Families
Chapter Outline
 Is the Family in Decline?
 Functionalism and the Nuclear Ideal
 Conflict and Feminist Theories
 Power and Families
 Family Diversity
 Family Policy
Nuclear Families
 The nuclear family is composed of a cohabiting man
and woman who maintain a socially approved sexual
relationship and have at least one child.
 The traditional nuclear family is a nuclear family in
which the wife works in the home without pay while
the husband works outside the home for money.
Household Types, US
 INSERT FIGURE 10.1 HERE (pg. 231)
Traditional Nuclear vs. Alternative
Families
 INSERT CONCEPT SUMMARY 10.1 HERE (pg. 231)
Polling Question

Do you believe the strength of the American family is
declining?
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
Strongly agree
Agree somewhat
Unsure
Disagree somewhat
Strongly disagree
Functionalist approach to Family
The family serves several functions and because the
nuclear family model serves them well, it is the ideal
family type
1. Sexual regulation
2. Economic cooperation
3. Reproduction
4. Socialization
5. Emotional support
Other
Familyacknowledge
Formsthe existence of other
 Functionalists
family types but argue that the basic building block
of these is sill the nuclear family
 Polygamy expands the nuclear unit “horizontally”
by adding one or more spouses to the household.
 The extended family expands the nuclear family
“vertically” by adding another generation to the
household.
Marriages and Divorces, 1940 2009
 INSERT FIGURE 10.2 HERE (pg. 233)
Marriage, Divorce and Fertility
Rate
 Marriage rate - number of marriages in a year for
every 1000 people.
 Divorce rate - number of divorces in a year for every
1,000 people.
 Total fertility rate - average number of children that
would be born to a woman if she had the same number
of children as women in each age cohort in a given
year.
Conflict Theory of Family
 Engels argued that the nuclear family emerged with
inequalities of wealth.
 Once a man had wealth, he wanted to ensure it was
transmitted to his sons.
 Sexual control - enforced female monogamy- ensured
this.
 Engels concluded that eliminating private property and
creating economic equality could end gender inequality
and the traditional nuclear family.
Gender Inequality and
Communism
 Engels was wrong to think communism would
eliminate gender inequality.
 Inequality in the family has been as common in
communist societies as in capitalist societies.
Feminist Theory of Families
 Patriarchy: male dominance and norms justifying
that dominance
 Has a bigger effect on the gender inequality and the
persistence of the traditional nuclear family
Mate Selection:
Social Influences
 Marriage resources - financial assets, status, values,
tastes, and knowledge.
 Third parties - families, neighborhoods,
communities, and religious institutions.
 Demographic factors - size and sex ratio of groups
you belong to and the social composition of the local
marriage markets.
“If a Man (Woman) Had All Qualities You Desired, Would
You Marry this Person if You Were Not in Love?”
Factors Underlying Marital
Satisfaction
1. Economic forces
 Dissatisfaction and divorce are more common among
groups with high poverty rates.
 Satisfaction of both husbands and wives increases when
wives enter the paid labor force.
Factors Underlying Marital
Satisfaction
2. Divorce laws
 When people are free to end unhappy marriages and
remarry, happiness increases among married people.
 In countries where getting a divorce is difficult,
husbands and wives tend to be less happy than in
countries where getting a divorce is easier.
Factors Underlying Marital
Satisfaction
3. The family life cycle



1/4 of divorces take place in the first 3 years of a first
marriage.
1/2 of all divorces take place by the end of the 7th year.
Nonparents and parents whose children have left
home enjoy the highest level of marital satisfaction.
Factors Underlying Marital
Satisfaction
4. Housework and child care

Marital happiness is higher among couples who share
housework and child care.

The farther couples are from equally sharing
responsibilities, the more tension among family
members.
Factors Underlying Marital
Satisfaction
5. Sex
 Sex improves during a marriage.
 The relationship between marital satisfaction and sexual
compatibility is reciprocal.
Family Satisfaction and the
Family Life Cycle
 INSERT FIGURE 10.4 HERE (pg. 238)
Divorce
 Economic Effects:
 A rise in the husband’s income and a decline in the wife’s
(because husbands tend to earn more)
 Emotional Effects:
 Some research shows a long-term negative effect on
children, but not fully supported empirically
Divorce, cont.
 Distress among children of divorce caused by:
 A high level of parental conflict
 A decline in living standards.
 The absence of a parent.
Reproductive Choice
 As women have gained power from working outside
the home, they have also experienced increasing
control over their reproductive decisions
 Nonetheless, right-to-life and pro-choice activists have
been clashing since the 1970s
The Abortion Issue
 INSERT TABLE 10.1 HERE (pg. 241)
Reproductive Technologies
For some women, reproductive choice means facilitating
a pregnancy
 Artificial insemination - donor’s sperm is inserted in
a woman’s vaginal canal or uterus during ovulation.
 Surrogate motherhood - donor’s sperm is used to
artificially inseminate a woman who has signed a
contract to surrender the child at birth.
Reproductive Technologies,
cont.
 In vitro fertilization - eggs are surgically removed from
a woman and joined with sperm in a culture dish, the
embryo is transferred back to the woman’s uterus.
 Screening techniques are used on sperm and fetuses to
increase the chance of giving birth to a baby of the
desired sex and end problematic pregnancies.
Reproductive Technologies,
cont.
 Sociologists are concerned with several ethical issues
regarding reproductive technologies
 Discrimination: very expensive excluding options for the
poor
 Render the terms “mother” and “father” obsolete

