This paper deals with one of the problems studied by sociology – the family. Sociology is the study of society and the development of human society. A family is a part of society: parents and their children; a group of people connected by blood or marriage and sharing common ancestry; the members of a household… This is the most common definition of the notion family. I have felt that family is a much more complicated notion. Social studies prove that. I have taken up the topic “The American Family” for the paper as part of American Studies – American attitudes and lifestyle. As I have never been to America and have little personal experience in family life, have read and studied several articles and books on sociology by reliable American authors. Besides, I see this work as an opportunity to improve my English.
In the paper I have tried to consider some important ideas, such as
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МОУ Восточно-Европейский лицей
The American Family
Американская семья
Творческая работа
ученицы 10 М класса
Лапыгиной Надежды
Руководитель: Блинова Е. Г.,
учитель английского языка
Саратов
2009
Contents
Introduction ……………………………………………………………2
Chapter 1. Structure of the Family ………….……………………..…3
1. Forms of the Family ………………..…………………………………….3
2. Forms of Marriage ……………………….………………………….…..4
3. The Functionalist Approach to the Family ……….……………………….5
4. The Conflict Approach to the Family ……………………………………6
5. The Interactionist Approach to the Family ………………………………..6
Chapter 2. Marriage and the Family in the United States ….………..7
1. Choosing a Marriage Partner………………………………………………7
2. Married Couples …………………...………………………………………...9
3. Parenthood ………………………………………………………….10
4. Employed Mothers …………………..………………………………….10
5. Two-income Families ……………………………………………………11
6. Family Violence, Child Abuse, and Incest ……………………………….11
7. Divorce …………………………………………………………………..12
8. Stepfamilies ……………………………………………………………….13
9. Care for the Elderly………………………………………………………13
Chapter 3. Alternative Life Styles ………………………………….…14
1. Singlehood……………………….…………………….……………14
2. Unmarried Cohabitation ……………………………..…………………14
3. Gay Couples………..…………………… ………………………………14
Conclusion ……………………………………...………………………16
Bibliography ……………………………………….…………………….17
Glossary …………………………………………………………………18
Introduction
This paper deals with one of the problems studied by sociology – the family. Sociology is the study of society and the development of human society. A family is a part of society: parents and their children; a group of people connected by blood or marriage and sharing common ancestry; the members of a household… This is the most common definition of the notion family. I have felt that family is a much more complicated notion. Social studies prove that. I have taken up the topic “The American Family” for the paper as part of American Studies – American attitudes and lifestyle. As I have never been to America and have little personal experience in family life, have read and studied several articles and books on sociology by reliable American authors. Besides, I see this work as an opportunity to improve my English.
In the paper I have tried to consider some important ideas, such as
Chapter 1
Structure of the Family
What is the family? We all use this term but the "family" is very difficult to define. When we think about sepa rating families from nonfamilies, we face some problems. Many of us think of the family as a social unit consisting of a married couple and their chil dren, living together in a household. But in many societies it is the kin group, and not a married couple. Sociologists have traditionally viewed the family as a social group whose members are related by ancestry, marriage, or adoption and who live together, cooperate economically, care for the young and respect each other. A. recent poll found that many Americans are now will ing to accept alternatives to traditional no tions of the family. Indeed, 45 percent of Americans thought that an unmarried couple living together is "a true family"; 33 percent also placed a homosexual couple raising chil dren in this category; and 20 percent regarded two homosexuals living together as a family. Viewing in this fashion, the family is an institution.
1. Forms of the Family
There are many differences in the ways in which families are or ganized. Families vary in their composition and in their descent, residence, and authority patterns.
Composition. Social relationships between adult men and women can be organized within families by either spouse or kin relationships. In the nuclear family ar rangement, spouses and their offspring con stitute the core relationship; blood relatives are functionally peripheral. In contrast, in the extended family arrangement, kin individuals related by common ances try provide the core relationship; spouses are functionally peripheral. The nuclear family pattern is the preferred ar rangement among most Americans.
Extended families are found in numerous forms throughout the world. In one case, that of the Nayar—a caste group in the pre-British period of southwestern India— spouse ties were practically absent. When a woman was about to enter puberty, she was "married" to a man chosen for her by a neighborhood assembly. After three ceremonial days, she was ritually "sep arated" from him and was then free to take on a number of "visiting husbands". Although a woman's lovers gave her regular gifts on prescribed occasions, they did not provide support. When a woman had a child, one of the men – often not the biological father - paid a fee to the midwife and thus established the child's legitimacy. But, the man had no economic, social, legal rights or obligations toward the child. The mother's kin took re sponsibility for the child.
