The Real World
An Introduction to Sociology
Fourth Edition
Kerry Ferris and Jill Stein
Chapter 12:
Life at Home Families
and Relationships
What Is the Family?
• The U.S. Census Bureau
defines family as two or more
individuals related by blood, marriage, or
adoption living in the same household.
• According to sociologists, a family is
defined as a social group whose
members are bound by legal, biological,
or emotional ties, or a combination of all
three.
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What Is the Family?
(cont’d.)
• An extended family is a large
group of relatives, usually including
at least three generations living either in one
household or in close proximity.
• Kin is defined as relatives or relations, usually
those related by common descent.
3
What Is the Family?
(cont’d.)
• A nuclear family is a heterosexual
couple with one or more children living in
a single household.
4
Diversity in Families
• Endogamy refers to marriage
to someone within one’s social
group (such as race, ethnicity, class,
education, religion, region, or nationality).
• Exogamy refers to marriage to someone
from a different social group.
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Diversity in Families
(cont’d.)
• From the time of slavery through the
1960s, many states had
antimiscegenation laws (the prohibition
of interracial marriage, cohabitation, or
sexual interaction).
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Diversity in Families
(cont’d.)
• Monogamy, the practice of marrying
(or being in a relationship with) one
person at a time, is still considered the only
legal form of marriage in modern western
culture.
• Polygamy, a system of marriage that allows
people to have more than one spouse at a time,
is practiced among some subcultures around
the world, but is not widely acknowledged as a
legitimate form of marriage.
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Diversity in Families
(cont’d.)
• The more common form of polygamy is
polygyny, which is a system of marriage
that allows men to have multiple wives.
• Polyandry, a system of marriage that
allows women to have multiple husbands,
is a more rare form of polygamy.
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Sociological Perspectives
on the Family
• Structural functionalism views
the family as 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.
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Sociological Perspectives
on the Family
• Conflict theorists believe that 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.
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Sociological Perspectives
on the Family
• Symbolic interactionists examine 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.
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Forming Relationships,
Selecting Mates
• The process of selecting mates
is largely determined by society,
and
two concepts (homogamy and
propinquity) tell us a lot about how this
process works.
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Forming Relationships,
Selecting Mates (cont’d.)
• Homogamy means “like
marries like,” and is
demonstrated by the fact that we tend to
choose mates who are similar to us in
class, race, ethnicity, age, religion,
education, and even levels of
attractiveness.
• Propinquity is the tendency to marry or
have relationships with people in close
geographic proximity.
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Doing the Work of
Family
Many types of work (both paid
and unpaid) are necessary to keep
a family operating. These tasks can be
either instrumental or expressive.
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Doing the Work of
Family (cont’d.)
Instrumental tasks
refer to the practical
physical tasks
necessary to maintain
family life (such as
washing dishes and
cutting grass).
Expressive tasks refer to
the emotional work
necessary to support family
members (such as
remembering a relative’s
birthday or playing with the
children).
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Doing the Work of
Family (cont’d.)
• Men and women have always performed
different roles to ensure the survival of
their families, but these roles were not
considered unequal until after the
Industrial Revolution.
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Doing the Work of
Family (cont’d.)
• Women nowadays have two jobs: paid
labor outside the home and unpaid labor
inside the home.
• Second shift — unpaid labor inside the
home that is often expected of women
after they get home from working at paid
labor outside the home
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Family and the Life Course
Children’s experiences
are shaped by family
size, birth order,
presence or absence of
parents, socioeconomic
status, and other
sociological variables. In
turn, the presence of
children affects the lives
of parents.
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Family and the Life
Course (cont’d.)
• Life expectancy is increasing. What is
happening to the elderly population?
• About 10 percent of the elderly live below the
poverty line.
• Care of the elderly is no longer a primary
function of family: over 40 percent of senior
citizens will spend time in a nursing home.
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Trouble in Families
• Domestic violence is by far
the most common form of family
violence. It includes behaviors abusers
use to gain and maintain power over their
victims. Abuse can be:
•
•
•
•
•
Physical
Verbal
Financial
Sexual
Psychological
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Cycle of Violence in
Abusive Relationships
• Stage one: Relationship seems
normal.
• Stage two: The victim “walks on
eggshells” to avoid arguments.
• Stage three: Acute battering and violence
occur, lasting for seconds, hours, or even
days. The abuser blames the victim.
• Stage four: The abuser apologizes
profusely and promises that it will never
happen again.
22
Trouble in Families
(cont’d.)
• Rates of domestic violence are
about equal across racial and ethnic
groups, sexual orientations, and religious
groups.
• People are more likely to be killed or
attacked by family members than anyone
else.
23
Trouble in Families
(cont’d.)
• Children and the elderly also
suffer at the hands of abusive family
members. Child and elder abuse are likely
to be underreported, due in part to the
relative powerlessness of the victims and
the private settings of the abuse.
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Trouble in Families
(cont’d.)
• Another kind of abuse children
may experience is neglect
(a form of child abuse in which the
caregiver fails to provide adequate
nutrition, sufficient clothing or shelter, or
hygienic and safe living conditions).
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Trouble in Families
(cont’d.)
• Another form of child abuse is
incest (proscribed sexual
contact between family members; this is a
form of child abuse when it occurs
between a child and a caregiver).
• Elder abuse can include violence and
abuse, as well as financial exploitation,
theft, neglect, and abandonment.
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Divorce and Breakups
• As of March 2002, the U.S.
Census reported that more
than 123 million persons were married
while about 21 million were divorced.
Research indicates that about 50 percent
of all first marriages now end in divorce
and most who divorce remarry.
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U.S. Divorce Rate, 1920-2011
28
Divorce and Breakups
(cont’d.)
• Mothers still disproportionately
receive custody (physical and
legal responsibility for children, assigned
by a court), but there is now a trend
toward joint custody.
• Women are more likely to suffer
downward economic mobility after
divorce, especially if they retain custody
of their children.
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Trends in American
Families
• About 5 percent of all households are
occupied by couples who are
cohabitating (living together as a
romantically involved, unmarried couple).
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Trends in American
Families (cont’d.)
• Increases have occurred in
the numbers of:
•
•
•
•
Single people
People who are cohabitating
Single parents
People who are living in intentional
communities
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The Postmodern
Family
• Families adapting to the
challenges of a postmodern
society may create family structures that
look very different from the “traditional”
family and can include ex-spouses, new
partners and children, other kin, and even
nonkin such as friends and coworkers.
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Chapter 12:
Participation Questions
In addition to your immediate
family, do you also live with
members of your extended family
in your household?
a. yes
b. no
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Chapter 12:
Participation Questions
Have you ever dated someone
whom you met online, without
meeting in person first?
a. yes
b. no
35
Chapter 12:
Participation Questions
Do you know anyone who has
been the victim of domestic
violence?
a. yes
b. no
36
Chapter 12:
Participation Questions
Are your parents still in a
relationship?
a. yes
b. no
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This concludes the Lecture
PowerPoint presentation for
Chapter 12
© 2014 W. W. Norton Co., Inc.
The Real World
AN INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY
4th Edition
Kerry Ferris
and
Jill Stein
38