Soc 1 Chapter 12 Families

divorce rate

A social scientific measure of the proportion of marriages that end in divorce.

family wage

Arising in the nineteenth century, the term refers to a wage sufficient for a single wage earner to support a family (spouse and children).

Understand how intimate partner violence impacts American families and relationships in international perspective.

IPV is the single major cause of injury to women in the United States. It is also true, however, that like other forms of violent crime, rates of intimate and family violence have been declining since the 1990s. Almost one-third of women in the United States (27.3 percent or approximately 32.9 million) have experienced rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner at some point in their lifetime. One in 3 women (31.5%) has experienced physical violence by an intimate partner and nearly 1 in 10 (8.8%) has been raped by an intimate partner in her lifetime. When we examine how IPV intersects with categories beyond only gender, we can learn that it is more common among the poor (women in households with annual incomes below $7,500 have the highest rates of IPV)and the young (women aged 20 through 24 have the highest rates, followed by women aged 25 through 34). Young women are also more likely to suffer dating assaults: 1 in 10 American adolescents reports being a victim of dating violence, with 13 percent of high school girls (compared to 7.4 percent of boys) reporting physical dating violence and 14.4 percent reporting sexual violence by a dating partner (compared to 6.2 percent of boys) Intimate partner violence varies significantly by age. Younger women (18-24) have the highest rates of being victimized. And, although rates of victimization have declined among all age groups of women in the United States since 1993, women between 18 and 49 now face similar rates of intimate partner violence. Intimate partner violence also varies by race. But race is not as predictive as it is often presented. The most recent data suggest that black and white women have the highest rates of victimization, and Hispanic and other raced women have lower rates, on average. Marital status is also related to intimate partner violence. As with age and race, intimate partner violence against women has declined since 1993, but women who are separated but not divorced from their husbands face much higher rates of violence than do married, divorced, and never married women. There are a dozen empirical studies that point to higher rates of IPV among gay men and lesbian women, but also nationally representative data, such as the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, which recently found that 40.4 percent of all lesbian women report intimate partner violence during their lifetime, and 25.2 percent of gay men do, compared to 32.3 percent of heterosexual women and 28.7 percent of heterosexual men. The rate of reported IPV is even higher among bisexual adults, at 56.9 percent for bisexual women and 37.3 percent for bisexual men. IPV ranged from a low of 15 percent of women in Japan to a high of 71 percent of women in rural Ethiopia. (20 and 35% in US and Europe) Perhaps more telling, the majority of the 25,000 women interviewed in the study said that it was the first time they had ever spoken of the abuse to anyone. Despite dramatic gender differences, there are some researchers and political pundits who claim that there is "gender symmetry" in domestic violence—that rates of domestic violence are roughly equal by gender (see, for example, Brott 1994). One reason this symmetry is underreported is because men who are victims of domestic violence are so ashamed they are unlikely to come forward—a psychological problem that one researcher calls "the battered husband syndrome" "conflict tactics scale" (CTS) he CTS asked couples if they had ever, during the course of their relationship, hit their partner. An equal number of women and men answered "yes." The number changed dramatically, though, when they were asked who initiated the violence (was it offensive or defensive?), how severe it was (did she push him before or after he'd broken her jaw?), and how often the violence occurred. When these three questions were posed, the results shifted back: The amount, frequency, severity, and consistency of violence against women are far greater than anything done by women to men. There were several other problems with the CTS as a measure (see Kimmel 2002). These problems included: Whom did they ask? Studies that found comparable rates of domestic violence asked only one partner about the incident. But studies in which both partners were interviewed separately found large discrepancies between reports from women and from men. What was the time frame? Studies that found symmetry asked about incidents that occurred in a single year, thus equating a single slap with a reign of domestic terror that may have lasted decades. Was the couple together? Studies that found gender symmetry excluded couples that were separated or divorced, although violence against women increases dramatically after separation. What was the reason for the violence? Studies that find symmetry do not distinguish between offensive and defensive violence, equating a vicious assault with a woman hitting her husband to get him to stop hitting the children. Was "sex" involved? Studies that find symmetry omit marital rape and sexual aggression; because a significant amount of IPV occurs when one partner doesn't want to have sex, this would dramatically change the data.

Summarize shifts in courtship and dating in the United States since the late 1800s through today distinguishing between "calling," "dating," and "hookups."

Arranged marriages before and children often were betrothed (promised, engaged) as toddlers. But even in the days when marriages were arranged by parents, children often had a voice in the selection process, and they found ways to meet and evaluate potential partners so they could make their preferences known. By the turn of the twentieth century, they were classmates at coed high schools, and they formed romantic bonds with people that their parents didn't even know. But the process of change was slow, and not without its challenges. And it is equally true that courtship has not transformed in this way everywhere or even for every group in the United States. With the proliferation of automobiles alongside shifts in courtship, a new consumer economy emerged geared toward young people. Driving to a local restaurant on a date was initially thought of as deviant and American parents worried about the decline of young people's morality. Companies like Coca-Cola eagerly attempted to shape the ways young people spent this income they were dedicating toward courtship, inventing the "Coke date" and encouraging young people with advertisements to go on a date and share a Coke. College and high school became the time of unparalleled freedom for American youth and were increasingly taken up by dating and courtship. Campus wits joked that girls were attending college just to get their "Mrs." degree. By the 1950s, parents were eagerly awaiting their son or daughter's first date as a sign of their entry into adulthood. There were many stages: casual dating, "going steady" (dating only one person), being "pinned" (wearing a class ring or pin as a sign of commitment), and finally becoming engaged. Boys and girls were supposed to begin dating early in high school and date many people over the period of years, perhaps going steady several times, until they found "the one" to marry. But not for too many years. "Still dating" in the late 20s was considered sad and slightly unwholesome. In the 1970s, the increased incidence of divorce sent many people in their middle years into the world of dating again, until there was little stigma about dating at the age of 30, 40, or 50. Yet, relative to the United States, Japan has not developed a strong dating culture. You're not expected to bring a date to every recreational activity, and if you're not dating anyone at the moment, your friends don't feel sorry for you and try to fix you up. The expectation that dating leads to marriage is also absent. Japanese television and other mass media don't glorify marriage and ridicule or pity single people, as American television often does In 2001, schoolgirls around the world were asked whether they agreed with the statement that "everyone should be married." Three-quarters of American schoolgirls agreed. But 88 percent of Japanese schoolgirls disagreed (Coontz 2005). As singlehood and dating are increasingly recognized and stigmatized in Japan, it will be interesting to see what the future holds.