Sociologists consider that industrialization undercut extended family patterns while encouraging nuclear family ar rangements. First, industrialism requires that peo ple move about in search of new job and pro fessional opportunities, weakening kin obli gations that depend on frequent and intimate interaction. Second, industrialism helps social mobility, creating conflicts among rela tives of different classes. Third, indus trialism substitutes nonkin agencies for kin groups in the form of police protection, education, and moneylending.
Descent. Societies trace descent and pass on property from one generation to the next in one of three ways. Under a patrilineal arrange ment, a people consider descent and pass on property- through the line of the father. Under a matrilineal arrangement, a people consider descent and pass on property through the line of the mother. Under the bilineal arrangement, both sides of an individual's family are equally important. Americans are typically bilineal, considering descent through both the father and the mother.
Residence. Societies also differ in the loca tion where a couple takes up residence after marriage. In the case of patrilocal residence, the couple lives in the household or community of the husband's family. In the op posite pattern a couple lives in matrilocal residence. In the United States, newlyweds tend to follow neo-local patterns in which they set up a new place of residence independent of either of their par ents or other relatives.
Authority. The authority a man or woman has in family is influenced by their personalities, but societies dictate who is expected to be the dominant figure. Under patriarchal arrange ments, it is the eldest male or the hus band who plays this role. The ancient Greeks, Romans, Chinese and Japanese provide a few examples. Under ma triarchal arrange ments, the power belongs to women. True matriarchies are rare. Matriarchies may not be the preferred in most societies, but they often arise through the death or desertion of the husband. In the third type of family with egalitarian arrangement, power and authority are equally distributed between husband and wife. This pattern has been on the increase in recent years in the United States, it is a system in which the couple make choices together.
2. Forms of Marriage
Forms of marriage are different; it’s interesting to take a closer look at marital arrangements, particu larly marriage. Marriage refers to a socially approved sexual union between two or more individuals that is undertaken with some idea of permanence.
Exogamy and Endogamy. Societies reg ulate the behavior of individ uals who are expected to select a mate. A child's kin generally have more in mind than simply getting a child married. They want the child married to the right spouse. Two types of marital regulations define the “right" spouse: endogamy and exogamy. Endogamy is the requirement that marriage takes place within a group (their class, race, ethnic group, or religion). Exogamy is the requirement that marriage takes place outside a group. In this case, people must marry outside their kin group, be it their immediate nuclear family, clan, or tribe.
Regulations relating to exogamy are based on kinship and usually require incest taboos, rules that prohibit sexual intercourse with close blood relatives. Incest taboos were once singled out by social scientists as the only universal norm. But sociologist Russell Middleton (1962) found that brother-sister marriage was frequently practiced by the ancient Egyptians. He thinks that brother-sister marriage served to keep up the power and property of a family.
Anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss (1956) suggests that incest taboos promote alliances between families. Incest taboos prevent destructive sexual jeal ousy. Incest would confuse family statuses (the in cestuous male offspring of a father-daughter union would be the son of his own sister, a stepson of his own grandmother, and a grand son of his own father).
Types of Marriage. The relationship be tween a husband and wife may be structured in one of four ways: monogamy, one husband and one wife; polygyny, one husband and two or more wives; polyandry, two or more hus bands and one wife; and group marriage, two or more husbands and two or more wives. Monogamy appears in all societies. Polygyny is widely spread throughout the world, with 83 percent of the 862 societies permitting husbands to take several wives. The Old Testament, for example, records polygynous practices among the He brews: Gideon had many wives, who bore him seventy sons; King David had several wives; King Solomon had seven hundred wives.
The lot of husbands with several wives rarely if ever conforms to the Hollywood im age of the Arabian sheik whose harem is ready to provide him every pleasure. If the plural wives are not friendly, the family will be torn by quarrels in which the hus band must take the role of judge; if they are friendly he is likely to be confronted by an organized female opposition. And generally, it is only the economically advantaged males who can afford to have more than one wife.
Polyandry is rare. Polyandry usually does not represent freedom of sexual choice for women; often, it involves the right or the opportunity of younger brothers to have sexual access to the wife of an older brother. If a family cannot afford wives or marriages for each of its sons, it may find a wife for the eldest son only.
