Sociology 1301 Final Chapter 14:1

family life cycle chart

1 Marriage Family Childless 2 Procreation Family Children ages 0 to 2.5 3 Preschooler Family Children ages 2.5 to 6 4 School-age Family Children ages 6-13 5 Teenage Family Children ages 13-20 6 Launching Family Children begin to leave home 7 Empty Nest Family "Empty nest"; adult children have left home

In a 2010 survey conducted by professors at the University of Indiana

1. (99.8 percent) agreed that a husband, wife, and children constitute a family. 2.(92 percent) stated that a husband and a wife without children still constitute a family. 3. (83 percent), unmarried couples without children 4.(39.6 percent), gay male couples with children 5. (64 percent), 6. and gay male couples without children (33 percent)

kinship,

1. One's traceable ancestry, can be based on blood or marriage or adoption. 2. Sixty percent of societies, mostly modernized nations, follow a bilateral descent pattern.

The family life cycle

1. used to explain the different processes that occur in families over time. 2. Sociologists view each stage as having its own structure with different challenges, achievements, and accomplishments that transition the family from one stage to the next. For example,

matrilocal residence systems,

1. where it is customary for the husband to live with his wife's blood relatives (or her family of orientation), 2. the husband can feel disconnected and can be labeled as an outsider.

practicing cultural relativism variations

1. whether a legal union is required (think of "common law" marriage and its equivalents), 2. whether more than two people can be involved (consider polygamy). 3. whether spouses are of opposite sexes or the same sex and how one of the traditional expectations of marriage (to produce children)

ambilineal

1. which follows either the father's only or the mother's side only, depending on the situation. 2. most common in Southeast Asian countries, 3. parents may choose to associate their children with the kinship of either the mother or the father. 3. This choice maybe based on the desire to follow stronger or more prestigious kinship lines or on cultural customs such as men following their father's side and women following their mother's side (Lambert 2009).

patrilineal

1. which follows the father's line only 2. in rural China and India, only males carry on the family surname. This gives males the prestige of permanent family membership while females are seen as only temporary members (Harrell 2001). 3. U.S. society assumes some aspects of partrilineal decent. For instance, most children assume their father's last name even if the mother retains her birth name.

matrilineal

1. which follows the mother's side only 2. inheritance and family ties are traced to women. 3. is common in Native American societies, notably the Crow and Cherokee tribes. 4. children are seen as belonging to the women and, therefore, one's kinship is traced to one's mother, grandmother, great grandmother, and so on (Mails 1996).

The reasons polygamous societies

1.issues of population growth, 2. religious ideologies, 3. and social status.

bigamy

The act of entering into marriage while still married to another person

Bilateral descent.

The pattern of tracing kinship-Both paternal and maternal ancestors are considered part of one's family.

The Minangkabau people

a matrilocal society that is indigenous to the highlands of West Sumatra in Indonesia, believe that home is the place of women and they give men little power in issues relating to the home or family (Joseph and Najmabadi 2003).

family of procreation

describes one that is formed through marriage.

sociological paradigms theory

families are groups in which people come together to form a strong primary group connection and maintain emotional ties to one another over a long period of time.

interactionism

helps us understand the subjective experience of belonging to a "family,"

functionalism

illuminates the many purposes of families and their roles in the maintenance of a balanced society (Parsons and Bales 1956).

patrilocal residence system

it is customary for the wife to live with (or near) her husband's blood relatives (or family or orientation). Patrilocal systems can be traced back thousands of years.

family of orientation

refers to the family into which a person is born

very few societies

that use matrilocal and matrilineal systems are matriarchal, as family life is often considered an important part of the culture for women, regardless of their power relative to men.

Most societies

that use patrilocal and patrilineal systems are patriarchal,

two sociological paradigms

the sociological understanding of what constitutes a family can be explained by symbolic interactionism as well as functionalism.

Unilateral descent

the tracing of kinship through one parent only) is practiced in the other 40 percent of the world's societies, with high concentration in pastoral cultures (O'Neal 2006).

polyandry

when a woman is married to more than one man at the same time

cohabitation

(when a couple shares a residence but not a marriage)

This survey revealed

1. that children tend to be the key indicator in establishing "family" status: the percentage of individuals who agreed that unmarried couples and gay couples constitute a family nearly doubled when children were added. 2. Also, 60 percent of U.S. respondents agreed that if you consider yourself a family, you are a family (a concept that reinforces an interactionist perspective).