In all agrarian societies, including Europe and the United States as late as the nineteenth century, the household has been the basic economic unit. Production—and consumption—occurred within the household. Everyone participated in growing and eating the crops, and the excess might be taken to market for trade. There was no distinction between family and society: Family life was social life. Families performed a whole range of functions later performed by other social institutions. The family was not only a site of economic production and consumption. It was:

A School A church A hospital A daycare center A police station A retirement home

kinship systems

Cultural groupings that locate individuals in society by reference to their families, typically mapped as a network from closest (mother, father, siblings) to a little more distant (cousins, aunts, uncles) to increasingly distant (second-cousins twice removed). can be imagined as a family tree. Families provide us with a sense of history, both as individuals and as members of a particular culture. Families are a part of kinship systems

Explain why sociologists today argue that family diversity is the new norm when it comes to family forms.

For example, working-class families—regardless of the family's ethnic background—are less stable than middle-class families and more likely to be "matrifocal" (centered around mothers). As each ethnic group develops a stable middle class, their families have often come to resemble the companionate-marriage nuclear family of the white middle class. This is not evidence suggesting that the nuclear family form is inevitable, but that it is expensive—without significant governmental support, it cannot flourish. The end of World War II saw the largest infusion of government funding toward the promotion of this new nuclear family—the interstate highway system that promoted flight to the suburban tract homes, the massive spending on public schools in those suburbs, and policy initiatives coupled with ideologies that pushed women out of manufacturing work and back into the home, while their veteran husbands were reabsorbed into the labor force or went to college on the GI Bill. The family form that finally emerged in the 1950s is what is sometimes now referred to as the "traditional family"—a nuclear family form that took a great deal of social organization to produce. And it was not only aided by social policies, but simultaneously idealized in our culture as well in classic situation comedies of the 1950s and early 1960s like Father Knows Best and Leave It to Beaver on that newly emergent and culturally unifying medium: television. These policies promoting this family form, coupled with the ubiquity with which the nuclear family was presented in Americans in popular culture gave the impression that nearly everyone lived in nuclear families. That is far less than what is imagined The nuclear family form was more possible in the 1950s and 1960s because of a wartime economy that enabled an unprecedented proportion of American families to be able to thrive off of a single wage. This means that the nuclear family was far less a naturally emergent evolutionary adaptation and far more the anomalous result of deliberate social planning and social and cultural engineering. Today, the new norm in family life is diversity, according to sociologist Philip Cohen. As Cohen (2014) writes, "Some of the new diversity in work-family arrangements is a result of new options for individuals, especially women and older people, whose lives are less constrained than they once were. But some of the new diversity also results from economic changes that are less positive, especially the job loss and wage declines for younger, less-educated men since the late 1970s." And although family diversity leads to family inequality in the United States—in that some family forms have an easier time existing than others—this is by no means inevitable. For instance, in the United States, families with unmarried mothers are disproportionately likely to be poor. But this is not true in Nordic countries like Denmark, Finland, or Norway. Similarly, the children of single mothers fare much worse on education outcomes than children of married couples in the United States But that discrepancy is not true of the children of single mothers in every society. So, although it can sometimes be tempting to conclude that family diversity and family inequality are inevitably connected and that some family forms will always be privileged, sociological research suggests that societies can be organized in ways that enable diverse family forms to exist and thrive.

polygyny

The most common form of polygamy, a marriage between one man and two or more women because a man can have children with several women at the same time.

custodial parent

The parent whose residence is considered a "primary residence" for the child or children after separation or divorce.

"Time savers"

You might think that modern appliances, like vacuums, cupboards, refrigerators, microwaves, and more would have made work at home easier. But Cowan showed that, actually, indeed ironically, household technology did everything but make women's work at home any less of a burden. Vacuum cleaners made cleaning the floor easier, yes; but they also helped to usher in new standards of cleanliness for floors at a historical moment when fewer people were responsible for cleaning them than ever before in American history.

matrifocal

families centered on mothers

Divorce

The legal dissolution of a marriage.

dating

A courtship practice that arose in the 1920s in which young adults participated in recreational activities in pairs rather than groups prior to engaging in long-term commitments to one another. Children of working-class immigrants in major American cities were trying to distance themselves from the old-fashioned supervised visits that their parents insisted on, and fortunately they enjoyed both a great deal of personal freedom and a wide range of brand-new entertainment venues. Although many fashions and trends begin among the elite and filter down to lower classes, dating is an interesting example of how this process is capable of going both ways. By the 1930s, the custom had spread to the middle class. College-aged men and women participated in a process called "rating and dating," whereby they were rated on their desirability as a date and would ask or accept dates only with people of similar ratings. Dating was based on physical attractiveness, social desirability, and other qualities—not family name and position. Most importantly, dating was supervised and scrutinized by one's peer group, not one's parents

calling system

A process by which a young man (a "suitor") would obtain permission for access to a young woman, and ascertain her interest in forming a romantic attachment, all beginning with a request to "call," or visit her at home, initially under the watchful eyes of her parents and extended family. This was around before dating Parlors were made in the house for them to go and have a "private" conversation. She can show interest or disinterest.

elder abuse

A significant amount of family violence occurs towards the elderly. It is estimated that about 10 percent of the nation's 40 million Americans older than age 65 have experienced one or more of these forms of elder abuse (Lachs and Pillemer 2015). Financial mistreatment is the most common form of reported elderly abuse, followed by potential neglect, emotional abuse, and sexual abuse This seems to be the result of different life-expectancy rates for women and men; because women outlive men, they are more likely to be victimized. And women are more likely to be the caretakers of the elderly as well. Because the elderly often have smaller support systems and fewer resources, the impact of the abuse is magnified. Like young children, they are more vulnerable and dependent, and sometimes a single incident is enough to trigger a downward spiral to serious illness, depression, or despair

childfree

A term for women and men who forego having children as a personal choice.

childless

A term for women and men who forego having children out of necessity.

child abuse

Actions on the part of parents or caretakers that result in physical, emotional, or psychological harm (or the risk of such harm) to children.

Summarize the different types of adoption, and understand the stigma that many adoptive families face.

