Sociology of Families

issues with defining close relations

Need to capture the diversity of households, intimate relationships, and families that exists

• This can be included in our private and public life — AND these can intersect

class definition of close relations

families and intimate relationships are diverse, fluid (changing), and complex

family vs families

many sociologists prefer the term 'families' over family, as it is more inclusive and acknowledges the diversity we see in Canadian, modern families

• nowadays, diverse families receive greater social support and state recognition than earlier periods

family relationships are

numerous and can include many diff versions

• consider extended families, blended families, adoptive families, chosen families, polyamorous couples, etc.

then vs now: LAT

living apart together — couples in a relationship that live separately

• families used to be conceived from those who live together, but now we recognize that families can exist across households

transnational families

one or more immediate or extended family members live in another country and may be separated for an extended period of time

Adoption, Fostering, and Skip-Generation Families indicate that DNA

=/= family for all

are family roles stable overtime?

no, they change

new reproductive technologies

donor sperm, donor eggs, donor embryos, and surrogacy,

• transnational surrogacy has become common

leads to huge changes in what defines family (can’t just rely on DNA to determine)

alignment between relationship status, living arrangements, and sexual relationships

earlier periods → greater alignment between all 3

today → less alignment, we have more diversity

• ex, more sex outside of a relationship, relationships without sex, polyamorous relationships, LAT, etc.

sociologist perspective on families assert that they are

socially constructed and change over time and place

• evolve as a result of broader social change

process-based definitions

Focus should be on the activities and labour that are accomplished within families, rather than definitions based on family structure

• modern sociologists use this

social reproduction

physical, mental, and emotional labour of caring for family members

• this includes unpaid, invisible labour (domestic labour, kin keeping, etc.)

Family-process definitions:

Focus on what families achieve

• related to social reproduction

challenges in social reproduction

Families need to meet the challenges of economic support for family members while performing unpaid, domestic labour

• Entails less visible forms of labour, including mental labour

kin keeping

describes the work of keeping relatives in touch, mostly done by women

media representstions of families

a powerful agent of socialization

• historically → overrepresented white, middle-upper class nuclear families

• late 1900s → some diversities finally shown (blended families, single mothers)

• 21st century → unconventional families, LGBTQ+, etc.

the sociological imagination

private experiences or problems are often a reflection of broader public issues or trends

• consider inequality and discrimination

• consider my living situation to my parents’ at this age, related to rent costs

definitions: kinship, patrilineal, matrilineal, and bilateral

Kinship → group of people who share a relationship typically through blood or marriage, and may have positions in a hierarchy or rights over a property

• this definition varies across societies, and can influence where members live, who they can marry, and even their life opportunities

Patrilineal → count relationships through the male line, determined through their father's relationships

Matrilineal → count relationships through the female line

Bilateral kinship systems → both lines

COVID-19 and families

existing inequalities emphasized

• increase of DV and infant abuse

• increased suicides + attempts, increased ED in children + youth

• most women shared the experience of undertaking far more caregiving and unpaid labour (even while working in paid employment!)

early definitions of families

1949 George Murdock → nuclear family (spouses + children)

Census Family → statistics Canada definition of family (comprising a married or common-law couple, same or opposite sex, with or without children, or a lone parent with at least one child in the home)

census family - info

this is a 2026 definition, it is better but but still excludes many

• the government uses this, and is thereby relying on non-inclusive definitions

why do definitions of family matter?

they are used to exclude people from receiving support and can inform decisions we make about our private lives

compassionate care program - 2004 version

employment Insurance (EI) benefits paid to people leave work to provide care/support to a family member who is gravely ill and at significant risk of death

• family member definition → used to be SUPER restrictive, not applicable to many people that those consider to be family

  • now, works for anyone you consider to be family

common-sense ideologies

the ease with which people accept heterosexual and nuclear family forms comes from the way ideas about marriage and family are central to common-sense ideologies

• The belief that biology is a 'given', biology of reproduction seems to 'naturally' product hetero nuclear families

• But, we cannot accept this!

neoliberal philosophy in the 1980s

belief that only the family, and not the state, are responsible for people’s welfare

• only benefits middle-upper class nuclear family

how right wing people use “the family”

Use 'traditional family values' to as a symbol to move away from more liberal views, blaming social problems on those who don't conform to nuclear families

• use 'the family' to symbolize the supposedly lost art of a hetero nuclear family

