Lesson 12 Marriage and Family

Learning objectives for Chapter 12

What are the key ideas concerning marriage and the family from the stand point of Conflict Theory, Functionalist Theory, and Symbolic Interactionalist Theory?

What are some of the definitions of the different family systems and types?

What are some of the unique conditions experienced by African-American, Latino, Asian-American, and Native-American families?

How are gender and power related in different families?

Know the stages of family, including, marriage, childbirth and child rearing, and family transitions in later life

Couples approach problems differently; what makes some happy and others unhappy?

Vocabulary to learn from Chapter 12

blended families

children of divorce

cohabitation

divorce

family abuse, battering, incest, and neglect

family trends

family life cycle

gay and lesbian families

grandparents as parents

love and courtship

postponing marriage

one-parent families

remarriage

sandwich generation

serial fatherhood

unwed motherhood

Discussion

One thing you can count on: the concept of family is always being challenged and changed. As an example, the "nuclear family" (original husband, wife, and possibliy children, is now represented by less than 23% of all U.S. households).

Blended families (usually people remarrying after divorcing from others) is one area of family growth with cohabitation and fictive famillies also growing in numbers. Fictive families usually do not include sexuality since they are made up of non related people trying to help each other (such as the tv show "The Golden Girls" where widows and divorcees live in the same house for mutual help and protection).

Polygyny is very wide spread today and throughout history. It is not only and man with more than one wife; it is a man with two basic kinds of wives.

The first type are wives who may have come as political deals, such as sealihng a treaty. What better way to seal a treaty than to give a daughter who can also keep an eye out for the possible winds of change against that treaty? These types of wives live with their husband and their children do inherit from the husband.

The second type of wife is a "street wife" (also know as a concubine). She is a married woman and may be stoned to death if she is caught with another man. However, she does not get to live with her husband and her children do not inherit. She must make it on her own.

This type of marriage is for love. She hopes that she pleases her husband and that he will visit often. It is common, when he visits, to leave her gifts such as jewelry to help her maintain her and her children.

There are no clearly defined rules in our society for the inter-relationship between generations. However, we share one thing; independence appears to be very important for all people no matter their age. This includes personal lives, public lives, and the workplace. As an example of this lack of societal pattern towards the older adults, consider this 600-year-old story from Europe (author unknown, dates back to Medieval Europe):

A lonely widower struck a bargain with his son that he would be taken care of in his old age in return for turning over his property to the son while he yet lived.
Later on, when the father became quite invalid, the daughter-in-law nagged her husband to move the old man to the barn. The son, ashamed to do it himself, required the grandson to take the old man to the barn and wrap him with a horse blanket.
The grandson tearfully obeyed his dad, only tore the horse blanket and wrapped the old man in only half of it.
When the dad found out, he was angry: "How could you be so cruel as to leave your grandfather in the barn to freeze with only half a blanket?"
The son replied:
"Father, I feel obligated to save the other half for you."

There are no clearly defined rules in our society for the inter-relationship between generations. In some societies, such as Japan, the "older folk" are not only honored, but the son takes great pride in how well he is able to care for his parent's needs. Yet, as our society ages, more and more frequently, women may find themseves as adult care-givers; perhaps to both parents and her husband as well. This often occurs while she is still concerned about her own adult children.

"Throughout history, the idea that it is appropriate for one generation to make sacrifices for welfare of the next has been taken for granted. That is, until the rapid and sustained growth of the 1946-66 period." Schor

Movies assigned

Chapter 12 Marriage & Family

Videos that you can rent which are based upon some of the principles of this lesson:

Bill Cosby, Himself

Raising Arizona

Yours, Mine and Ours

Life with Father