Adoption has shifted from being about "helping a girl in trouble" to "enabling a loving family to have a child." Different kinds of adoption: Foster care adoption: Adoption of children in state care for whom reunification with their birth parents is not feasible for safety or other reasons. Private adoption: Adoption either through an agency or independent networks. Intercountry adoption: Adoption of children from other countries by U.S. citizens. The top three countries for international adoption in 2011 were China (2,231 adoptions), South Korea (260), and Russia (303) (U.S. State Department 2016). These numbers have been falling from an adoption peak in the United States in the 1970s primarily because laws surrounding international adoption have become more strict in the intervening years. Transracial adoption: Adoption of a child of a different race from the adopting parents; this involves about 10 to 15 percent of all domestic adoptions and the vast majority of intercountry adoptions. The Home Economics program at Cornell University trained women in childcare sciences from 1919 to 1969. You can go to the University library website and find images of the notes young women studying there took on children, meticulously documenting their development. The number of adoptions by nonrelatives has declined sharply since 1970. The availability of birth control and legal abortion has meant that fewer women are having unwanted children, and adoption is still stigmatized in the United States; it is popularly perceived, as one sociologist put it, as "not quite as good as having your own"

Explain how the rise in nonmarital choices is related to a changing relationship among sex, marriage, and reproduction in society.

Although it's true that arranged marriages affected both boys and girls, increased individual choice of marriage partners enables more women to seek educational and economic advancement and increases choices for women. Second, these changes tend to be associated with higher levels of education—for both men and women.Third, these changes are partially explained by changing sexual behaviors and attitudes, especially increased acceptance of "premarital sex." For a long time, sexual activity before marriage was referred to as "premarital" because it was assumed that the couple involved would be in a serious, committed relationship and intend to marry. The gap between first sex and first marriage and birth for both women is wider today than it has ever been before. Separating sex, marriage, and reproduction is a world historical event. In wealthy countries, especially in northern Europe, nonmarital sex has become increasingly acceptable, even during the teen years (Schalet 2011). These countries provide sex education and health care services aimed at equipping young people to avoid negative consequences of sex by encouraging contraceptive use. In the United States, public attitudes toward nonmarital sex have changed significantly over the past 20 years. In a national survey in the early 1970s, 37 percent of respondents said that nonmarital sex is always wrong. By 1990 this number had fallen to 20 percent. Nearly half (42%) of blacks say premarital sex is wrong, as compared to 32 percent of whites and 33 percent of Hispanics. According to a Pew survey, nearly two-thirds of whites say unmarried couples having children is bad for society, whereas 58 percent of blacks and 45 percent of Hispanics do. American social and political institutions reflect this complex picture and have changed slowly. As a result, rates of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are much lower in Europe than in the United States, although their rates of sexual activity are no higher (Alan Guttmacher Institute 2014). Living outside of marriage is more possible today than ever before. The relationship between sex, marriage, and reproduction is a social arrangement. And, as such, it will shift over time and as other elements of society change as well.

Explain what Cherlin means by the "marriage-go-round" and how it relates to both remarriage and blended families.

At least half of all children will have a divorced and remarried parent before they turn 18. Indeed, the share of all children living in two-parent households is, today, smaller than it has been in more than 50 years. One in 4 children today live with only one parent, up from less than 1 in 10 in 1960 Decrease in first marriage household and an increase in single parent households and cohabiting now exists when it really didnt in 1960 and 1980 In many blended families, finances become a divisive issue, placing significant strains on the closeness and stability of blended families (Korn 2001; Martinez 2005). Several studies have found that children in blended families—both stepchildren and their half-siblings who are the joint product of both parents—do worse in school than children raised in traditional two-parent families (Ginther 2004). And some research suggests that boys tend to have a more difficult time coping with half- or stepsiblings than girls do the likelihood of blending families tends to be far more common among the middle classes, where parents have sufficient resources to support these suddenly larger families. Lower-class families may be "blended" in all but name: They may cohabit with other people's children but not legally formalize it by marrying. Although we have already learned that the United States has one of the highest divorce rates in the industrialized world, fewer people are as aware of another rate on which the United States similarly stands out. The United States also has the highest marriage rate—the rate depicting the number of people who do or will eventually marry And although we have a higher divorce rate than many of our peer countries, we also have among the highest remarriage rates in the world (Cherlin 2009). So, even when our marriages fail, we are much more likely to find someone new and try again. The sociologist Andrew Cherlin (1992) famously referred to remarriage as an "incomplete institution" because he realized that remarriages often do not follow a standards set of norms. Deciding whether a formal wedding is necessary is less defined among remarriages. Whether couples should unite their finances is more uncertain among remarriages than first marriages as well. And, as you might guess, these features also mean that remarriages have a higher divorce rate than do first marriages as well. Cherlin suggests that in American culture, marriage and individualism are contradictory cultural goals for many Americans. Our cultural model of marriage stresses the ideas that: marriage is among the best ways to exist, marriage should be permanent and loving, and that divorce should be a last resort. But our cultural model of individualism stresses competing ideals: our primary obligation is to ourselves, individuals must make choices to better their own lives, and people dissatisfied with their relationships are justified in leaving them. "Marriage-go-round": Cherlin shows, however, that they result in what he calls the "marriage-go-round." We get married because we believe it is a great way to live. But we evaluate our marriage individualistically ("What is this marriage really doing for me?"), and as a result are likely to leave them. But once we leave one, because marriage is an ideal for many Americans, we're likely to jump right back in.

Progressive nucleation

Christopher Lasch's idea that industrialization and modernization made it customary for children to be independent from their parents in going to school, looking for work and choosing a spouse, increasingly reducing extended family arrangements and promoting the nuclear family model of household structure and child-rearing.

polyamory

Committed relationships among three or more people. Many who self-identify as polyamorous say they would choose multipartnered marriage if it were legal

Summarize shifts in single-parent families and the role of grandparents in recent history among U.S. families

During the first half of the twentieth century, the primary cause of single-parent families was parental death. By the end of the century, most parents were living—but many were living elsewhere. As of 2014, about 34 percent of children in the United States are being raised in single-parent families, the vast majority of them in single-mother households. Single-parent families have become more common among all demographic groups, but the greatest increases have been among less-educated women and among African American families Most single parents are not so by choice. The pregnancy may have been an unexpected surprise that prompted the father to leave, or the relationship ended, leaving one parent with custody. Young, unprepared mothers predominate: Nearly 90 percent of teenage mothers are unmarried, but about 30 percent of mothers aged 30 to 44 are unmarried Teen moms have the highest poverty rate of any demographic group in the United States, and those who do marry are much more likely to get divorced: 50 percent of women who marry before age 18 are divorced within 10 years, as compared with only 15 percent of those who marry between the ages of 25 and 29. At the same time, an increasing number of women are choosing single motherhood, either through fertility clinics and sperm banks or through adoption. White college-educated women led this trend, many of whom are in professional and managerial jobs Single mothers predominate both because it is easier for a father to become absent during the pregnancy and because mothers are typically granted custody in court cases. Although mothers predominate, the gender disparity varies from country to country.Those countries in which women's status is higher tend to have lower percentages of women who are single parents. Currently 1 in 10 grandparents in the United States lives with their grandchildren. The number of multigenerational families living in grandparents' homes with at least one parent present has grown even more, from 2.4 million in 1970 to 4.3 million today. In 2012, 7 million children lived with a grandparent in either a parent or grandparent-maintained household; 4.5 million of these children lived in a grandparent maintained household What happened to the parents? Often the father has abandoned the child, and the mother is incompetent, in prison, or on drugs. Courts are much more likely to grant custody of a child to a blood relative than to a legal stranger. Grandparents can even legally adopt their grandchildren, in effect becoming their parents.

