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1 The Changing Family
Learning Objectives
Chapter Outline
Lecture Launchers and Discussion Topics
1: What Is a Family?
a. Some Traditional Definitions of the Family
b. Some Current Definitions of the Family
2: How are Families Similar Across Societies?
a. Family Functions
b. Marriage
c. Endogamy and Exogamy
3: How Do Families Differ Across Societies?
a. Nuclear and Extended Families
b. Residence and Authority
c. Monogamy and Polygamy
4: Family Structure and Social Change.
5: Some Myths About the Family.
a. Myths Can Be Dysfunctional
b. Myths Can Be Functional
c. Myths about the Past
d. Myths about What Is Natural
e. Myths about the Self Sufficient Family
f. The Myth of the Family as a Loving Refuge
g. Myths about the Perfect Marriage, the Perfect Family
6: Family Values: Perspectives on the Changing Family.
a. The Family Is Deteriorating
b. The Family Is Changing, Not Deteriorating
c. The Family Is Stronger than Ever
7: Trends In Changing Families.
a. Demographic Changes
b. Racial and Ethnic Diversity
8: Why Are Families Changing?
a. Micro-Level Influences on the Family
b. Macro-Level Influences on the Family
9: A Cross-Cultural and Global Perspective on the Family.
10. Conclusion
Chapter Objectives
Upon reading Chapter One, students should be able to:
1.1Discuss the various definitions of the family.
1.2Describe the basic functions of families.
1.3Explain the common characteristics of Western marriages and the types of legal marriages in the United States.
1.4Compare and contrast the various forms of family structures and marriage types.
1.5Discuss the myths concerning marriage and family.
1.6Compare and contrast the three broad perspectives on how family is changing.
1.7Explain the major demographic changes in families.
1.8Compare and contrast the micro-level and the macro-level perspectives of why families are changing.
1.9Explain why a cross-cultural focus is helpful in understanding the American family.
Chapter Overview
Contemporary family arrangements are becoming increasingly diverse and deviating from the ‘traditional’ married couples with kids image. These changes have been in motion for a long time, as adjustments to larger societal transformations that have gradually shaped and altered individual preferences.
The family is defined in the text as an intimate group of two or more people who (1) live together in a committed relationship, (2) care for one another and any children, and (3) share activities and close emotional ties. Definitions of family have become broadened in recent decades to include the growing number of nontraditional families, including ties with fictive kin. They may become more complicated in the future, to include an egg donor, for example.
Every society has social norms, or culturally defined rules for behavior. Families have many forms and structures, but the functions that families fulfill are very similar: legitimizing sexual activity (between married couples) and limiting sexual activity (between non-couple family members, i.e., incest taboo), bearing and raising children (socialization), providing emotional support (a distinction is made between a primary group and a secondary group) and economic security to family members, and social class placement.
Marriage is a socially approved mating relationship that people expect to be stable and enduring, and is also universal. Marriage has many variations based on social norms, culture, and legal restrictions. For example, in modern Western societies, marriages must not be bigamous. Laws governing marriages have been changing, too, reflecting changes in the larger society. Marriages can also be ceremonial, non-ceremonial or common-law.
Marriages can also be distinguished between endogamy and exogamy. The former is a marriage between couples of the same racial/ethnic group, and the latter is a marriage between couples from different groups. Exogamous marriages have been on the rise in the last few decades.
Marriages and families vary cross-culturally; social scientists make many distinctions. There are different residential patterns of families: patrilocal, matrilocal, and neolocal; and different patterns of descent: patrilineal, matrilineal, and bilineal. The different authority patterns include patriarchal, matriarchal, and egalitarian.
There are different forms of marriage: monogamy, polygamy (polygyny and polyandry), and group marriage, and because of widespread divorce and remarriage in modern American society, we speak of serial monogamy.
Family structure and social change are discussed in relation to a number of important concepts such as families of orientation (or family of origin) and families of procreation, and extended (or consanguine) versus nuclear families, are also important to note. Further, each family is part of a larger kinship system, or a network of people who are related by blood, marriage or adoption.
There are five common myths about marriage and family: (1) families were happier in the past; (2) marrying and having children are the “natural” things to do; (3) “good” families are self-sufficient; (4) every family is always a bastion of love and support; (5) it is possible, and we should all strive to be, a “perfect” family. Myths can be functional or dysfunctional, or both functional and dysfunctional simultaneously, depending upon how they might affect members of a family.
