Chapter 12: Families and
Intimate Relationships
Objectives (slide 1 of 2)
12.1 Introduction to the Concept of Family
• Describe the four family forms and three marriage
patterns.
• Explain the various residential patterns of families.
• Define and identify the various patterns of descent.
12.2 Theoretical Perspectives on Families
• Discuss different theoretical perspectives as they
apply to the family unit.
12.3 Stages of Intimate Relationships
• Illustrate the different stages in family construction.
12.4 Problems in the Family
• Illustrate the various forms that family violence takes
and assess its impact on later social development.
Objectives (slide 2 of 2)
12.5 Transitions
• Identify the major transitional stages in the
American family.
12.6 Family Alternatives
• Discuss the different alternatives to the
classic family forms.
12.7 Families: Class, Race, and Gender
• Discuss how race, class, and gender affect
our understanding and perceptions of the
family.
Defining Family and Kinship
• Family: A group of individuals related to
one another by blood, marriage,
adoption, or social convention
• Kinship: The linking of people through
blood, marriage, adoption, or social
convention
Family Structures and
Characteristics
• Nuclear family: A family consisting of two
parents and children
• Sole-parent family: A family composed of
one parent and children
• Extended family: A family consisting of more
than two generations or relatives living
within the same household
• Blended family: A family created when
people with children from previous
relationships remarry (also known as a
stepfamily)
Marriage Patterns (slide 1 of 2)
• Marriage: A socially approved union
between individuals
• Monogamy: A system of marriage that
permits marriage to only one partner at a
time
Marriage Patterns (slide 2 of 2)
• Polygamy: Marriage that unites more than
two partners
– Polygyny: A form of marriage in which a man
may have more than one wife
– Polyandry: A form of marriage in which a
woman may have more than one husband
• Endogamous: Marriage within one’s own
social group
• Exogamous: Marriage outside of one’s own
social group
Residential Patterns
• Residential patterns: Culturally determined
patterns that dictate where new families will
live
– Matrilocal: Describes a family system in which
the new family lives near the wife’s parents
– Patrilocal: Describes a family system in which
the new family lives near the husband’s parents
– Neolocal: Describes a society in which the new
family lives apart from both sets of parents
Patterns of Descent
• Descent: A system by which members of
society trace kinship through generations.
– Matrilineal: A society in which kinship and
sometimes property are passed from
mothers to their children.
– Patrilineal: A system of descent that
considers only the father’s side
– Bilateral descent: A system of reckoning
descent from both the mother’s and father’s
side
Patterns of Authority and Power
• Patriarchy: A society in which males
maintain the majority of social power
• Matriarchy: A society in which women
maintain the majority of social power
Functionalist Perspective
• The functionalist perspective argues that
families contribute essential tasks to
society through:
– Primary socialization: The main process by
which children learn the values and norms of
their society
– Personality stabilization: The role that family
plays in the cognitive and emotional
development of the individual
Conflict Perspective
• The conflict perspective explores the
ways in which family creates and
maintains social inequality.
Symbolic Interactionist Perspective
• Symbolic interactionism tries to
understand how the roles and concepts
of the family are constructed through the
interactions that take place.
• The social exchange approach sees the
family as a form of negotiation framed in
terms of cost-benefit analysis.
Evolutionary Perspectives
• Evolutionary perspectives seek to
understand how the family is both a
cause and consequence of our evolved
nature.
Love and Intimacy
• Dating scripts: Culturally guided rules and
expectations about dating practices
• Romantic love: People being sexually
attracted to one another and often
idealizing one another
• Homogamy: The
tendency of people with
similar characteristics to
marry one another
Marriage
• Marriage: A pledge to form a family
– Marriage patterns in the United States are
trending toward later age at first marriage
due to:
• Increasing rates of cohabitation
• Increasing numbers of people—especially
women—deferring marriage to attend college
• Increasing participation by women in the
workforce
• Societal changes that support individualization
Cohabitation
• Cohabitation: Two people living together
in a sexual relationship without being
married
Children
• The average cost of raising a child in the
United States from birth through college
currently exceeds $250,000
• The average number of children a family
has declined from eight in the 1800s to
just over one today.
Ways of Parenting
• Developmental psychologist Diana
Baumrind identified four general types of
parenting styles
– Permissive
– Authoritarian
– Authoritative
– Neglectful parenting
Housework
• One area that has not seen a significant
change in gender roles, however, is the
division of housework. While
industrialization has made housework
generally easier and less time consuming,
and while women have taken an
increasingly large role in activities outside
of the family, they still tend to do more
housework than men
Violence and Abuse
• Intimate partner violence: Physical,
emotional, or psychological abuse toward an
intimate partner
• Although the rate of intimate partner
violence is declining, the rate of child abuse
and neglect is increasing.
• Intergenerational transmission of violence:
The tendency for people who are victims of
abuse or who witness abuse to be
perpetrators of violence at a later stage of
the life course
Divorce and Dissolution
• A good way to determine the rate of
divorce is to look at the percentage of
married people that gets divorced in any
given year.
• Using these figures, fewer than 2% of
couples get divorced each year.
The Effects of Divorce on Children
• Children with greater resilience are less
likely to suffer serious negative
consequences from divorce.
– Resilience: The degree to which a person can
endure changes in his or her environment
• Feminization of poverty: The trend of an
increasing number of women—usually
with children—living below the poverty
line
Blended Families
• Blended families are structurally
dissimilar to nuclear families due to
unclear roles and responsibilities.
– The roles of each family member are not the
result of naturally occurring biological
relationships but rather through socially and
legally constructed means.
Launching Children
• Marital happiness is greatest at two
points during the lifespan of the
marriage:
– First year (honeymoon phase)
– After the last child leaves home
• Empty nest syndrome: A myth that
parents mourn after the last child leaves
the home
Gay and Lesbian Couples
• One of the most controversial family
forms is lesbian and gay couples. While
many nations, beginning with Denmark in
1989, have legalized gay unions, in
America, homosexual unions continue to
meet with resistance.
Sole-Parent Families
• Women who have children outside of
marriage have a much lower degree of
societal support.
• Patterns of women who raise children
outside of marriage tend to take one of two
forms:
– Women have children at a young age, increasing
the chances the child will be raised in poverty.
– Women delay having children until they have
achieved education/career goals.
Racially Mixed Marriages
• The number of racially mixed marriages in
the United States is 14.6%.
Social Class
• Children who grow up in poverty are more
likely to have problems in school, behavioral
problems, and other developmental and
social difficulties.
• Acceptance of alternative family forms
varies with social class:
– Lower social class families are less supportive of
homosexual pairings.
– Higher social class families are less supportive of
sole parenting.
Ethnicity and Race
• Because race and ethnicity have real
consequences in society, differences
emerge in both beliefs and behaviors
associated with the family. While some
ethnic and racial minorities attempt to
retain their traditional views of the family
in the face of rapid cultural change and
pressures to assimilate, some views of the
family are shaped by the way in which
society institutionalizes minority status.
Gender
• Men and women see marriage in
fundamentally different ways:
– Men who are married tend to have better
mental and physical health, make more
money, have a longer life span, and report
being happier than single men.
– Women who are married report higher rates
of depression, make less money than single
women, and report lower levels of happiness
than single women.