Blended families

Families formed when two divorced or unmarried parents with children marry (with stepparents, stepsiblings, and possibly half-siblings as well). The Brady Bunch—two parents who each had three children from previous relationships who meet, fall in love, and move each of their families in together. Sociologists refer to families like these as blended families.

Recognize how each of the five elements of the iSoc model can be used to examine families sociologically.

Identity: Your family gives you a ready-made history, a sense of where you come from and who you are. Inequality: Families derive their sense of themselves largely through participation in various communities: Your race, class, or ethnicity are often interwoven into your family's sense of itself. And the inequalities your family endures have a dramatic impact on your life as well. Interaction:Is your younger brother or sister a "servant" who you get to boss around, or a vulnerable younger person who needs and deserves your protection? Family relationships are cultivated and maintained through interactions. Institutions: At its origins, the family also served as a church, an economic unit (the family farm, a son apprenticing to his father's trade), a school (you were taught at home), and more. Families accomplish something for all of us (and society too) that we would be ill-prepared to accomplish without them. Intersections: Not all families are alike and not all families are created equal.

Explain which groups of Americans have seen the largest increases in childlessness and why.

In 1976, about 10 percent of women ages 40 to 44 (near the end of their childbearing years) had never conceived a child. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, that percentage grew to 20 percent in 2005, and as of 2016, has dropped to 15 percent. As you can see here, the proportion of women between the ages of 40 and 44 who have never had children has increased over the last four decades. In 1976, approximately 1 in 10 women reached the age of 44 without having children. By 2014, that figure jumped to just shy of 1 in 7 women—a big change in a relatively short period of time. Women reaching their forties without children is a growing portion of our population, but they are not growing at the same rate among all groups of women. Indeed, middle- and upper-class women dominate the group of women who are older than 40 years old and do not have children. And increases in the proportion of women never married by the time they reach their 40th birthday has been shown to contribute to increases in childlessness among some groups The more education a woman has, the more likely she is to bear no children. The proportion of childless women with graduate or professional degrees is about 1 in 5; for those with less than a high school diploma, it's less than 1 in 10 (Livingston 2015). The longer women put off children, the more likely they are to opt out of having children altogether, perhaps because they become accustomed to a childfree lifestyle. White women are the most likely to be childless, at 17 percent; Hispanic women are the least likely to remain childless, at only 10 percent. For instance, the middle- and upper-class women likely to remain childfree into their 40s are also more likely to be white, have higher levels of education, and be privileged as a result of their class status. People have many reasons for remaining "childfree by choice," from concern about overpopulation to a desire to concentrate on their career to just not liking children or feeling they were not important to a happy marriage. In one study, women said they enjoyed the freedom and spontaneity in their lives, and some others gave financial considerations, worries about stress, relationships too fragile to withstand children, being housebound, and diminished career opportunities. Men were more likely to cite more economic considerations, including commitment to career and concern about the financial burden

Summarize what we know about inter- and intragenerational family violence

Intergenerational violence: refers to violence between generations, such as parents to children and children to parents. Sometimes, children use violence against their parents. Though, rates of child-to-parent violence decrease as the child ages; it is more often younger children who hit their parents. Injuries to parents are rare, but they do happen. And when parents react to a child's violence with violence, the child has learned a lesson that could last a lifetime. Intragenerational violence: refers to violence within the same generation—that is, sibling violence. Children who were repeatedly attacked were twice as likely to show symptoms of trauma, anxiety, and depression, including sleeplessness, crying spells, thoughts of suicide, and fear of the dark. Boys were slightly more likely to be victims than girls. They occurred most frequently on siblings ages 6-12 and gradually tapered off as the child entered adolescence. Child abuse: According to the Department of Health and Human Services, rates of victimization and the number of victims have been decreasing in the first decades of the twenty-first century. The United States has rates that are significantly higher than rates in other English-speaking countries such as Australia, Canada, and Great Britain, partly, but not entirely, because of the higher rates of child poverty in the United States (poverty is a significant risk factor). Rates of child abuse and child sexual abuse vary significantly by class but less by race or ethnicity. hey found that between 80 and 98 percent of children suffer physical punishment in their homes, with a third or more experiencing severe physical punishment resulting from the use of implements. Despite these global differences, it is equally true that Americans are far more accepting of violence against children than they may realize. More than half of all American parents believe that corporal punishment, including spanking, is acceptable; and one-third of parents have used corporal punishment against their adolescents. These numbers are significantly less than the 94 percent who supported the use of corporal punishment in 1968 and the two-thirds who used it with adolescents in 1975. Although the proportion of Americans who support corporal punishment as a form of discipline for children has declined over the past 30 years, the majority of Americans still agree or strongly agree with the statement: "that it is sometimes necessary to discipline a child with a good, hard spanking."

exogamy

Marriage among people who belong to meaningfully different social groups (race, religion, social class, etc.). Almost every human society enforces exogamy: Marriage to (or sex with) members of your family unit is forbidden

polygamy

Marriage between three or more people. (See polyandry and polygyny.)

monogamy

Marriage between two (and only two) people.

Explain why defining "the family" is so challenging and why sociologists rely on a broad and flexible definition.

Rather than coming up with some arbitrary definition of what families should be, sociologists study what families are—and in doing so, we recognize that what they are will shift. So, for instance, under the "blood or marriage" definition, gay and lesbian couples failed to legally qualify as "family members" in most states in the United States until the Obergefell v. Hodges, 2015 Supreme Court decision that the fundamental right to marry should be constitutionally guaranteed to same-sex couples as well. We do not use this example to suggest that those couples were not families before 2015 and that now they are. Rather, gay and lesbian couple families previously existed at an emotional level, and now are institutionalized at the legal level as well. Families also come with rights and obligations. So, families ensure the regular transfer of property and establish lines of succession.

Understand when and why the nuclear family emerged as well as why thinking of it as a "traditional" family form is historically inaccurate.