There are three broad perspectives on the changing family: (1) that the family is deteriorating; (2) that the family is changing but not deteriorating; and (3) that the family is stronger than ever before. Those who are extremely pessimistic about the family cite various trends to support their position: massive increase in divorces and desertions, high rates of children born out of wedlock, millions of latchkey children, large numbers of childless marriages, a decrease in the marriage rate, increasing numbers of single-parent families, and a loss of parental authority. Another group points to the fact that our contemporary family crisis has deep historical roots; that the family has been changing over time, but that this does not necessarily imply deterioration; the major problems families face are not the result of individual defects but a reflection of the difficulties of maintaining a family during periods of rapid change. Still others argue that the family is stronger than ever; that family life today is much more loving than in the past. The main reasons they give for their case of stronger family are higher levels of gender equality and more rights to all members of the family.
Families have changed demographically, racially and ethnically. Among the demographic changes are an increase in nonfamily households, a growing number of single people and cohabitants; increasing divorce and remarriage rates; larger numbers of one-parent families; more working mothers; a higher incidence of stepfamilies; and far more poverty and homelessness among American families. Racially and ethnically, the large influx of recent immigrants has greatly diversified the profiles of American families in terms of languages spoken, religion and concentrations of ethnic enclaves.
There are both micro- and macro-level explanations for the changes in families, with micro perspectives commonly assuming that people have many choices, while macro perspectives focus on the constraints that limit individual options. Among the constraints are economic forces, technological innovations, popular culture, social movements, and family policies.
Throughout the text, a cross-cultural and global perspective is employed. Reasons for this include: (1) the fact that the U.S. population is a mosaic of many cultural, religious, ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic groups, (2) the world is an “international place” where changes facing families are not only national but are also global, (3) U.S. businesses recognize the importance of understanding other societies, (4) understanding the customs of other countries challenges our notion that the U.S. family forms are the norm, and (5) families are changing around the world
Teaching Suggestions and Discussion Topics
1.Develop a “knowledge survey” containing about twenty statements that you think students should confidently make after taking your course. An example could be: I have a clear understanding of the family development theory. Give three alternative response categories for them to circle: Very Confident, Somewhat Confident, Not at All Confident. Have students put their names on the survey sheet. Have the students fill out the knowledge survey at the end of the year and compare their respective responses and compile an aggregate comparison for the entire class.
2.You may benefit from three articles that have appeared in the American Sociological Association’s journal, Teaching Sociology. All three articles deal with different teaching strategies that you may wish to utilize in your classroom: Cheryl D. Childers’ “Using Crossword Puzzles as an Aid to Studying Sociological Concepts” (April, 1996: 231-135); Janet Cosbey’s “Using Contemporary Fiction to Teach Family Issues” (July, 1997: 227-233); and Stephen J. Scanlan and Seth L. Feinberg’s “The Cartoon Society: Using The Simpsons to Teach and Learn Sociology” (April, 2000: 127-139).
3.Benokraitis points out that academic definitions of the family are broadening to include the growing number of nontraditional families. Ask your students to think about what the family means to them. Pose the question, “What is required to have a family?” Must people be legally related in order to constitute a family? Do families have to include children? By encouraging class discussion along these lines, your students should come to appreciate the many different conceptions of the family in modern society. Ask students if it really does matter how we define the family. What are the consequences of different definitions? Use Appendix A1 as a handout for students if you wish.
4.The Census Bureau recently (in late 2006) reported that married couple households have ceased to be the majority of all U.S. households. Have your students discuss this change, and how it is related to changes in diversity and norms of family structure as students see them or experience them.
5.Most likely you will have students who come from non-Western cultures. Ask them (by culture if available) to give an introduction of how family is structured in their culture(s) and how this structure has changed over the years, as they see it or experience it. Tie these introductions of non-Western families to the theme of the chapter.
6.Initiate a discussion on the reasons why families are changing. Ask students to identify the reasons given in the chapter for changing families, and then ask them if there are other reasons they can think of. Focus on the structure of the grand society and the effect of its changes on family. Finally, discuss cross-cultural differences in this aspect of change. In what cultures has the family changed relatively little in the last half century? In what cultures have we seen greater changes? Why is there a difference across cultures?
6.The text makes it clear that one of the acknowledged functions of marriage and family is the provision of emotional support. Sociologists have observed that this function of family has become even more important in modern society than it was in the past, while the other functions have been “replaced” by other social institutions. Have your students address the question of why the emotional support function has become more important in contemporary society.