3. The Functionalist Approach to the Family
Function alist theorists stress that a society must guarantee that certain essential tasks or functions are performed by the family.
Reproduction. If a society is to survive, new members have to be created. Sexual drives do not necessarily take care of the mat ter, because many people are sure that they can satisfy their sexual needs in the absence of procreation. There are many techniques allowing couples to separate sexual enjoyment from re production. Consequently, societies com monly motivate people to have children. Among peasant peoples, children are often de fined as an economic asset. Religious ideas
may operate. And in the United States, many Americans still define marriage and chil dren as affording the "good life"; the absence of children is often viewed as a mis fortune (in a recent Gallup survey, 45 percent of the respondents said that childless people are more likely to be unfulfilled, and 64 per cent felt that the childless are lonely).
Socialization. At birth, children are ignorant in the ways of culture. Children are capable of becoming adults of quite different sorts. It is important, that they become the "right" kind of adults. Through the process of socializa tion, children become introduced into their so ciety's ways; and the family functions as the chief culture-transmitting agency.
Care, Protection, and Emotional Support. Human children can’t survive independently of their parents (unlike the offspring of lower animals). They are to be fed, clothed, and pro vided with shelter well into teenage years. People as social beings have an emotional and interpersonal needs that can be met through interaction with other people. The family provides children with the experience of friendly, face-to-face contact with other people. Healthy family relationships give love, security, a sense of worth, and a feeling of well-being.
4. The Conflict Approach to the Family
Conflict theorists have seen the family as a social arrangement benefiting some people more than others. Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx viewed the family as a class society in minia ture, with one class (men) oppressing another class (women). They saw marriage as the first form of class antagonism.
Sociologist Randall Collins (1988) says that historically men have been the "sex ual aggressors" and women the "sexual prizes for men." Across many societies women have been seen as sexual property, taken as booty in war, used by their fathers in economic bargains, and considered as owned by their husbands.
Economic and po litical changes improved women's bar gaining position. They became potentially free to discuss their own sexual relations. But women often found that within the free marriage market, they had to trade their sexuality for the economic and sta tus resources of men.
Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and sociologist George Simme also offered a conflict approach to the family. They considered that intimate relationships involve antagonism as well as love. They suggested that conflict is a part of all systems, including the family and marital in teractions. They see family as con fronting two conflicting demands: to compete for autonomy, authority, and privilege, and at the same time to co-operate in order to survive and even flourish.
5. The Interactionist Approach to the Family
Symbolic interactionists emphasize that human beings create, use, and communicate with
symbols. They interact through role taking, a process of reading the symbols used by others and understanding their meanings. They organize their own behavior in terms of these under standings. Family members play different roles and these roles change across time. Parenthood or divorce change the husband / wife roles and influences the functioning of family. Individuals as active beings evolve, negotiate, and rework the social structure that makes up the mosaic of family life.
Chapter 2
Marriage and the Family in the United States
The family has be come a debated topic. To some people the nuclear family is the source of many modern sorrows. To others it is the last bastion of morality in a world that is becoming increas ingly immoral. And to the army of helping professionals, the family is a problem, an in stitution in great difficulty. It’s not out of place take a closer look at marriage and the family in American life.
1. Choosing a Marriage Partner
Although love has many mean ings, we usually think of the strong physical and emotional attraction between a man and a woman as romantic love.
The Social Regulation of Love. Romantic love is given more accent in some societies than in others. At one extreme, societies view marriage without love as shocking; at the other, they define strong ro mantic attachment as a laughable or tragic mistake. The American middle class demonstrates positive approval of romantic love.
Societies try to "control" love in a different ways. One approach is child mar riage. This model was in use at one time in India. A child bride went to live with her husband in a marriage that was not physically finished until much later. Another ap proach involves the social isolation of young people from potential mates. Still another approach provides the close supervision of couples by chaperons. And finally peer and parental pressures may be brought to ensure that youngsters "go with the right people." For example, in the United States parents of ten pressure their children to limit their social contacts to young people with "suitable" ethnic, religious, and educa tional backgrounds. Anyway the result is the same—a person's range of choice is narrowed by social barriers.
Factors in Mate Selection. Why do we fall in love with and marry one person and not another? A variety of factors seem to be at work. One is homogamy. People of similar ages, races, religions, nationalities, education, intelligence, health, atti tudes tend to marry one another.