It is unclear who has rights and obligations to the child
Housework and Child Care
Although women have increasingly entered the paid
workforce, and although men take a more active role in
running the household than they used to:
 on average, American men do 20–35% of the
housework and child care.
 Men do low-stress chores than can wait a day or a week
Housework and Child Care
The gender gap in housework shrinks when:
 the difference between the husband’s and wife’s
earnings shrinks
 the husband and wife agree that there should be
equality in the household division of labor
Domestic Violence
 A 1997 Gallup poll found that 22% of women and 8%
of men reported physical abuse by a spouse or
companion at least once in the past.
 In 2009, 1081 women and 279 men were murdered by
intimate partners in the U.S.
Types of Domestic Violence
 Common couple violence occurs when partners have
a specific argument and one partner lashes out
physically.
 Intimate terrorism is a general desire of one partner
to control the other.
 Violent resistance typically involves a woman
violently defending herself against a man who has
engaged in intimate terrorism.
Gender Inequality and
Domestic Violence
 For heterosexual couples, domestic violence is
associated with the level of gender equality in the
family and the larger society
 Greater the inequality, greater the frequency of
domestic violence
 Connects with conflict and feminist theories of family
by highlighting the importance of power in structuring
family life.
Heterosexual Cohabitation
 Since 1970, the number of American heterosexual
couples who are unmarried and cohabiting has
increased more than fivefold
 More than half of the people who get married today
cohabited before marrying
Cohabitation and Marital
Stability
 Cohabitation is associated with marital instability
because the people who cohabit differ from those who
do not
 Those who do not cohabit are more religious and
therefore less likely to divorce
 Those who do cohabit are more likely to be African
American, poor, have liberal political and sexual views,
and have parents who divorced
Same-sex Unions and
Partnerships
 In the U.S.
 31% support same-sex marriage
 32% favor civil unions
 30% prefer no legal recognition at all
 Dozens of states have passed laws explicitly opposing
or supporting same-sex marriage and civil unions
Relationship Recognition for
Same-Sex Couples
 INSERT FIGURE 10.5 HERE (pg. 246)
Raising Children in Homosexual
Families
 A 14-year study assessed 25 young adults who were the
offspring of lesbian families and 21 young adults who
were the offspring of heterosexual families.
 The researchers found that the two groups were
equally well adjusted and displayed little difference in
sexual orientation.
Single-Mother Families: Racial
and Ethnic Differences
 Whites have the lowest incidence of single-mother
families; African Americans have the highest
 We’ve seen the rate of single-parent families increase
over time
Families with Own Children
Under 18
 INSERT FIGURE 10.6 HERE (PG. 247)
Decline of Two-Parent Family
among African Americans
Since about 1925, proportionally few black men have
been able to help support a family
2. Falling ratio of eligible black men to women
(imprisonment, murder, drug addiction)
3. Earnings ratio; income of African American women
has risen over time while the earning power of
African American men has declined
1.
Zero-Child Families
 In the United States “zero-child families” are
increasingly common.
 In 1980, 10% of women between the ages of 40 and 44
had never given birth; in 2008, the figure was 18%.
 A main reason is the cost of children
Costs of Children
 Children cost, on average, about $250,000 for a child
born in 2011 to age of 18
 College costs extra
 Couples incur greater stress when they have a child
Family Policy
 U.S. is a good example of how social problems can
emerge from nuclear family decline but Sweden is a
good example of how such problems can be averted
 Family Support Policies:
 Parental leave policies; free well-baby clinics; health
care; sick leave; high-quality, government subsidized day
care
1. Which of the following is not considered by
functionalists to be a function of the nuclear
family?
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
sexual regulation
economic cooperation
marital cohabitation
socialization
reproduction
Answer: c
 Marital cohabitation is not considered by
functionalists to be a function of the nuclear family.
2. Throughout history and across cultures, marriages
have typically been about love between a woman
and a man.
a. True
b. False
Answer : b
 Throughout history and across cultures, marriages
have not typically been about love between a woman
and a man.
3. According to Friedrich Engels:
a.
b.
c.
d.
the nuclear family is based on the existence of
private property
patriarchy is more deeply rooted in the economic,
military, and cultural history of humankind than
the classical Marxist account allows
women engaged in an “orgy of domesticity” postWWII
the nuclear family is in every society
Answer: a
 According to Friedrich Engels the nuclear family is
based on the existence of private property.
4. Which of the following factors does not
determine marital satisfaction?
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
economic forces
how religious the couple is
the stage of the family life cycle
the degree to which housework and child care is
shared
the quality of one's sex life
Answer: b

How religious the couple is does not determine
marital satisfaction.
5. Long-term distress is often experienced by
children of divorced parents if:
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
the level of parental conflict is high
the living standard of children drops substantially
subsequent to divorce
families failed to seek counseling prior to or after
divorce
all of these choices
the level of parental conflict is high, and the living
standard of children drops substantially subsequent
to divorce
Answer: e

Long-term distress is often experienced by children
of divorced parents if the level of parental
conflict is high, and the living standard of
children drops substantially subsequent to
divorce.
6. On average, American men do about what
percentage of the housework in families?
a. less than 5 %
b. 5 - 10 %
c. 10 - 20 %
d. 20 - 35 %
e. 35 - 50 %
Answer : d
 On average, American men do about 20-35% of the
housework in families.
7. Which of the following is not a difference between
heterosexual and lesbian families?
a.
b.
c.
d.
partners of lesbian mothers spend more time caring
for children than partners of heterosexual mothers
lesbian couples share housework more equitably
lesbian couples share decision-making duties more
equally
children of lesbian families are less socially and
psychologically well-adjusted
Answer : d
 Children of lesbian families are not less socially and
psychologically well-adjusted than children of
heterosexual families.