Sociology of Families Exam 1 Study Guide (Bert Montogomery)

Patrillineal

A family system where wealth and power are transmitted from FATHERS TO THEIR SONS. - Many American families have a paterilineal affiliation. - American wives and children usually takes their surnames from the male side of the family as a result.

Materillineal

A family system where wealth and power are transmitted from MOTHERS TO DAUGHTERS. - Many Native Americans had matrillineal traditions. - Family systems can also be organized according to different types of residence patterns. - The type of family system contributes to a newly married couples place of residence. - Young couples often live in or near the family home of a parent.

Legal Family

A group of individuals related by BIRTH, MARRIAGE, or ADOPTION. 1. No Universal legal definitions, but legal implications vary. 2. Carries with many rights and responsibilities overseen by the government. 3. Implications for the distribution of resources 4. State-imposed legal definitions (state refers to gov't at all levels) 5. This definition seems straight forward, but its meaning may be contested. 6. In fact, all of the words in definition can be contested 7. Most contested word is marriage 8. Same-sex marriage is an especially controversial contemporary topic.

Coverture

A legal doctrine that lasted until the late nineteenth century, under which WIVES were INCORPORATED into their HUSBANDS CITIZENSHIP.

Matrilocal

A living arrangement in which a young married couple lives in or near the WIFE'S FAMILY home.

Patrilocal

A living arrangement in which a young married couple lives with or near the HUSBAND'S FAMILY HOME. - In china, it is still common for the woman to move into her husband's household

Polygamy

A marriage in which one person have SEVERAL SPOUSES "at the same time" 1. Was the most prevalent form of marriage throughout human history. 2. Less common today 3. This unequal practice reflects a power differential between men and women throughout history.

Extended Family

Multiple generations living together in one house or in VERY CLOSE PROXIMITY and are functionally dependent upon one another.

Family wage

The amount necessary for a MALE EARNER to provide SUBSISTENCE for his wife and children WITHOUT their having to work for pay.

Market

The institutional arena where LABOR FOR PAY, ECONOMIC EXCHANGE and WEALTH ACCUMULATION take place. 1. Decisions made in this arena directly affect family life, family relationships, and future family decisions 2. Work or stay home? 3. Jobs with health care benefits? 4. Day care costs? 5. Division of time and labor at home? 6. How many children to have? 7. Divorce?

Courtship

The mate selection process in which couples begin in a relationship with SUPERVISED CONTACT in public, then proceed to additional dates in the women's home and then, if the parents approve, to marriage.

Genealogy

The study of Ancestry and family history. 1. SEARCHING for family Links and Connections, both genetic and symbolic. 2. Family connections can be very important, even when the genetic link is small or ABSENT. 3. Even SYMBOLIC connections can become important. - Robot dogs - Virtual apps, Ex: Tom Hanks cast away "wilson" - Dogs as members of the household, etc. Ex. Marley and me

Patriarchy

The system of MEN'S CONTROL OVER PROPERTY and FATHER'S AUTHORITY over all family members.

Since the nineteenth century, what has happened with children?

They lost economic value and gained emotional value.

The family wage refers to the

Wage necessary for a male earner to provide for his wife and children

New Ideals, New Traditions

- The changes to the family at this time created a new family structure consisting of husband as breadwinner and the wife as homemaker. - This is the family we now think as "traditional" - The ideal of the man as breadwinner became a power symbol in American culture. - Men and women began to think of themselves as individuals with personal freedoms and rights - Political democracy encouraged the idea of individual free choice in marriage. - Conservative backlash feared women's growing freedoms threatened the (traditional) family. - As a compromise, male authority began to be replaced by the ideology of men as "protectors" - Women's roles -- to love, care for, and nurture their husbands. - These emerging gender roles came to be known as the SEPARATE SPHERES: 1. The cultural doctrine under which women were to work at home, to make it a sanctuary from the industrial world in which their husbands worked for pay. 2. The political and economic functions of marriage began to erode. 3. Companionship, love, and affection started to become an important consideration for marriage.