Marriage could also validate a gentleman's claim to nobility and establish that a boy had become a man. It could form a social tie between two families or bring peace to warring tribes. In the Middle Ages, European monarchs often required their children to marry the child of a monarch next door, on the theory that you are unlikely to go to war with the country that your son or daughter has married into. (It didn't work—by the seventeenth century, all of the European monarchs were second or third cousins, and they were virtually constantly invading each other). Marriage has also come to represent a distinctive emotional bond between two people. In fact, the idea that people should select their own marriage partner is actually a recent phenomenon. For thousands of years, parents selected partners to fulfill their own economic and political needs or those of the broader kinship group. Only about 200 years ago did men and women in Western countries begin to look at marriage as an individual affair, to be decided by the people involved rather than parents, church, and state. In the American colonies, single people were penalized if they remained single too long. Maryland imposed a tax on bachelors (Lauer and Lauer 2003). Even today, federal and state income tax laws offer substantial cuts for married people, in the hopes that single people will get the message and head for the altar. the nuclear family is a relatively recent phenomenon. It emerged in Europe and the United States late in the eighteenth century. Its emergence depended on certain factors, such as an economy capable of supporting a single breadwinner who could earn enough in the marketplace to support the family (the "family wage") and sufficient hygiene and health so that most babies would survive with only one adult taking care of them. Historians like Carl Degler (1980) trace the new nuclear family, as it emerged in the white middle class between 1776 and 1830, and Christopher Lasch (1975) suggests the theory of progressive nucleation to explain how it gradually superseded the extended family and became the norm. During the nineteenth century, industrialization and modernization meant that social and economic needs could no longer be met by kin. It became customary for children to move far from their parents to go to school or look for work. With no parents around, they had to be responsible for their own spouse selection; and, when they married, they would have to find their own home. Eventually adult children were expected to start their own households away from their parents, even if they were staying in the same town. When they had children of their own, they were solely responsible for the child rearing; the grandparents began to play smaller, less formal roles The nuclear family is also a more highly "gendered" family—roles and activities are allocated increasingly along gender lines. On the one hand, because the nuclear family was by definition much smaller than the extended family, the wife experienced greater autonomy. On the other hand, in her idealized role, she was increasingly restricted to the home, with her primary role envisioned as childcare and household maintenance. She became a "housewife." Because the home was seen as the "women's sphere," middle-class women's activities outside the home began to shrink. The husband became the "breadwinner," the only one in the family who was supposed to go to work and provide economic support for the household. (Of course, families of lesser means could not always survive on the salary of a single earner, so wives often continued to work outside the home.) As the attention of the household, and especially the mother, became increasingly centered on children, they were seen as needing more than food, clothing, education, and maybe a spanking now and then. They were no longer seen as "little savages," barbarians who needed civilizing, or corrupt sinners who would go to Hell unless they were baptized immediately. Instead, they were "little angels," pure and innocent, born "trailing clouds of glory" as they descended from heaven. Therefore, they had to be kept innocent of the more graphic aspects of life, like sex and death, and they needed love, nurturing, and constant care and attention. The number of children per family declined, both because they would no longer be providing economic support for the family and because each child now required a greater investment of time and emotional energy. In modern societies, children don't often work alongside their parents, and the family has become a unit of consumption rather than production; its economic security is tied to the workplace and the national economy. Instead, the major functions of the family are to provide lifelong psychological support and emotional security.

Summarize what we can learn from the facts that people are delaying marriage for longer periods of time.

Marriage is a relationship structured by age in virtually every society in which it exists. But just how young is too young is a question that differs by society. Early marriage—usually arranged by parents—is still the rule in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. One in three women alive today entered a marriage before the age of 15. Almost half of all child brides live in Southern Asia; 56 percent of young women in South Asia are married before the age of 18. In West and Central Africa, it's 46 percent; in Latin America and the Caribbean, 30 percent.More than half of all girls younger than 18 are married in some countries, including Bangladesh, Chad, India, and Nepal. The prevalence of child marriage is decreasing significantly around the world. Since 1970, the median age of first marriage has risen substantially worldwide—for men from 25.4 years to 27.2 and for women from 21.5 to 23.2. In the United States, young people are experiencing longer periods of independent living while working or attending school before marriage. In 1950, the median age of first marriage was slightly older than 20 for women, and just younger than 23 for men; in 2015, the median ages are 27.8 for women and older than 29.7 for men. Among 25-year-old women, the fastest-growing demographic status is single, working, childless, head of household. The United States still has one of the industrial world's lowest age at first marriage.

singletons

Modern term for people living alone, often by choice.

time study diaries

Research method that measures how people allocate their time during an average day by having subjects regularly record their activities in a diary, log, or other record.

cohabitation

Once called "shacking up" or "living in sin," now more often called just "living together," the sociological term for people who are in a romantic relationship but not married living in the same residence.

Understand what sociologists can learn from trends in solitary living and what these trends indicate about shifts in family life in the United States.

Not long ago, people who were "still not married" by their late 20s were considered deviant. Men were considered "big babies," who "refused to grow up" and "settle down." Women were "old maids," thought to be too unattractive or socially inept to attract a husband. But singlehood has become commonplace, if not exactly respectable. Just more than half of all Americans ages 25 and over are not married or cohabiting. This represents a historic milestone: More than half of all households in the United States do not have a couple living there. More than 60 percent of all unmarried Americans have never been married. And the trend differs for different groups. Among singles in the U.S., single women are better educated, have higher levels of employment and income, and have better mental health than single men. discovered that modern living is more conducive to living alone. The practice promotes things like self-discovery, individual control, and personal freedom—all hallmarks of modern life. As a result, people are less fearful of living alone than they once were. Though when we consider the identity of "singleton" intersectionally, we should also recognize that not every group is equally drawn to live alone or capable of living alone—and these differences tell us an important story of about inequality as well Among the young, men are more likely to live alone than women. But that changes when men and women get old, and much of this has to do with health disparities making it more likely that women will live longer than men. Unmarried people are, unsurprisingly, far more social than married couples. They eat in restaurants more often, and mingle with friends more regularly than do married people. We don't often think of marriage as isolating and as cutting off social networks and ties; in fact, this is more likely a popular stereotype of singlehood. But Klinenberg's findings suggest that being single is not what it used to be—at least in the places where being a "singleton" is currently in vogue.

Explain the role that marriage has played in societies in the past and how that role has changed in some contemporary societies.

