-sex parents

• 16% of same-sex couple households have children

• no research evidence of children being disadvantaged

happiness of single vs married

• 27.6% of households one-person (2020)

• marrying later, living longer, not remarrying = less stigma

• living alone can promote freedom, personal control, and self-realization

• neither better or worse