According to the internationalist approach gender difference within families exist primarily because of

Everyday behavior that reinforces gender distinctions

Institutional Arenas "STATE"

Family and state: "MONOGAMOUS MORALITY" 1. The family household became increasingly seen as a PRIVATE PLACE. 2. Caring for FAMILY MEMBERS and RAISING CHILDREN replaced the production of goods and services within the home. 3. State and FEDERAL REGULATIONS of the families increased. 4. STATE RULES for marriage were ESTABLISHED. 5. Rules for marriage included MONOGAMY 6. A moral standard also required a WIFE TO BE FAITHFUL to her husband and for the husband to provide for his wife and children. 7. Moral standard reinforced by the state (THE COMSTOCK ACT OF 1873, THE DAWES ACT OF 1887, etc) 8. STATE-ENFORCED monogamy.

We can argue that elevating marriage to the status of a true love relationship, instead of a relationship based on tradition and economic necessity, might contribute to a(n) ___________ acceptance of divorce.

Increased

What contributed to the decline of courtship in the process of mate selection?

Increasing freedom for young adults

Polygyny

One MAN having more than one wife (most common)

Polyandry

One WOMAN having more than one husband.

According to your textbook, the consensus perspective takes which view?

Order is the core of social life.

Census categories have ______, so we can argue _____.

Changed, ideas about what constitutes a family have evolved.

In colonial America, Christian doctrine supported the legal concept of coverture, and wives ______.

Did not have a legal existence, but were incorporated into their husbands' citizenship.

Archaeological findings in central Europe indicate what insight about families.

Diverse family arrangements not only the nuclear family, were recognized by the villagers.

According to your syllabus, which of the following statements is not true?

Sociology courses tend to reinforce everything you already know and believe.

What are the two dominant institutional arenas that "the family" interacts with?

State and market

When children are neglected or abused by their parents the institutional arena of the ____ intervenes in the institutional arena of the _____.

State; family

In Europe prior to the formation of the United States, what we was the principal role of marriage?

System of property and labor cooperation

Family Arena

The institutional arena where people practice INTIMACY, CHILDBEARING, and SOCIALIZATION, and CARING WORK. 1. Not everyone fits into family roles exactly as they may be defined. 2. Conformity and nonconformity serve to reinforce the rules of this arena.

State

The institutional arena where, through political means, BEHAVIOR IS LEGALLY REGULATED, violence is controlled, and resources are redistributed. 1. The regulation of behaviors is established through laws and policies. 2. Enforced with use of threats, punishments 3. Regulates families (marriage licenses, divorce petitions, etc). 4. Redistribution resources according to family relations.

Monogamy

The marriage of one person to one other person "at a time" 1. Monogamy occurs in a few species of mammals but is more common in primates 2. Some people speculate that monogamy is "natural" for human mammals because of this. 3. But different forms of marriage and mating arrangements exist and have often been practiced.

Dating

The mate selection process in YOUNG ADULTS spend time with a VARIETY OF PARTNERS before making a LONG-TERM commitment.

Personal Family

The people to whom we FEEL RELATED and whom we EXPECT TO DEFINE us as members as their family as well. 1. Individual, group feeling and identification 2. Adopted children 3. Stepchildren/ step-parents (blended family) 4. Even though we think our family choices are deeply personal, they reflect the interaction of our own decisions within the context of social-cultural, political, legal, economic, perhaps religious

Mr. Montgomery will allow you to use your smartphones, tablets, and laptops in class, even if you play games or other things, as long as you do not disturb others.

This statement is absolutely, positively, FALSE.

Origins of the American Family

Two historical periods before the emergence of the modern family 1. The colonial period, before 1820, and 2. The early modern period of the nineteenth century American history is primarily the story of three interrelated groups: 1. Native American (American Indians) 2. White Europeans, and 3. African Americans

Which of the following is not true regarding attendance in this course?

You may wait until the end of the semester to present all excuse notes for any absences throughout the semester.