One can imagine, for example, marriage as a relationship between two people who are, themselves, embedded in an extended family or a communal child-rearing arrangement. Sociologically, its universality suggests that marriage forms a stable, long-lasting, and secure foundation for the family's functions—child socialization, property transfer, legitimacy, sexual regulation—to be securely served. Marriage is also a legal arrangement, conferring various social, economic, and political benefits on the married couple; the state offers incentives to married couples. American men are more eager to marry than American women. From 1970 to the late 1990s, men's attitudes toward marriage became more favorable, while women's became less so. By the end of the century, more men than women said that marriage was their ideal lifestyle In America over the past century, the number of adults living alone increased by more than 20 percent, single parents and children by more than 20 percent, unmarried partners by well more than 60 percent, and unmarried partners with their children by nearly 90 percent. In several developing countries, marriage is also occurring later and bringing with it numerous positive social outcomes. In industrialized countries like the United States, the implications of the shift toward later marriage and less marriage are a source of extensive sociological research and social debate. Many heterosexual women in the United States and Europe change their names when they get married, taking their husband's name as their new last name. Although most family forms in the United States are examples of bilateral kinship, name sharing is an example of how we may symbolically uphold patrilineal ideals. Women with changed names were perceived as more caring, dependent, and emotional, but less intelligent, competent, and ambitious than women who kept their last names. A job applicant who took her husband's name was less likely to be hired and her salary lower, costing her more than $470,000 over her working life 66 percent of white women making more than $100,000 are married, whereas 45 percent of black women making more than $100,000 are married; and between 43 and 70 percent (depends on level of income) of white women making less than $20,000 are married, whereas between 23 and 34 percent of black women making less than $20,000 are married. It no longer necessarily signifies adulthood or conveys the responsibilities and commitment it once did—at least not for everyone. People are putting off marriage, living together in romantic relationship outside of marriage, or opting for singlehood in larger numbers. On the other hand, marriage has become more desirable than ever before, bringing together couples from varying backgrounds and repeat performers and inspiring many who've been excluded to fight for the right to marry. Some of these changes are temporary, like delayed marriage and, in most cases, cohabitation (which often leads to marriage). Others, like singlehood, have become more permanent and less transitory.

Explain both why cohabitation has become more common and what we can learn when we understand the groups among which it is the most and least common.

One reason some people are delaying marriage longer is that they are moving in together before marriage in larger numbers. Nearly 32 percent of young adults ages 18 to 34 were living with a partner as of 2014, either married or cohabitating Globally, cohabitation is most common in liberal countries—in Sweden, for instance, it is four times as prevalent as in the United States. That is largely because those countries provide universal health care and education to everyone. So, you don't need to get married to be covered by your spouse's health plan or to ensure your children can go to university. However, it is rare in more conservative countries and remains illegal in some. As cohabitation becomes more common, it may also begin to be a relationship form undertaken in more patterned ways—to be "institutionalized." In the 1980s, sociologists thought of cohabitation as a stage of courtship, somewhere between dating and marriage—some even referred to it as "trial marriage." Women cohabitors were found to be more likely to desire marriage than men, but about 25 percent did not expect to marry the man they were currently living with Reasons for cohabiting: For some, their living situation has nothing to do with marriage. More than one million elderly Americans cohabit, for example, for a significant financial reason (older people collecting Social Security will lose benefits if they marry). Part of this has to do with the fact that, until recently, gay and lesbian couples were not legally allowed to marry. On average, gay and lesbian cohabitors tended to be better educated and more affluent than their straight counterparts.But part of this may also have had to do with the fact that they are more likely to be older as well—age is correlated with education and income as well. In these ways, opposite-sex cohabitors are different from same-sex cohabitors. Heterosexual cohabiting couples are less likely to rely on a single income than are heterosexual married couples. Among married couples, more than one in five are relationships in which the husband earns at least $50,000 more than the wife. This income disparity is much less common in cohabiting households. And equal relationships come with more benefits for both partners (indeed, egalitarian couples are happier and healthier on most measures) Just over a decade ago, researchers found that cohabitation before marriage increased the risk of divorce (Teachman 2003). Today, researchers find the odds of divorce among women who married their only cohabiting partner are significantly lower than among women who never cohabited before marriage—but they are higher for those who cohabit with a romantic partner more than once. The risk seems to be a higher risk of divorce if one cohabits many times or does not cohabit at all.But whether that increased risk of divorce has something to do with the experience of cohabitors is less easy to identify. For instance, it could be—and many sociologists agree—that the type of person who is willing to cohabit will also be someone who is more likely to condone divorce. This means that it may have nothing to do with the experience of cohabitation at all.

corporal punishment

Punishment that is physical, often involving hitting someone. Today, roughly 80 percent of Republicans support corporal punishment of children, while only approximately 60 percent of Democrats do. Americans living in the South are the most supportive of corporal punishment while those living in the West and Northeast are the least supportive. For instance, black Americans are much more supportive of spanking children than are white Americans. But it is also the case that black people in the United States, as a group, have less income and education than do white people. And people with more education and more income are less supportive of spanking. So, whether the differences in opinion between black and white Americans concerning spanking are due to race, education, or class is more complex than it might at first appear.

polyandry

Rare form of polygamy in which one woman marries two or more men.

Understand how parents' time spent with their children has changed and what we know about gender differences in parenting abilities and practices.

Pretty much every single household has a domestic division of labor, the allocation of some tasks to some people, and other tasks to other people. Although the majority of women are now working outside the home, numerous studies (including time study diaries) have confirmed that domestic work remains "women's work." A survey of American secondary students revealed that 75 percent of girls but only 14 percent of boys who planned to have children thought that they would stop working for a while, and 28 percent of girls but 73 percent of boys expected their partner to stop working or cut down on work hours People are often shockingly wrong about how much time they dedicate to various tasks. In general, we tend to overestimate how much time it takes to do things we dislike and underestimate how much time we spend on tasks we enjoy. So, people ritualistically overestimate how much time they spend on laundry, cleaning bathrooms, working out and underestimate how much time they spend watching television, napping, eating, or doing any number of tasks that provide them with joy. This is why time diary studies came into being; they produce a more accurate picture of how people use their time. People record their actual time use throughout the day in a diary, marking starting and stopping points of various activities; its a more objective measure. Today's new fathers (those between 20 and 35 years old) do far more child care than their own fathers did and are willing to decline job opportunities if they include too much travel or overtime (Pleck and Masciadrelli 2004). The cultural meanings of fatherhood are on the move. As you might notice in the figure, fathers are, on average, working outside the home for pay for more hours a week than are women. But those hours have declined, and mothers paid work hours have increased. And although fathers do more hours of housework and mother do less today than they did in 1965, it's also true that less hours are dedicated to housework in general. And many of those hours are taken up by an increase in childcare among both fathers and mothers. Heterosexual couples with children today are more likely to need income from both mothers and fathers in the labor force. So, they have less time to spend at home than they did 50 years ago. So, it should surprise you to hear that both fathers and mothers are actually spending more time caring for their children today than they were in 1965. How? Housework is given much less time, on average, among heterosexual couples than it was 50 years ago. In 1965, mothers spent an average of 32 hours a week on housework (men spent 4). By 2011, mothers almost halved that work, spending an average of 18 hours a week (men's increased to 10). This means that married couples with children today are more pressed for time and are, on average, spending a lot more actual time caring for their children than their parents and grandparents did. ​ The big difference wasn't between the different sex parents (a mom and dad) and all the other families. The big difference was between those families with one parent or two. The children in two-parent families—regardless of whether that meant two moms, two dads, or one of each—had roughly equivalent outcomes on child's happiness, psychological adjustment, and school achievement. The findings, the two sociologists conclude, have "not identified any gender-exclusive parenting abilities"—women are not naturally better suited than men, and women and men don't have naturally different parenting competencies. What's more, when gender is a factor in parenting, it tends to favor women—that is, lesbian coparents tend to outperform heterosexual married parents on most measures of quality of parenting. They conclude that "no research supports the widely held belief that the gender of parents matters for child well-being." What children need is lots of love, support, and time—and that can come in many different arrangements and gendered packages. It's not the form of the family, as much as the content of its relationships.

