SOC 285 Chapter 2
6. How is the companionship family different from the patriarchal family?
In a companionship family is characterized by mutual affection, equality, and comradeship of its members while the patriarchal family is where men control the land and have authority over the rest of the family.
When did the market and state emerge as dominant features of modern society?
In the nineteenth century
What role did state/government play before 1820?
it was a distant symbol when it came to family matters. Marriage system that prevailed was supported by christian church and enforced by local community members. Women couldnt vote or hold office. So they had to comply with the marriage system. A wifes legal existance disappeared after she got married.
What was marriage like under the doctrine of coverture?
A legal doctrine under which wives were incorporated into their husband's citizenship.
What are the four overarching historical trends?
1.) Most people today live much longer than in the last. The increasing longevity is the result of improvements in the standard of living including better sanitation, mecial care, and nutrition. 2.) People have many fewer children than they used to. 3.) Family members perform fewer functional tasks at home. life sustaining activities that often took place within families are now performed within newer institutional arenas like state and market. 4.) Families have become more diverse. Decline in two parent nuclear family.
In 1820-1900 what were the main functions of marriage?
Although men yielded more economic power, women's influence over the house was enhanced.
3. Review the relationship between men, women, and children in American Indian families, Colonial American families, and enslaved African families prior to 1820.
American Indian Families:
8. Why was there a baby boom in the middle of the twentieth century?
Baby boom parents experienced a rare sequence of events like the great depression and WWII followed by sudden prosperity. After difficult childhoods and a long period of uncertainty about the future, they embraced the prospect of stability. To achieve that feeling, they turned inward toward family life and they had alot of children.
What were the effects of the "industrial revolution" of household technologies such as dishwashers and microwave ovens on women's household labor between 1900 and 1965?
They reduced the amount of labor necessary for keeping a family fed and warm. However it still didnt lead to a reduction in total housework done.
9. Beginning in the 1960s, why did family patterns depart so dramatically from the 1950s ideal? Again focus on changes in the three arenas: the state, the market and family as an institutional arena.
First, the market forces more than ever challenged some of the core functional tasks of modern families. The biggest change was that women left the home for paid work. The idea of the "traditional family" sunk further away as people started to emerge into a wide range of families of same sex and single parent households, so marriage and family life changes. State forces were the second institutional factor promoting family diversity. A combination of pension and welfare programs offered the opportunity for more people to structure their lives independently.
Why did Ford Motor Company introduce the "Five Dollar Day" in 1914?
It was intended to promote workforce stability, home ownership, as well ask worker loyalty.
What was the state of marriage for most slaves under slavery?
It was not legally recognized by the state, and separation was a constant threat.
According to Cohen, American family history before 1820 was primarily about what?
It was primarily the story of three interrelated groups: American Indians, White Europeans, and African Americans
What happened to the family arena when the market and state emerged as dominant features of modern society?
It was transformed. It lost its status n the center of the economy and began to be more directly regulated by the state. Men's new identities were reinforced outside the walls of the family home in the factories in workshops of the industrial economy, where income generating work took place
What were the main features of African-American families that emerged in the late nineteenth century?
Many African Americans entered into a new agriculture system of sharecropping in which they worked on land owned by whites in conditions of desperate property, but not called slavery. African-American families for the first time could be legally recognized. In fact the federal government under monogamous morality principles required legal marriages among those who qualified for federal relief provided to former slaves They exhibited more gender equality based on the greater economic role of woman then white families did. Their marriages also we are more fragile partially as a result of the persistent poverty and hardship they suffered and ended up more often in divorce or widow hood African Americans develop stronger extended family networks of caring and cooperation
What did marriage mean to White Europeans before 1820?
Marriage was a practical arrangement that was considered necessary for civilization, not a source of love and affection.
What was the main living arrangement for most African American slave children?
Most children lived with both their parents, especially on large plantations.
There was more equality between husband and wife instead of mere subordination of the wife to the husband in a companionate marriage. What happened to the division of gender roles in a companionate marriage?
Most married couples conformedto the separate spheres ideal or at least try to
10. What factors led to the decline in the number of married couples in the late twentieth century? What does marriage mean now?
The increase in womens paid work; The fact that affection was all that held marriages together; Popular respect for the institution of marriage has declines and there is an increasing acceptability of raising children outside of marriage; By treating marriage as a true love relationship we raise our expectations and fall short on emotional standards
What economic incentives did the federal government give to marriage in 1900-1960s?
The 19 Century Gave Way to a pattern of economic incentives for marriage including Social Security and aid to dependent children. After World War II the government provided extensive benefits to make veterans especially low interest loans to buy homes which also had a great effect of encouraging marriage
What is the doctrine of the separate spheres?
The cultural doctrine in which women were to work at home, to make it a sanctuary from the industrial world in which their husbands worked for pay.
What cultural shift did marriage experience in the early 1900s?
The cultural shift towards the companionate marriage and away from parental authority
What was the main trend in households over the course of the 20th century?
The decline of traditional nuclear family and the rise of diversity in family arrangements
What social forces brought increased motivation for young people to marry in the 1950s?
The government provided extensive benefits to veterans, the cultural shift toward companionate marriage, the economic opportunities for independence, and political incentives.
What do we mean when we think of the family as "traditional"?
The sharply divided roles of father as breadwinners and mothers as homemakers. The man is the economic provider.
What did the idea of free choice in marriage serve in White European families before 1820?
They did not have free choice. They were arranged. They were traded for goods. They felt like indentured servants rather than wives.
5. What does Coontz mean by "a peculiar compromise between egalitarian and patriarchal views"
Women were still considered free, and the concept of male authority began to be replaced by the idea of men as "protectors" of women while women cared for, loved, and nurtured their husbands. These gender roles came to be known as the separate spheres.
What were the main features of American Indian families before 1820?
a strong respect for elders, a reliance on extended family traditions. family connections were the basic building blocks for social structure. They were the model for nonbiological relationships: the community, animals, and the environment. matrilineal descent: considered descendants of their mother, not father.
For what reasons did a companionate marriage appeal to many men in growing white-collar industries?
because many of them felt alienated and frustrated by their impersonal bureaucratic work
