Family

History of mate selection:

  • Before modernity:

    • during antiquity: survival, procreation, endogamy, pragmatic & economic reasons (i.e., between tribes)

    • after Christianity: self-denial; “courtly love” in Middle Ages

    • After reformation: adultery (motivated by sex) is rebuked; combination of “courtly love” and marriage exclusivity = monogamous marriages implying love

  • after modernity:

    • mate selection and private sphere gets noninstitutionalized

    • family moves to the “foreground”

    • adapted to capitalism and the capitalist market (i.e., dating apps)

    • Marriage becomes only an option: “just one lifestyle among others”

    • extended vs nuclear families (new norm); marriages are no longer imbedded into larger clans and families (less stability and support)

    • affective individualism — the belief in romantic attachment as a basis for contracting marriage ties

    • pure relationship

    • Marriage tries to combine all (friendship, love, economics, procreation, emotions, etc).

Deinstitutionalization of marriage (Andrew Cherlin):

  • The 1st transition: from institutional to companionate marriage

  • The 2nd transition: from companionate to individualized

  • Symbolic significance of marriage:

    • Enforceable trust: Marriage requires public commitment (the number of guests at the wedding increases the likelihood of staying together), while cohabitation can be broken off privately

    • Marriage as a capstone

      • “Marriage is a status one builds up to, often by living with a partner beforehand, by attaining steady employment or starting a career, by putting away some savings, and even by having children. Marriage’s place in the life course used to come before those investments were made, but now it often comes afterward. It used to be the foundation of adult personal life; now it is sometimes the capstone.”

research on families today:

  • The contradictory pair: marriage vs individual freedom

  • high marriage rates, but recent delays in age at first marriage due to:

    • increases in cohabitation among younger people

    • increases in postsecondary school enrollment, especially among women

    • modernization and a secular change in attitudes promote individualism and downplay the importance of marriage

  • Social class and American families:

    • service class and middle class