nonmartial sex

Sex outside of marriage. this may be a better term than premarital sex because that terms makes it seem like you will marry this person (but hooking up exists)

incest taboo

Sigmund Freud identified the taboo that one should not have sex with one's own children as a foundation of all societies.

fictive kin

Similar to "urban tribes," the term refers to people with whom we form kinship ties and family networks even though they are not legally or biologically tied to us as kin.

companionate marriage

The (historically recent) idea that people should select their own marriage partner based on compatibility and mutual attraction, emotional ties and love.

marriage rate

The annual number of marriages in a given geographical area per 1,000 inhabitants.

families

The basic unit in society, these social groups are socially understood as either biologically, emotionally, and/or legally related.

family of origin

The family a child is born or adopted into, with biological parents or others who are responsible for his or her upbringing.

extended family

The family model in which two or three generations live together: grandparents, parents, unmarried uncles and aunts, married uncles and aunts, sisters, brothers, cousins, and all of their children.

family of procreation

The family one creates through marriage or cohabitation with a romantic partner, to which one chooses to belong.

endogamy

The strong tendency to marry within one's own social group (often with the same race, religion, class, educational background for instance). Marriage is also a primary mechanism of social reproduction (see Chapter 7). Sex, marriage, and family play a critical role in reproducing boundaries between groups because most people practice what sociologists call "endogamy" rather than "exogamy." So, marriage between people of the same race is more common than marriages between people of different races. We tend to marry people within our religious groups, with similar amounts of education, who grew up belonging to a similar social class, and more.

remarriage

The term sociologists use for people entering a new marriage after leaving at least one previous marriage by divorce.

Summarize some of what sociologists know about divorce in the United States in international perspective.

Through most of European and American history, marriage was a lifelong commitment. Period. Divorce and remarriage were impossible. Though couples could live separately and find legal loopholes to avoid inheritance laws, they could never marry anyone else. Today its a bit easier. If you know anything about divorce in the United States, you might know that we have a higher divorce rate than many other countries around the world. In the United States, the divorce rate rose steadily from the 1890s through the 1970s (with a dip in the Depression and a spike after World War II). During the past 30 years, it has fallen significantly, along with marriage rates overall. The annual national divorce rate is at its lowest since 1970, marriage is down 30 percent and the number of unmarried couples living together is up tenfold since 1960. These trends are led by the middle class. At the lower end of the scale, however, the picture is reversed, leading some sociologists to describe a "divorce divide" based on class and race Some people believe that the easy availability of divorce weakens our belief in the institution of marriage. On the other hand, sociologists often counter that divorce makes families stronger by allowing an escape from damaging environments and enabling both parents and children to adapt to new types of relationships. ​Aside from a huge spike in divorce immediately after World War II, divorce rates in the 1950s were higher than in any previous decade except the Depression. Almost one in three marriages formed in the 1950s eventually ended in divorce Who usually wants the divorce? On the average, men become more content with their marriages over time, while women become less content; the wife is usually the one who wants out They discovered that women initiate roughly about 7 out of every 10 divorces in the United States. But in dating relationships, men and women are equally likely to initiate a separation. So, it's not that women are more likely to leave relationships; rather, women are more likely to leave heterosexual marital relationships. First, divorce varies by income: Lower-income people have significantly higher divorce rates than wealthier people. But, religion also plays a role. The states with the lowest divorce rates have the highest percentages of Catholics and Jews and the lowest percentages of evangelical Protestants. Jews have very low divorce rates, and Catholics have a lower rate than Protestants because they are, technically, prohibited from getting a divorce. It's also true that the likelihood of divorce increases as the age of marriage decreases: The younger you are when you get married, the more likely is divorce. And high-divorce states have lower ages at first marriage—in part because they also are states that mandate abstinence-only sex education, which means they have the highest rates of teen pregnancy and therefore so-called "shotgun" marriages. Simply put, if you wanted to get divorced, you can increase your chances significantly by living in a Southern state, being poor, evangelical, taking an abstinence pledge, and getting married young.

bilateral

Tracing one's ancestry through both parents, rather than only the mother (see matrilineal) or only the father (see patrilineal).

patrilineal

Tracing one's ancestry through the father and paternal side of the family.

matrilineal

Tracing one's ancestry through the mother and maternal side of the family.

Intimate Partner Violence (IPV)

Violence between people who either are or were in a sexual or romantic relationship with one another. It is commonly called "domestic violence," but because some does not occur in the home, IPV is the preferred term.

child sexual abuse

the sexual exploitation of children.

Understand why sociologists are less sure that divorce produces negative outcomes for children than we might think.

