SOC 101: Chapter 12 Family

Symbolic interactionists

Looks at the types of social dynamics and interactions that create and sustain families, emphasizing the ways that our experiences of family bonds are socially created rather than naturally existing.

sandwich generation

meet the demands of simultaneously caring for elderly parents and adult children

Domestic violence

physical, verbal, financial, sexual, or psychological behaviors abusers use to gain and maintain power over their victime, is most common form of family violence (children, elderly)

Homogamy

we tend to choose mates who are similar to use in class, race, ethnicity, age, religion, education, and even levels of attractiveness

What does legal definition of 'family' determine? What does it give you?

• Hospital visitation • Medical decision making * • Health and medical benefits • Pension benefits (Retirement plans) • Inheritance rights (will and trust) • Tax benefits

Marriage privilege or right?

• Privilege: right or benefit enjoyed by a particular person or a restricted of people • Right: something that is due to anyone by just claim, legal guaratee, or moral principle

Case: Terri Schiavo: medical decision making

• she struggled with eating disorder and suffered cardiac arrest • husband and fought over who had the choice to decide if they want to remove the feeding tube • husband got to chose

Family

1. Exclusive: two or more people; related by blood, marriage, or adoption; *usually* live together (gov definition) 2. Inclusive: includes pervious def, or who are part of a relationship in which there is long-term commitment and mutual aid and support (sociological definition)

When examining a data set

1. Look for high & low numbers in a category 2. Using data set, make an accurate statement 3. Ask the following question: why? Example: 1. 4.3% of all men 25 yrs old & over were living alone in 1960 14.8% women were living alone 2. More people (men, women) are living aloe today than in past 3. Why are more people living alone today than in the past?

4 Stages cycle of violence

1. happily, charming 2. relationship grows tense "walking on eggshells" 3. tension explodes in abuse 4. a period of contrition that allows cycle to repeat "honeymoon" phase

Marriage patterns

1.*Endogamy*: marriage to someone within one's social group (race, religion) 2. *Exogamy*: marriage to someone from a different social group (men & women, two non-family member) 3. *Monogamy*: the practice of marrying one person at a time 4. *Polygamy*: a system of marriage that allows people to have more than one spouse at a time (uncommon) - *polygyny*: men is married to multiples wives - *polyandry*: women has multiple husbands - *polyamory*: multiple-person partnership

Case: Mildred Jeter (black), Richard Loving (white)

1958: married in Washington, was legal 1959: plead guilty, 1 yrs in prision, sentences will suspended for 25 yrs if they leave Virginian Trial judge stated: "Almighty god using religion created race, white, black, yellow... and placed them on separate continent. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the .. he did not intend for the races to mix. • sue virginia: argued that their 14th amendment rights were violated( citizenship rights not to be abridged) 1967: US Supreme court finds in favor of the loving in 9-0 ruling. made interracial marriage legal in U.S. "14th amend. requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by individual racial discrimination. Under our constitution, the freedom to marry or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the state.

Divorce

50% of all first marriages now end in divorce, and most people who divorce remarry. Decline of intergenerational divorce and marriage rates: 1. growing acceptance of divorce 2. age of marriage has changed (children of divorce more likely to marry as teenagers, those no married by age 20 not likely to not marry) 3. children of divorced parents are more likely to cohabit with partners and less likely to marry them than children of non divorced parents

second shift

Arlie Hochschild's 1989 study of working couples and parents found that women were indeed working two jobs: paid labor outside the home and unpaid labor inside the home

Structural Functionalism

Family is one of the basic institutions that keeps society running smoothly by providing functions such as producing and socializing children, economic production, instrumental and emotional support, and sexual control

Conflict theorists

Society revolves around conflict over scarce resources, and that conflict within the family is also about the competition for resources: time, energy, and the leisure to pursue recreational activities.

Data:

Three sets of data tell us: • more people are living alone • number of marriage is decreasing • people are postponing marriage So: Why are people holding off marriage or not marrying at all? • living together * Financial stability * Finish school • okay not to marry * Can't marry • Wait for the right person • life expectancy is higher • Freedom of independent

is it possible to see the patterns of endogamy & exogamy in the same marriage?

Yes. 1. Men, women same race but not same religion (vice versa) 2. In us 8% of all marriages are mixed-race

Expressive tasks

emotional work necessary to support family members (remembering a relative's birthday or playing with the kids).

Propinquity

tendency to marry or have relationships with people in close geographic proximity

Instrumental tasks

the practical physical tasks necessary to maintain family life (washing dishes and cutting grass)