  • with men as income earners and women as unpaid caretakers

family as a legal term

determines custody

state-regulated institutions use relations to determine who will be informed about the status of a person (schools, hospitals)

immigrations laws

same-sex adoptive parents - social policy

before, same-sex parents had to hire a lawyer to both get approved for parental rights

• example of institutions changing families

families are ___ creations

social

• family refers to the social relationships that people create to care for children and other dependents on a daily basis, and also to ensure that the needs of the adults are met

families are _____ constructed and change over ___ and ____

socially

time and place

diverse families have not always been recognized. does this mean they didn’t exist?

no! they very much existed, just weren’t represented or recognized

families varying historically and cross-culturally

ideas about family life (such as appropriate infant care, parenting) have changed overtime

• hitting kids used to be normal, but now it isn’t

relationship dissolution

breakup

increased marriage dissolution leads to

more blended families!

circumstantial families

families growing from circumstance, like being hired to work together

open vs closed adoption

open — bio parents still in the child’s life

closed — bio parent not in the child’s life, identity often hidden

which 2 groups are overrepresented in the child welfare system?

black and indigenous children

non-family members living in the same dwelling can be considered

family too!

• consider tenants; often close relationships can form

relationships vary ____ and ______

between and within

varied experiences within families

there are a multitude of position or negative experiences that can be felt, including:

• abuse

• violence

• trauma

• estrangement

• economic exploitation

reimagining of families

increasingly, Canadians are finding creative (and sometimes unconventional) ways to care and provide for themselves and their families

what does Felicity Edholm do?

challenges the idea that the heterosexual nuclear family is “natural” using anthropologial evidence

just becomes the nuclear family seems to be predominant, doesn’t mean it is

natural!

5 areas Edholm explores that challenge the assumptions about nuclear families

1. conception

2. inc3st

3. parents/child relations + adoption

4. marriage

5. households and residence

1. conception — our assumption

blood ties and biological connections seem to us (in Canada) as unequivocal - no room for doubt, very clear, etc.

• but, this is not universal

1. conception — trobriand islands

intercourse is not believed to be the cause of inception, and s3men is not considered essential

• conception results from the entry of a spirit child into the womb, & the male only opens up this passage to the womb

• repeated intercourse with the same partner then molds the child

so, blood ties are only related to the mother & her family

1. conception — Marind-Anim society

example of a society that recognizes the importance of s3men, but they believe that fertility is only possible given a mixture of multiple different men’s s3men

• s3men understood as being necessary for growth throughout childhood and adolescence, including elaborate male homosexual activities ensure adolescent boys are also a recipient

• women are to have multiple intercourses at marriage and on subsequent ritual occasions

1. conception — Lakker of Burma

believe the mother is only a container in which the child grows

• she is not seen as having any blood connection to her children

• children of the same mother but diff father are not seen as related

overall takeaway of Edholm’s section on conception

they prove to us that the relations that we see as obviously biological are not universally seen as such

2. inc3st — our assumption

often discussed as an innate, instinctive abhorrence for sexual relations with close kind

• attributed to a subconscious realization of the genetic damage of inbreeding

• incest taboos are nearly universal

2. incest — Egypt, Hawaii, Ptolemaic

inbreeding common and incest not seen as taboo

2. incest — Trobrianders and Lakker of Burma

Trobrianders -→ do not consider children of one father and diff mothers to be related, therefore such unions are not considered incest

Lakker of Burma → mother has no biological link, so children of one mother and diff fathers are not seen as related, so unions are not considered incest

overall takeaway of Edholm’s section on inc3st

Prohibitions on sexual relations between individuals socially classified as kin

• It is the social definitions of the significant kinship relations that are important for defining incest

3. parent/child relations: adoption — our assumption

Nearly universally accepted that the mother-child tie is inevitable and given

• Seen as determined by infantile dependence and the need for breastmilk

• also considers the psychological needs of both

weaning definition

the gradual process of shifting a baby from breast milk to solid foods

3. parent/child relations: adoption — Melanesia and Polynesia,

children are adopted just after weaning or well before

• in some instances, they are adopted and breastfed by their adopted mother

3. parent/child relations: adoption — Tahiti

women must have 1-2 children before they are considered to be ready for an approved and stable relationship

• perfectly acceptable for the children of this women to be given to her parents or to other close kin for adoption

• motherhood to these children is not forced

  • motherhood is reached by a particular stage of development, not always related to the physical bearing of a child

the woman who took you in is just the same as your biological mother

3. parent/child relations: adoption — adoptive parents

the adopted child is often seen more as the foster fathers’ rather than the biological father

• Father-child relationships are seen as a social relationship, rather than a blood relationship

  • Likeness between father and children is due to the close personal contact between them

4. marriage — our assumption

It has been claimed that some form of marriage is found in all human societies

• BUT, the variety in definitions highlights the issue with saying marriage is universal (marriage doesn't even mean the same thing in different places!)