Physical attractiveness also plays a part in mate selection. Americans prefer the companionship and friendship of attractive people and believe that attractive people are more likely to find good jobs, to marry well, and to lead happy lives. Since the number of unusually beau tiful or handsome partners is limited, in real life people tend to select partners who have a degree of physical attractiveness similar to their own.
We feel most comfortable with people who have certain personality traits, while those with other traits "rub us the wrong way." Sociologist Robert F. Winch (1958) formu lated a theory of complementary needs. This idea refers to two different personality characters that compliment each other and that provide a sense of completeness when they are joined. For instance, dominant people find a complementary relationship with pas sive people, and talkative people find them selves attracted to good listeners.
Exchange theory is based on the notion that we like those who reward us and dislike those who punish us. People expect that from their acts will flow some benefit - a de sired expression of love, gratitude, recogni tion, security, or material reward. In the course of interacting with one another, people develop the relationship by rewarding each other. Thus people with similar social traits, attitudes, and values are mutually rewarded by approving one another's life style.
2. Married Couples
Most adult Americans hope to start an intimate relationship with another person and make the relationship work. This finding un derlies a recent study of American couples undertaken by sociologists Philip Blumstein and Pepper Schwartz (1999). They examined the experiences of two types of couples: married and cohabitating. They understood that American couples were more conservative than they had thought. Although 60 percent of the wives were employed outside the home, only 30 percent of the men and 39 percent of the women believed that both spouses should work. Even when the wives had full-time jobs, they did the greater part of the housework. While 59 percent of the women contributed eleven or more hours a week to household chores, only 22 percent of the men contrib uted this amount of time. Indeed, husbands so disliked doing housework that the more they did of it, the more unhappy they were, the more they argued with their wives, and the greater were the chances the couple would divorce. In contrast, if a man did not contrib ute what a woman felt to be his fair share of the housework, the relationship was not usu ally in danger. American men could take pleasure in their partner's success only if it was not greater to their own. In contrast, women were found to be happier and rela tionships were more stable when the husbands were ambitious and successful. Most married couples pooled their money. How ever, regardless of how much the wife earned, they measured their financial success by the husband's income only.
Early in the marriage men were more likely than women to complain that they needed more "private time." But in long-standing marriages, it was the wives who more often complained that they did not have enough time by themselves.
Although divorce rates have increased, the re search described that Americans have not given up on marriage. Public opinion surveys prove that Ameri cans depend greatly on marriage for their psychological well-being.
3. Parenthood
Nuclear families typically pass through a number of changes across time (life cycle). The family begins with the husband-wife pair and becomes more complex as children are born, creating new roles and relation ships. The family then stabilizes, for a time, after which it begins decreasing as each of the adult children leaves home. Each modification in the role of one family member influences all the other members. The arrival of the first child forces the reorganization of a couple's life, since living as a trio is more complicated than living as a pair. Parents have to change their time schedules, change their communication patterns, and lose some privacy. Modern parents are less romantic and more realistic toward the effects of children on their lives than earlier gener ations. And still most couples feel great satisfaction with parenthood.
Clinical psychologists and psychiatrists have stressed the problem parents face when their children leave home. Dissatisfaction is most common among couples who had used their children's presence to hide the emp tiness of their own relationship. But most cou ples do not experience difficulty with the "empty-nest" period; the majority view this stage as a time of "new freedoms."
4. Employed Mothers
Over the past several decades, increasing num bers of mothers with children work outside the home.
Serious concern is voiced about the future of the nation's children. Many people fear that the working mother repre sents a loss to children in terms of supervision, love, and development. But many psychologists and sociologists are no longer asking whether it is good or bad that mothers work. Instead, they are finding that a more important factor is whether the mother, regardless of employ ment, is satisfied in her situation. The working mother who gets personal satisfaction from employment, who does not feel true guilt, and who has adequate household ar rangements is likely to perform as well as or better than the nonworking mother. Women whose lives are full of troubles are the ones whose chil dren are most likely to display behavior problems.
Arrangements for child care have changed from care in the home to care outside the home. About 9 million preschool chil dren spend at least part of their day cared for by someone other than their mothers. Families use a child-care center or preschool (25 %); some children are cared for in their own home by a relative or nonrelative (29%), and about 37 % are cared for in another home.
But the quality of the day-care centers leaves many people dissatisfied (child-care workers rank among the lowest 10 % of wage earners in the United States). Child-abuse scandals at centers have terrified many parents. Low-quality facilities promote different diseases, especially colds, diar rhea, and dysentery.