Challenges Families Face

1. People in the United States as a whole are somewhat divided when it comes to determining what does and what does not constitute a family. The government, however, is not so flexible in its definition of "family." The U.S. Census Bureau defines a family as "a group of two people or more (one of whom is the householder) related by birth, marriage, or adoption and residing together" (U.S. Census Bureau 2010). While this structured definition can be used as a means to consistently track family-related patterns over several years, it excludes individuals such as cohabitating unmarried heterosexual and homosexual couples. Legality aside, sociologists would argue that the general concept of family is more diverse and less structured than in years past. Society has given more leeway to the design of a family making room for what works for its members (Jayson 2010). Family is, indeed, a subjective concept, but it is a fairly objective fact that family (whatever one's concept of it may be) is very important to people in the United States. In a 2010 survey by Pew Research Center in Washington, DC, 76 percent of adults surveyed stated that family is "the most important" element of their life—just one percent said it was "not important" (Pew Research Center 2010). It is also very important to society. President Ronald Regan notably stated, "The family has always been the cornerstone of American society. Our families nurture, preserve, and pass on to each succeeding generation the values we share and cherish, values that are the foundation of our freedoms" (Lee 2009). While the design of the family may have changed in recent years, the fundamentals of emotional closeness and support are still present. Most responders to the Pew survey stated that their family today is at least as close (45 percent) or closer (40 percent) than the family with which they grew up (Pew Research Center 2010). Alongside the debate surrounding what constitutes a family is the question of what people in the United States believe constitutes a marriage. Many religious and social conservatives believe that marriage can only exist between a man and a woman, citing religious scripture and the basics of human reproduction as support. Social liberals and progressives, on the other hand, believe that marriage can exist between two consenting adults—be they a man and a woman, or a woman and a woman—and that it would be discriminatory to deny such a couple the civil, social, and economic benefits of marriage.

the family life course

1. Recognizes the events that occur in the lives of families but views them as parting terms of a fluid course rather than in consecutive stages (Strong and DeVault 1992). 2. accounts for changes in family development, such as the fact that in today's society, childbearing does not always occur with marriage. 3. It also sheds light on other shifts in the way family life is practiced. Society's modern understanding of family rejects rigid "stage" theories and is more accepting of new, fluid models.

Summary

1. Sociologists view marriage and families as societal institutions that help create the basic unit of social structure. 2. Both marriage and a family may be defined differently—and practiced differently—in cultures across the world. Families and marriages, like other institutions, adapt to social change.

the functionalist perspective

1. Views families as groups that perform vital roles for society—both internally (for the family itself) and externally (for society as a whole).

acceptance of polygyny,

1. While the majority of societies accept polygyny, the majority of people do not practice it. 2. Often fewer than 10 percent (and no more than 25-35 percent) of men in polygamous cultures have more than one wife; 3. these husbands are often older, wealthy, high-status men

U.S. Muslims,

1. are an emerging group with an estimated 20,000 practicing polygamy. 2. polygamy among U.S. Muslims is uncommon and occurs only in approximately 1 percent of the population (Useem 2007). 3. has gone fairly unnoticed by mainstream society,

marriage

1. as a legally recognized social contract between two people, 2. traditionally based on a sexual relationship and implying a permanence of the union.

the problems and challenges that a family experiences in Stage 1

1. as a married couple with no children are likely much different than those experienced in Stage 5 as a married couple with teenagers. 2. The success of a family can be measured by how well they adapt to these challenges and transition into each stage. 3. While sociologists use the family life cycle to study the dynamics of family overtime, consumer and marketing researchers have used it to determine what goods and services families need as they progress through each stage (Murphy and Staples 1979).

what is a family

1. as a socially recognized group (usually joined by blood, marriage, cohabitation, or adoption) that forms an emotional connection and serves as an economic unit of society.

polygamy

1. being married to more than one person at a time 2. with most polygamous societies existing in northern Africa and east Asia 3. Instances of polygamy are almost exclusively in the form of polygyny.

Families provide

1. for one another's physical, emotional, and social well-being 2. Parents care for and socialize children. Later in life, adult children often care for elderly parents. 3.

The average plural marriage

1. involves no more than three wives. 2. Negev Bedouin men in Israel, for example, typically have two wives, although it is acceptable to have up to four (Griver 2008). 3. As urbanization increases in these cultures, polygamy is likely to decrease as a result of greater access to mass media, technology, and education (Altman and Ginat 1996).

Polygamy In the United States

1. is considered by most to be socially unacceptable and it is illegal. 2. often associated with those of the Mormon faith, although in 1890 the Mormon Church officially renounced polygamy.

Patrilocal residence

1. is thought to be disadvantageous to women because it makes them outsiders in the home and community; 2. it also keeps them disconnected from their own blood relatives. 3. In China, where patrilocal and patrilineal customs are common, the written symbols for maternal grandmother (wáipá) are separately translated to mean "outsider" and "women" (Cohen 2011).

Marriage and family

1. key structures in most societies 2. their connection is becoming more complex. 3. create status roles that are sanctioned by society. 4. marriages are what create a family

types of unilateral descent

1. patrilineal, 2. matrilineal, 3. ambilineal,

Polygyny

1. refers to a man being married to more than one woman at the same time.

Fundamentalist Mormons,

1. such as those in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) holds tightly to the historic Mormon beliefs and practices and allow polygamy in their sect. 2. It is estimated that there are about 37,500 fundamentalist Mormons involved in polygamy in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, but that number has shown a steady decrease in the last 100 years (Useem 2007).