Today's cities are changing to meet increases in the number of ______ and ______ living in urban environments.

Young single women; older adults

Mr. Montgomery's office hours are:

on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, or by appointment

From 1638 to the end of the transatlantic slave trade in 1807, the marriages of enslaved Africans were not legall recognized and children were the property of slave owners. In this context _____

Most slaves married and most children lived with both parents

Companionship family

An ideal type of family characterized by the MUTUAL AFFECTION, EQUALITY, and COMRADESHIP of its members

People have fewer children.

1. A "typical" white women in 1800 bore about seven children during her lifetime. 2. This number has fallen to less than two

Institutional Arenas "MARKET": Separate Spheres

1. AS men more often worked outside the home in an INCREASINGLY ALIENATING INDUSTRIAL world, women were expected to provide a safe haven for men. 2. This new doctrine was viewed as necessary to providing BALANCE and SOCIAL HARMONY in modern, industrial society. 3. This family arrangement was embraced especially by WHITE-COLLAR MIDDLE CLASS RESIDENTS of urban areas. 4. Important exceptions to the separate spheres doctrine included young unmarried women hired to work in the TEXTILE MILE OF NEW ENGLAND and farm families. 5. INDUSTRIALISM and separate spheres shifted the power from the home to the workplace and increased economic INEQUALITY between husbands and wives. 6. Created a DEPENDENCY of WIVES on their husbands. 7. STRENGTHENED HUSBAND'S AUTHORITY.

The Modern family (1900-1960s): Companionship Family

1. By the mid-twentieth century, the goal of the nuclear family was MORE ATTAINABLE. 2. Those who achieved the goal attempted a new ideal type of marriage based on FRIENDSHIP, COMPANIONSHIP, and ROMANCE. 3. The COMPANIONSHIP FAMILY was the ideal in the 1950s. m 4. The companionship family was an ideal at the time when marriage was UNDERGOING A CULTURAL SHIFT from an economic institution to an institution for personal companionship. 5. This was an ideal especially for WHITE MIDDLE CLASS FAMILIES.

Colonial period (before 1820): Children and Family

1. Colonial American families were large 2. The average woman bore seven children 3. High infant mortality rate 4. Children contributed to the economy and survival of the family. 5. The idea if childhood as a uniquely innocent stage of life was NOT common. 6. Children's evil impulses needed to be controlled through discipline and work. 7. Parents (even wealthy ones) did not spend much time with their children. 8. Family bonds were less sentimental than they are now.

Families have become more diverse in recent decades.

1. Decline of the two-parent nuclear family 2. Rise of single-parent families, married couples, non family group situations, and people living alone.

The Modern Family (1900-1960s): Family Wage

1. Economic opportunities made the Companionship family and the Companionate marriage a POSSIBILITY. 2. It was becoming an INCREASING POSSIBILITY for an employed man to support a homemaking wife in their own home. 3. As American industry grew, more COMPANIES STARTED PAYING WORKERS ENOUGH. 4. This wage was thought to PROMOTE WORKFORCE STABILITY, home ownership, worker loyalty, and consumption in the market place. 5. The federal government also started providing economic INCENTIVES FOR MARRIAGE. 6. All of these factors and cultural shifts increased the motivation and the ability for young people to marry.

Three institutional arenas of family

1. Family arena 2. State; Organization of political power 3. Market

Colonial period: African Americans

1. Forcible removal of Africans from the first arrival of slaves in Jamestown in 1619 until the mid-1800s. 2. Disruption of many different cultural groups with many different languages, traditions, and kinship networks. 3. Difficult to determine how much slave family life was reflection of African heritage and how much was adaptation to American conditions and treatment. 4. Keeping a family together was difficult. 5. Recognition of family lineages difficult because of lack of family names. 6. But most slaves lived in families for some or all of their lives. 7. Most slaves married (not always legally) and most children lived with both parents. 8. On large plantations, larger groups of slaves could create protection through communities and family life. 9. However, most African Americans were excluded from emerging modern family practices until after the end of the slave system.