4. marriage — Nayar and Taravad

the Nayar people have something called a Taravad — unit composed of men and women descended through the female line from a common ancestress, involves cohabitation

• so, marriage here is when a Nayar girl was involved in a formal ritual ('wife' and 'husband' now) with a man from an equivalent caste to her own

• now both able to take whatever lovers they want (of whatever caste)

  • the husband can be a lover of the wife, but not needed

In this context, fathers and husbands are entirely peripheral to the domestic life of their children and wives, and never cohabit

4. Marriage - Nuer & ghost marriages

in the situation where a man dies before marriage + creating offspring, a close kinsman will marry the wife 'to his name', and children born of this union are seen as the dead man's children

• If the second man also dies without creating children of his own, another ghost marriage will be done!

4. marriage — Nuer & female-to-female marriage

an old and important (and often barren/cannot have children) woman will marry a young woman

• the children born to the younger woman will then be considered as the children of this old woman (considered the 'father')

• highlights the importance in Nuer culture of becoming parents (especially male parents)

  • only the fathers will offspring are remembered and have status as ancestors and inheritance of properties

4. marriage - Toda

In cases of polyandry (women married for more than one man, one of the men will perform a ritual to become the socially recognized father (making him the pater)

• common for a group of brothers to share the wife

  • in some cases, the children will belong to the family group, and individual paternity is less important than membership of the family

5. household and residence — 3 forms of residence

Vivilocal → a married couple and their children live with the kind of the husband

Matrilocal → the couple live with the kin of the wife

Neolocal → the couple live independently of either group of kin

• but, complicated by the fact that there is diversity throughout the lives of each individual (one child may move around a lot)

5. household and residence — Tiv

kinship groups live in compounds, circular arrangements of huts and granaries, and the center is an open space

• the compound head is the senior, eldest man — he supervises the productive activities, settles disputes, and controls magic

  • his several wives live in separate units in the compound

  • in the compound we also have his junior children, unmarried daughters, and married sons + their families

overall, Felicity Edholm shows us that

the way family works across time and space (cross-culturally) varies significantly, and thereby does not support any idea about a “natural” hetero family, challenging the common-sense ideologies associated with it

• The nuclear family can thereby be seen through a comparative lens as just one very specific means of organizing the relationships between parents, children, men, and women

Fox and Luxton argue in favour of a more inclusive definition of family so that it does NOT mean

co-residence

how is family discussed by Carol Stack in All Our Kin?

family = the friends and relatives who offered practical help

• black women in poverty survived by swapping and sharing. if this was done, you were now considered family!

why do we look at theoretical approaches to studying family?

theories reflect the time period they were developed in and the assumptions/concerns of their creators

different theories are suited to answering different questions

theoretical approaches to family

1. structural functionalism

2. symbolic interactionism

3. conflict/marxist theory

4. marxist feminist theory

5. feminism

6. postmodernism

7. life course theory

structural functionalism

society is characterized by consensus over shared values, with a focus on social order (a macro view of society)

• equilibrium is maintained when all parts of society are working smoothly

  • society needs functional requisites

  • if families aren’t functioning well, then other parts of society/institutions will be impacted

how does structural functionalism view families?

families are evaluated by how they benefit society

• how each person in the family fits into this benefit

structural functionalism and the hetero nuclear family

nuclear family seen as very useful: small, versatile, mobile

sexual division of labour → believe men need to take an instrumental role and women need to take an expressive role

• claims they benefit eachother

• believed to be beneficial for all (LOL)

critique of the male breadwinner

everyone in the family is now relying on only 1 person for all money

• what if they get hurt? ill? or die? what about divorce?

ironic, since having 2 money makers would likely be the actual most “functional” household

who developed structural functionalism

talcott parsons in the conservative, Cold War, post WW2 period

emile durkheim and talcott parsons think

the heterosexual nuclear family is the ideal structure

talcott parsons looks at how

functions of families eroded overtime (i.e., by institutions):

1. regulating sexual activity (via monogamous hetero marriage)