In a large majority of divorces, women's standards of living decline, while men's go up. Those men who are used to being the primary breadwinner may suddenly find that they are supporting one (plus a small amount for child support) on a salary that used to support a whole family. Those women who are more accustomed to being in charge of the household, with a secondary, part-time, or even no job, may suddenly find that their income must stretch from being a helpful supplement to supplying most of the family's necessities. It is crucial to remember that the breadwinning husband with an income-supplementing or stay-at-home wife has rarely been an option for many minority families. Black women, for example, have a longer history of workforce participation than women of other races.Divorce plays an even bigger economic role for black households than for whites in the United States, partly because of this difference. Although family income for whites falls about 30 percent during the first 2 years of divorce, it falls by 53 percent for blacks Three or more years after divorce, white households recoup about one-third of the lost income, but the income of black families barely improves. This may have to do with the fact that when divorce occurs, the probability of black mothers working does not change, whereas recently divorced white women have an 18 percent greater probability of working Other scholars agree that, although parental divorce increases the risk of psychological distress and relationship problems in adulthood, the risks are not great That is to say, what's better for children is explained less well by whether the parents are married or divorced and better by the quality of the relationships the parents have with their children—and with each other.--> If they are able to act civil with each other

Psychologist Judith Wallerstein (2000) studied 131 children of 60 couples from affluent Marin County, California, who divorced in 1971. She followed these children through adolescence and into adulthood, when many married and became parents of their own. She found a sleeper effect: Years later, their parents' divorce is affecting the children's relationships.

Issue with this study is that that she based her findings on those children who were already having difficulties before their parents divorced and are seeing a therapist. She attributed their subsequent problems in relationships to their parents' divorce, when it is just as plausible that it was the conflict between the parents that led to both the divorce and the children's problems. Staying together might have been the worst imaginable outcome.

group marriage

Rare marriage arrangement in which two or more men marry two or more women, with children born to anyone in the union "belonging" to all of the partners equally. Group marriages appeared from time to time in the 1960s counterculture, but they rarely lasted long

Summarize gay and lesbian families' existence throughout history as well as how legal transformations have affected them in the United States and beyond.

Same-sex couples have been cohabiting for hundreds of years, although sometimes societal pressures forced them to pretend that they were not couples at all. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, for example, middle-class men often "hired" their working-class partners as valets or servants, so they could live together without question. Sometimes they pretended to be brothers or cousins. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it was so common for women to spend their lives together that there was a special name for their bonds, "Boston marriages." Though gay and lesbian couples have been socially, culturally, and legally prohibited from forming families, this does not mean they haven't been forming families Recent sociological research allows us to paint a portrait of the typical lesbian or gay couple, at least the ones who are open: They're urban. More than half of gay and lesbian couples live in just 20 U.S. cities, including gay meccas or "gayborhoods" like Los Angeles; San Francisco; Washington, D.C.; New York; and Atlanta. Though there is some evidence to suggest that gayborhoods are, more recently, in decline. They're well educated and make more money. They are less likely to have children. They tend to be more egalitarian. They are more likely to share decision making and allot housework more equally than married couples and have less conflict as a result They are not always interested in marriage. In states that did not allow gay and lesbian couples to marry, these couples lacked access to family hospital visitation rights, family inheritance, and more than 1,000 other rights that heterosexual couples enjoyed. Until 2015, gay and lesbian families were legally prohibited from forming marital family households. Part of the reason that the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples could now legally marry in 2015 is because of you. When we write "you" here, we don't necessarily mean you personally—but "you" collectively. People's opinions about same-sex marriage have been on the move in recent history.Opposition to same-sex marriage has been steadily declining. In 2011, the lines crossed for the first time in history and more Americans support legal same-sex marriage than oppose it. The Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) granting same-sex couples the right to marry followed public opinion trends as well. When we examine how age intersects with people's opinions about same-sex marriage, opponents are significantly older than supporters. Same-sex marriage is now legal in the United States.

Summarize the external forces that affected the emergence of families as well as how they have changed over time

Similarly, every family throughout human history was not a nuclear family unit, a residential arrangement of only two generations, the parents and their children. Indeed, the nuclear family emerged only recently, within the past few thousand years, and still doesn't apply universally across race, class and cultural lines. For most of human existence, our family forms have been quite varied and significantly larger, including several generations and all the siblings all living together. Exhibits in the museum like those (male in the front dominant and wife in back cooking and taking care of kids) described here are not historically accurate reflections of human (or animal) history. Rather, they are better understood as normative efforts to make the contemporary nuclear family appear to have been eternal and universal, to read it back into history and across species—in a sense, to rewrite history so that the family didn't have a history but instead to pretend it had always been the way it is. Nothing could be further from the truth. Families have developed and changed enormously over the course of human history. Families evolved to socialize children, transmit property, ensure legitimacy, and regulate sexuality. They also evolved as economic units. Because children went to work alongside the adults for much of human history, they contributed to the economic prosperity of the family; in fact, the family became a unit of economic production. Property and other possessions were passed down from the adults of the family to the children. Occupation, religion, language, social standing, and wealth were all dependent on kinship ties.

nuclear family

The presumed model of the modern American family structure consisting of a breadwinning husband, homemaker wife, their children, and no extended family members.

domestic division of labor

The ways couples divide up all of the chores and obligations necessary to run a household.

Understand what it means that Americans are more open to racial intermarriage as an ideal than a practice.

Through most of the history of the United States, marriage or sexual relations between men and women of different races were illegal. Not until the Supreme Court's Loving v. State of Virginia decision in 1967 were men and women of different races legally permitted to marry in all U.S. states. There were serious fines, penalties, and prison sentences for not only individuals participating in an interracial marriage, but often, also for those officiating such marriages interracial marriage (one form of "exogamy") is evolving from virtually nonexistent to merely atypical: while only 6.3 percent of married heterosexual couples are interracial, 12.5 percent of unmarried heterosexual couples and 13.3 percent of unmarried same-sex couples are interracial. Today, 4.3 percent of the population of the United States claims ancestry in two or more races, and between 1980 and 2013 the share of U.S. couples with spouses of different races increased from 1.6 percent to 6.3 percent Moreover, nearly two-thirds of Americans (63%) say it "would be fine" with them if a member of their own family were to marry someone outside their own racial or ethnic group (Wang 2012). And 2 years later 37 percent of Americans said that "having more people of different races marrying each other was a good thing for society" (Wang 2015). Blacks are twice as likely as whites to have an immediate family member in an interracial marriage, and Latinos and Hispanics fall in the middle of those two groups. The most common interracial couple in the United States is a white husband married to an Asian wife (14 percent of all interracial couples). although almost half of all Americans think that allowing interracial marriage will make the world a better place, rates of interracial marriage and dating among heterosexual couples in the United States are much lower. What all of these trends illustrate is that while Americans' openness to interracial relationships has been increasing, particularly in relatively recent history, their participation in interracial relationships has not increased at the same rate. More Americans are in interracial relationships than ever before. But, given the level of racial and ethnic diversity in the United States, Americans still tend to marry people of their own racial background.And although Americans do express openness to interracial relationships, many interracial couples still face societal disapproval, sometimes even from family and friends.