The Modern Family (1900-1960s)

1. In 19th century, the ideal of the nuclear family emerged because of a number of forces. 2. These included the ideal of separate spheres, men working for wages outside of the home, and STATE ENFORCED MONOGAMOUS MARRIAGE. 3. Many families could not live up to this ideal 4. Most MEN did NOT make enough to provide for a HOMEMAKER WIFE and children and to purchase the type of home that afforded privacy.

Most people today live much longer than in the past.

1. In the middle ages, the average life span was about 30 years. 2. In 1850, this had only increased to about 40. 3. In 1850, one in five children died before reaching age 5. 4. Today, three out of four Americans live to age 75. 5. Increased longevity is a result of better sanitation, nutrition, and medical care and improvements in the standard of living.

Emerging Modern Family (1820-1900): Institutional Arenas

1. In the nineteenth century, the MARKET and the STATE emerged as dominant features of modern society. 2. This TRANSFORMED the FAMILY ARENA. 3. The family lost its place as the center of the economy and began to become more regulated by the state. 4. The state started providing services that had once been provided within the family.

New Family Diversity (1960s-Present)

1. Many changes to the family after the 1950s 2. Two institutional factors changed the family: MARKET FORCES and STATE FORCES 3. MARKET FORCES int he twentieth century allowed WOMEN TO WORK OUTSIDE HOME in greater numbers than ever before, just as market forces in the nineteenth century had done for men. 4. For the first time in history, the MAJORITY OF WOMEN'S WORK was done as part of the PAID LABOR FORCE. 5. Marriage became LESS OF A NECESSITY. 6. By the end of the twentieth century, Americans spent less of their time in marriage than at any other point in history. 7. Marriage becoming MORE EMOTIONAL and LESS ESSENTIAL. 8. Changing relationship between parents and children 9. Parents having FEW CHILDREN 10. Interactions between parents and children MORE EMOTIONAL AND INTENSE. 11. The period of parenting is also becoming longer, with young adulthood being extended by MORE YEARS OF EDUCATION.

Four Historical Trends

1. Most people today live much longer than in the past. 2. People have fewer children 3. Family members perform fewer functional tasks at home 4. Families have become more diverse in recent decades.

Colonial period (before 1820): Native Americans

1. Precolonial traditions of the many and varied indigenous American tribal groups are difficult to generalize 2. In many (but not all) there was a strong respect for elders and a reliance on family networks. 3. Common (but not universal) characteristics that differentiated indigenous Americans from Europeans included matrillineal descent more gender equality, and higher rates of divorce. 4. A common trait shared with europeans included monogamous marriage. "SO CHOSEN, HE IS HER LORD" 5. Colonial American brought many traditions from Europe. 6. Marriage was a necessary, practical arrangement, not a source of love or affection 7. Marriage was viewed as a stabilizing influence on men and important maintain civility and social structure. 8. Even though "mail order brides" were common, the ideas of free will and choice were becoming increasingly important in marriage arrangements. 9. Protestant doctrine, reinforced by the government, gave husbands authority over their wives. 10. A system of marriage supported by the christian (protestant) church 11. Gave power to local community leaders, who imposed their interpretation of christian doctrine on marriage and divorce. 12. Women could not vote, hold political office, serve on juries, or have a legal existence separate from their husbands. 13. Women bound to comply with the marriage system 14. Women's survival depended on conformity

Defining Families

1. The personal family 2. The legal family 3. The family as an institutional arena - Each definition useful for different circumstances - Combined, each type of definition makes up the sociological approach to families. - Looking at the same phenomenon (the family( from different angles and approaches.