7.Students who have never studied marriage and the family are likely to view kinship in terms of consanguine and legal relationships, rather than as sociologically significant relationships. You can enhance students’ understanding of kinship by emphasizing that consanguine ties are usually created through legal arrangements (principally marriage). The concept of “fictive kin” (“She’s like a sister to me”; “Uncle Harry,” etc.) can be employed to an advantage in illustrating how the most important dimension of kinship lies in the importance that we assign to such arrangements.
8.Benokraitis makes the classic distinction between families of orientation and families of procreation. This presents an excellent opportunity to illustrate how rapid social change can affect the viability of such concepts: Men and women who elect to remain single may never have families of procreation; in fact, we could even say that married couples who elect to remain childless technically fail to qualify for this title. Ask your students whether this means that these people’s lives are devoid of “family” with the exception of their experiences in their families of orientation? If such nonfamily-of-orientation associations do, indeed, reflect family relationships, what should sociologists call them?
9.Students are likely to view forms of marriage other than monogamy as bizarre and deviant. The Cross-Cultural box, “The Outside Wife”, will, no doubt, elicit some interesting reactions from students. In order for them to better understand the explanations for these different marital forms, ask your students to think about the functions of such arrangements. An especially spirited discussion may ensue should you decide to ask students to speculate about the possible economic and sociological advantages and disadvantages of having more than one spouse.
10. Engage your students in discussion about the various myths that surround marriage and family. Ask them to list their three favorite television shows (not counting sports or shows that would not include a portrayal of marriages or families). Second, tell them to make note of how family issues are portrayed in these shows. Ask them to vocalize how their own families are similar to or different from what they see on television. Finally, pose the question, “How do television images contribute to myths about the family?” Two excellent sources to consider for discussion on these topics are Stephanie Coontz’s books The Way We Never Were: Americas Families and the Nostalgia Trap (1992) and The Way We Really Are: Coming to Terms with America’s Changing Families (2000).
Class Activities: In or After Class Assignments, Exercises, and Handouts
1. Grab Bag Ice Breaker and Critical Thinking Exercise
Objectives: Get students engaged in the class. To have students begin to interact and feel comfortable with one another. Also, to get students to think about topics that will be discussed during the semester.
Time needed:10-15 minutes
Directions: This exercise works well on the first day of class. Bring in small brown paper bags on the first day of class, one for each student. In each bag have a different item (for example, a measuring tape, a pencil, an alarm clock, a can of vegetables, a Valentine’s Day card, a rock, etc.) Have these bags sitting around the edge of the room. Toward the beginning of class ask students to pick out one of the bags, go back to their seats, and take out the item. Have each student, working alone write out a list of what her or his item has to do with marriages and families. Then, allow students to work in groups of 3-4 to help each other with their respective lists. Get back together as a whole class and discuss the meanings of these items for the study of marriages and families. Stress that there are no correct answers as the point of the exercise to get students thinking about issues concerning marriages and families.
2.What Is Marriage and How Is Family Defined by Your Own Experience?
Objectives: To start the class by discussing the central topic of what is a family and what is marriage.
Time needed: 10-15 minutes
Directions: This exercise works well as a first day opener. Begin by having students think about and report (either orally in class or in writing) their own definitions of what is marriage and what is a family. Try to give attention to students from non-Western cultures and ask them to share their understanding of marriage and family with the rest of the class. Compare the student input with the definition given in the chapter.
3. What Does a Family Do?
Objectives: To discuss and define the functions a family performs, with student input and participation.
Time needed: 10-25 minutes
Directions: Class can be divided into a few groups, depending upon how big the class is. Have each group work out a list of the most important functions the family fulfills, and report to the class as a whole, so that family functions can be discussed. Also discuss the historical change in family functions, as well as cross-cultural differences in these functions. Match student input to the discussion given in the chapter, and widen the students’ understanding.
4. How Has Family Changed Over the Last Few Decades (or Generations)?
Objectives: Following the first two exercises, this one helps students probe the changing definition and functions of a family and marriage. Again, a cross-cultural emphasis is kept in mind.
Time needed: 10-25 minutes
Directions: Class can be divided into a few groups and each one is assigned a topic for discussion. At the end of the discussion each group reports to the class with conclusions. Topics can include changes in the family and marriage norms such as 1) size of the family (How many siblings did your parents have and how many do you have?); 2) gender roles in the family (Did your grandmother work outside the home? Your mother?); 3) What are the societal factors do you think that prompted these changes?; and 4) Is there any cross-cultural difference in these changes?