2. economic cooperation

3. reproduction

4. socialization of children

5. emotional support

he presented an idealized version that comes from nuclear families that is often not reflected in reality

critique of parsons:

economic inequality → assumptions that men will share the money is not supported by evidence (we find economic exploitation), risks the livelihood of women and children

lack of emotional support → in reality, family life includes conflict, anger, abuse, etc. and emotional labour is gendered

sexual relationships → not all people are monogamous and hetero, he had access to info to write about diversity but only wrote about hetero, married sex

socialization → overlooked other agents of socialization, we don’t only get socialized from family)

• for ex, he assumed reproduction only marriages in marriage

racist ideologies → focused only on white, middle-upper class americans

micheal young — opening of pay packet

husbands would open up physical paycheck before going home to keep some of the money for themselves

heteronormativity

the assumption that heterosexuality is the normal/default way of living and organizing relationships

structural functionalism has been critized for:

• promoting only the nuclear family

• viewing diverse families as problematic

• not considering that the interests of individual family members may be different

• suggesting that changes in families, such as decline of the nuclear family, are detrimental to society

• treating the nuclear family as universal

• promoting women’s financial dependence on men

• faulty teleological argument, claiming teleological social phenomena exist in order to meet needs, rather than arising from a particular history

what is useful about structural functionalism

Aims to explain how social arrangements fit a particular society

David Popenoe - unprecedented decline of the nuclear family

claimed self-fulfillment/selfishness was replacing familism

but:

• he assumed individual and societal interests are opposed

• lamed individual choices while ignoring social context (changing opportunities and constraints), which is odd for a sociologist

• didn't explain the changes he worried about

as structural functionalism ____ in the 60s, _____ increased and provided us with more accurate representations

decreased, feminist theories

symbolic interactionism

concerned with micro-level interactions, focused on the meanings people create and interpret in social interaction, and the sense of self that results

• seeks to understand subjectivity; our personal subjectivity shapes our interactions, and vice versa

• concerned with symbols: how they are used and understood (like a wedding ring)

symbolic interactionism - family relationships

we actively create and negotiate our relationships within families

• can be online or offline

ex of creating and negotiating family relationships: parent-child relationship

free-range kids → minimal parent supervision

helicopter parenting → intense parental supervision

• these dynamics differ intensively; indicates that relationships/families are not external, fixed phenomena

symbolic interactionism - rituals and celebrations

family is actively created through everyday interactions, rituals, and symbols

• look at the unique ways different families celebrate xyz, traditions at holidays, etc.

• these are purposeful reinforcements of family

symbolic interactionism and Zelizer

the social meanings of money — “special monies”

• not all $ are equal; money is qualitative, not quantitative

  • for ex, the way you got money determines how you will use it

• not all dollars are equal

a critique of symbolic interactionism

ignores bigger picture issues (like social structure), so not super helpful to use for creating government social policy

conflict theory/marxist theory

Founded in the ideas of Karl Marx

The basic feature of society is social class conflict between the working class and the capitalist class.

• says workers are exploited by Capitalists

• The economic mode of production shapes families, living arrangements, and gender roles.

core claim on conflict/marxist theory

our economic conditions of life determine how we view the world and our beliefs

• believe we need to eliminate capitalism and replace with socialism

industrial revolution

significantly impacted families, nature of work, women' roles, transformed production, created dangerous working conditions, "Alienation"

• before, families were "Units of Production”: they produced most of the things they needed for survival (make it for themselves)

• but now…

industrialization

There is now a clear line/distinction between public sphere of work and private realm of families/households

• People are working in factories, relying on waged work

language changes here: households are no longer Units of Production, but now Units of Consumption

• workers now use wages to buy the things they need

industrialization — leads to distinction between social

classes

• affluent families — have women staying home, as the families do not rely on their wages

• led to a specific ideology, that the home is seen as a haven from the horros of the workplace

  • ideology that the women’s place is in the home (not the workplace)

alienation

workers are alienated from the products they are making: they don’t own the products, they have no control over how the product is made, pace of work, labour undertaken, worker sabotage,

• no autonomy or creativity

• isolation between workers: attempt to prohibit workers from talking with eachother

  • dividedness among workers advantages capitalists (cannot discuss dissatisfaction with work, cannot rise together and get unionized, etc.)

• "The advanced division of labour" - capitalists believe we maximize profits and efficiency by assigning people to have specific jobs that only they do

friedrick engels

says the emergence of private property is where we get the Nuclear family

• provocative argument that we don't see the development of monogamy and nuclear family, and focused efforts to enforce women's fidelity (sexual subordination) UNTIL we start getting private property

• reasoning: men wanted to ensure their property would be passed down to their bio children

political economy perspective

aligns with the conflict perspective, saying: there is a relationship between the economic structure of society and families)