The Modern family (1900-1960S): Dating

1. The promise of companionate marriage contributed to the BREAKDOWN OF COURTSHIP SYSTEM. 2. COURTSHIP was replaced by UNSUPERVISED INTERACTION, especially in urban areas. 3. Young adults began spending time with a variety of partners before making a MARRIAGE CHOICE. 4. Dating further eroded

Emerging Modern family (1820-1900): Fewer children, more tender families

1. There was a decline in the number of children for each family in the NINETEENTH CENTURY even as the infant mortality rate was decreasing 2. Fewer children per family and the increasing SURVIVAL RATE for children changed child-rearing practices. 3. Children's individuality emerged as a VALUED IDEAL and emotional bonds between parents and children strengthened. 4. A more tender from of parenting developed as men increasingly worked outside the home and women stayed home to take care of children. 5. Children began to be seen as INNOCENT and REQUIRING NURTURING. 6. Harsh discipline began to be replaced with reason and persuasion.

Emerging Modern Family (1820-1900)

1. This time period represents the second phase of the transition to the modern family. 2. The spread of democracy and industrial capitalism and the growth of the market contributed to the decline of patriarchal power and authority in the colonial family.

Family members perform fewer functional tasks at home.

1. Work, both formal and informal, has shifted from the public sphere to the private sphere. 2. The household is increasingly becoming more of a site of consumption rather than one of production. - For example, tasks such as clothing production and education have moved out the home into the public arena.

Emerging Modern Family (1820-1900): Courtship

1. Youth began to consider LOVE and AFFECTION when seeking a spouse. 2. The practice of courtship emerged as a compromise between parents and young couples conflicting ideas concerning the selection MARRIAGE PARTNERS. 3. Young couples initiated courtship, which involved supervised contact in public. 4. The system offered some elements of FREE CHOICE but also included parental authority and approval.

Nuclear family

A married, monogamous couple living with their own (USUALLY BIOLOGICAL) children and NO EXTENDED family members. - The nuclear family is functionally independent of extended family member 1. This seems to be the modern ideal of the family, which many Americans adhere to. 2. Associated with families of the 1950s and 1960s, when nuclear families moved into single detached (suburban) homes. 3. Reinforced the image of the family as independent.

Family as Institutional Arena

A social space in which relations between people in COMMON POSITIONS are governed by accepted RULES OF INTERACTION. 1. Sociological definition focuses on the family as " the space where family matters take place" 2. This not a PHYSICAL space with physical boundaries, but rather a social place where interactions occur. 3. Rules may be different from one place to another and may be informal. 4. Rules in this arena evolve over time.

Matriarchy

A system where POWER IS WIELDED by WOMEN the family.

Companionate Marriage

A view of marriage as a COMPANIONSHIP, A FRIENDSHIP, and A ROMANCE, rather than as a PRACTICAL PLATFORM for cooperation and survival.

Alisha and Greg both work full time outside the home. As a woman, Alisha earns less than Greg and is responsible for a greater share of the housework and childcare in order to "make up" the difference. ________ might argue this arrangement is rational and mutually beneficial.

Exchange Theorists

Which theory sees people as individuals entering into mutual relationships in order to maximize their own gains?

Exchange theory

Families

Groups of Related people, bound by Connections that are Biological. 1. Definitions of the family are varied and COMPLEX. 2. There is NO AGREEMENT on one, single definition of the family. 3. Different CRITERIA used for different reasons and occasions (biological, legal, emotional, etc.) 4. Families DO NO NECESSARILY have to be biological. 5. The label family usually includes expectations of CARE or COMMITMENT. 6. Families can vary in SIZE, from large extended compounds to single individuals.

Serial Monogamy

Having a SERIES OF MONOGAMOUS marriages

According to your syllabus, when should you present documentation to have an absence excused?

Immediately upon returning to class, but no more than two class periods after returning.

During the 1960s and after ______ increased the indepence of middle-class and more educated women while______ increased the independence of poor women.

Market forces, state forces

In the American legal tradition, the definition of "family" is based on

Marriage and biology

According to conflict theories, who benefits from family structures where women stay home and men work for pay?

Men and employers

Rosa thinks of her mother's best friend, Maria, as her aunt and Maria treats Rosa as her niece. According to your textbook, Rosa and Maria could be labeled a

Personal family