Designed by Karen Saucier Lundy to supplement the textbook Families in Context: Sociological Perspectives, by Gene H. Starbuck and Karen Saucier Lundy. For publication information about the text: http://www.paradigmpublishers.com/Books/BookDetail.aspx?productID=409768

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“If the family were a container, it would be a

nest, an enduring nest, loosely woven,

expansive and open.” Letty Cottin Pogrebin

Define family: not so easy is it? Our ideas and images influence study of

family Nuclear family: man woman child

(nucleus=smallest unit) Conjugal unit: “to join”

Unrelated persons as members

Basics of defining a family

Extended family – 3 generations

Two different TYPES of nuclear units:

Family of orientation

Family of procreation

So what has changed?

Stepfamilies

Reconstituted

Blended

Common criteria for determining “family” status

•Households are declining in US.

•What does this mean? (Table 1-1)

Purpose (functions) Shared values Traditional values vs non traditional values Norms (rules and guidelines)

Formal – written socially regulated mechanisms

Informal – norms not enforced as strictly

Pronatalism

Role = part we play Script = proscribed behaviors and ‘are’. Functional = micro and micro Structural definition – US Census

Share housing unit, united by adoption, blood, or marriage.

Kin groups

Fictive kin

Rite of passage = wedding Incest taboo Pronuptialism Common law marriage Alternatives to marriage: Nayak, Kibbutz

Ideal type – Max Weber Dichotomy Continuum Gender: power, tasks, residential,

inheritance. Authority: patriarchy and matriarchy Power vs authority in marriage

Descent Inheritance Residence

Patrilocal

Matrilocal

Neolocal

Assignment of tasks based on gender Androgyny (andro=male) (gyny = female) Types of Gender Roles (John Money)

Sex-irruducible gender roles

Sex-influenced roles

Sex-arbitrary roles

The family in decline debate Pessimistic position

Broken, cannot be fixed

Less influential, other institutions have taken over family functions

Divorce and parent-less children

Post modern/post nuclear family: matrilocal.

Increased individualism vs familism

We need a new structure for the family Marxist view Feminism Increased importance of family and marriage We have nostalgic view of 50s family that

may have never existed.

"Glad it changed" optimists on the family decline debate are likely to cite which of the following in defense of their position?

A. The high divorce rate.

B. High rates of out-of-wedlock births.

C. Increased individual freedom, especially for women.

D. Both (a) and (b) above.

E. None of the above.

Which of the following terms is MOST clearly true as a descriptor of the United States today?

A. Patrilineal

B. Egalitarian

C. Patrilocal

D. Matrifocal

E. Neolocal