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Sociology of the Family

TEXTBOOK

  • The Marriage and Family Experience: Intimate Relationships in a Changing Society
  • Authors: Bryan Strong, et. al.
  • Wadsworth Publishing (13th edition)

Sociology of the Family
The Meaning of Marriage & the Family

Before We Talk About the Family

  • Family studied from a sociological perspective – why?
  • Sociology
  • Sociological Perspective
  • Level 1 & Level 2 Social Reality

Sociology

  • What is Sociology?
  • Study of human behavior in groups
  • Part of the Social Sciences

Five Major Social Sciences

  • Sociology/Anthropology
  • Psychology
  • History
  • Political Science
  • Economics

Sociology, Psychology, Social Work

  • Sociology – study of human behavior in groups; theoretical science
  • Psychology – study of individual behavior; theoretical and applied science
  • Social work – helping profession involved in the study of individual, group and family behavior; theoretical and applied science, systems oriented

Back to Definition of Sociology

  • Study of human behavior in groups
  • What do we mean by the term ‘groups?’
  • 2+ people socially interacting
  • Demographic variables

Demographic Variables

  • Individual trait you possess that places you into a group or social category
  • 3 major demographic variables most looked at by sociologists:
  • Race/ethnicity
  • Social class
  • Gender

The Sociological Perspective

  • How sociology does what it does
  • Uses the Sociological Perspective
  • Fresh, unique look at the world
  • Non-biased look

Level 1 & Level 2

  • Gives us two levels of understanding
  • Level 1 – Your own perspective/version of the world
  • Level 2 – Another perspective
  • Time and space/historical

perspective – we are affected by

our family history

How all this affects families

  • Shapes our own perspectives
  • This influences our sense of self, our view of ourselves and our families
  • Influences our view of the

world and our place in it

More Terms

  • Socialization

- process by which we learn behavior

  • Agents of Socialization

- those people/groups that teach us our behavior, examples?

- parents, peers, teachers

  • Norms

- mores and folkways

Norms – Marriage & Family

  • All societies have norms (mores and/or folkways) regarding marriage and family
  • Examples?
  • Who we can marry, how many we can marry, where we have to live, who has the authority in a marriage, etc.

Definition of Family

  • Family - a group of two or more persons related by birth, marriage, or adoption and residing together in a household

What is Missing from the Definition of the Family?

Love

Family Types

  • Nuclear
  • Extended
  • Single parent
  • Reconstituted/step
  • Cohabitators

(homosexual and heterosexual)

  • Family of procreation
  • Family of orientation
  • Economic unit

Which Family Type is Best?

Traditional Families Begin With Marriage - Definition of Marriage

  • Now - Legally recognized union between a two individuals in which they are united sexually, cooperate economically, and may give birth to, adopt or rear children

Gay Marriage

  • Marriage between same sex partners legal in the U.S. since 2015

Functions of Family

  • Intimacy, emotional security, support
  • Economic cooperation
  • Socialization and Reproduction
  • Assignment of Statuses and Roles

Statuses & Roles

  • Status- a position we hold
  • Ascribed Status – a position we are born into
  • Achieved Status – a position we achieve
  • Role – expected behavior for our statuses
  • Role Conflicts – a problem we have in fulfilling the roles in a status or between statuses

Role Conflict

Let’s Go Back To Norms Re: Marriage & the Family

  • All societies and cultures have norms (legal, religious, and/or social rules) about who we can marry, how many we can marry, where we have to live, who has the authority in a marriage, etc.

Marriage & Family Forms
Re: How Many We Can Marry

  • Monogamy

- true monogamy

- serial monogamy

Polygamy

  • Having more than one spouse at one time
  • 75% of the current world

Polygyny

  • Men can have more than one wife
  • Found in Christianity and Islam
  • East Asia, Middle East, Russia, Bosnia, Turkey, Africa, the U.S., et. al.
  • Chimpanzees

Polyandry

  • Women can have more than one husband
  • Tibet, Canadian Arctic, Toda of South India, parts of Mongolia, Subsaharan Africa, indigenous communities in the U.S.
  • Judaism and Islam ban polyandry
  • Crickets, new world monkeys

What Determines Type of Polygamy?

  • Population figures

- more women, men can have more than one wife (polygyny)

- more men, women can have more than one husband (polyandry)

Affidavit: Fearful 16-year-old bride made late-night call

  • Frightened and PG for 2nd time in one year, 16 yr. old borrows a cell phone and makes the call to authorities
  • She was wife #7 and had been beaten repeatedly

Re: Social Class

  • Exogamy

- marrying outside one’s group

  • Endogamy

- marrying inside one’s group

  • Homogamy

- tend to marry someone similar

“Inbreeding”

  • Genetic considerations
  • Social and psychological considerations
  • Economic considerations

Re: Residence

  • Patrilocal beliefs

- living with the husband’s parents

  • Matrilocal

- living with the wife’s parents

  • Neolocal

- can choose where to live

(tend to live apart from parents)

Re: Descent Lines
Last Name?

  • Patrilineal descent line beliefs (95% of world) goes through the man’s last name
  • Matrilineal (5% of world) goes through the woman’s last name
  • Bilineal can choose

(most likely man’s)

What’s in a Name?

  • Everything…
  • Why not take a woman’s last name?
  • Tradition/culture/family
  • Socialization, ridicule from other men
  • Identity
  • Not in control then

Mr…

  • Only 12% of men marry someone who makes more money than they do

Re: Authority

  • Patriarchy
  • Matriarchy
  • Egalitarianism

Kinship Systems

  • All the people you are related to
  • Primary relatives
  • Secondary relatives
  • Tertiary relatives

Primary Relatives

  • - you, your parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins

Secondary Relatives

  • your grandparents, their siblings (your parents’ aunts/uncles) and their children (your parents’ cousins)

Tertiary Relatives

  • - your great grandparents, their siblings, and their children

Other Types of Relatives

  • Consanguine relatives
  • Conjugal relatives
  • Fictive kin

Rights & Obligations

  • Right – what one is entitled to legally, socially, or morally from one’s family members (what you get)
  • Obligation – what one must do, legally, socially, or morally for one’s family members (what you have to do)
  • Examples?

Social Organization of the Family

  • Hierarchy

- ranking of family members – usually by power/money

  • Norms

- rules for behavior

  • Division of Labor

- specialized roles

Genograms

  • A family history tree
  • + demographic variables
  • + social interaction information

http://www.genopro.com/