The effects of day-care depend to some extent on the amount of time a child spends at a center and on the quality of parent-child interaction during the time the family is together. Moreover, working moth ers provide a somewhat different role model for their children that is associated with less traditional gender-role concepts and a higher evaluation of female competence.
5. Two-income Families
Some 27.7 million American households—67 percent of all married couples—have two breadwinners. Even so, women still continue to take the primary responsibility for household tasks and child care. The result is that great numbers of working women say they do not have enough time to meet their home and work responsibilities.
In two-income families, the man typically has a larger voice in major household deci sions than the woman does. For instance, should a husband be offered a better position in another area of the country, the wife typically makes the move, regardless of the effect the transfer has on her career. Some wives fear that should they earn more, their husbands will feel that their manhood is in danger. Such couples run a high risk of psychological and physical violence, marital conflict, and sexual problems.
But couples can overcome difficulties. They can come to terms with old expectations and new realities and learn what is best for them. Women are growing more confident of their knowl edge and abilities, while increasing numbers of men are learning to share family responsi bility and power.
6. Family Violence, Child Abuse, and Incest
Family vio lence, child abuse, and incest are much more common than most Americans suspected.
Estimates of family violence vary widely. One survey found that 16 percent of respondents reported some kind of physical violence between the husband and wife during the year of the study.
Although both men and women are engaged in violence, men typically do more damage than women. Some men find it easier to control the weaker members of the family by force because it does not require negotiation or interpersonal skills.
Many women try to keep problems locked inside the family. On the one hand, the less education or fewer job skills a wife has, the more dependent she is in the marriage. On the other hand, Americans place the burden of family har mony on women. Finally, the more a wife was abused by her parents and witnessed violence in her child hood home, the more likely she is to remain with an abusive husband.
Children also suffer abuse and neglect. From interviews with 2,143 married couples representing a cross section of American fam ilies, sociologist Murray A. Straus and his col leagues estimate that parents kick, punch, or bite some 1.7 million children a year. Some reasons for abuse and violence are social stress, loss of a job or divorce; abusive parents are themselves likely to have been abused when they were children.
Although incest has been called the last taboo, its status as a taboo has not kept it from taking place. There are about ten female victims of incest for every male victim. The perpetrator is commonly the father, uncle, or other male authority figure in the household. In cases of father-daughter in cest, fathers are typically "family tyrants" who employ physical force to control their families. The mothers in such families are commonly passive, have a poor self-image, and are depen dent on their husbands. Rather often, childhood incest leads to serious emotional and psychological prob lems, low self-respect, guilt, isolation, mistrust of men, sexual precociousness, drug and alcohol abuse, and even suicide.
7. Divorce
Although divorce rates are high, in recent decades they have stabilized as Americans have become more conservative and more realistic in their marital expectations.
Changes in official divorce statistics do not inform us about unofficial separation. More than half of the couples who divorce have children. Re searchers find that the households of divorced mothers and fathers are largely more disorganized than those of unbroken families. The first two years after divorce are especially difficult. Di vorced mothers with teenage sons find their situation particularly stressful, in part because they have greater difficulty establishing con trol and authority. Financial problems complicate the difficulties of many women. Only half of divorced mothers receive any money at all from their children's fathers, and this is seldom much.
Divorce is more trivial today but it is hardly a routine experience. In many cases, divorce is a greater emo tional than almost any other type of stress. Separated and di vorced people more likely to die from cardio vascular disease, cancer, pneumonia, and cir rhosis of the liver, from accidents, and suicides. Middle-aged women often dedicated themselves to managing a home and raising children, and then find they are useless after years of marriage. Within the United States, some 100,000 people over the age of 55 divorce each year.
Most divorced people remarry. About five of every six divorced men and three of every four divorced women marry again. Divorced men are more likely to remarry than women. For one thing, divorced men are more likely to marry someone not previously married, for another, because men usually marry younger women.
8. Stepfamilies
Remarriage results in stepfamilies. New partners become stepparents. One in six American
families is a stepfamily; 35 million Americans live in one, including 20 percent of the nation's children under age 18.
Most stepparents try to re-create a tra ditional family. But the stepparent role is not similar with that of a biological parent, particularly in authority, and respect. The family tree of a stepfamily can be very complex, populated by children of spouses, grandparents and other relatives. The stepfamilies face some difficulties because stepparents and stepchildren do not have a common history.
Stepfamilies often start on an ideal istic note. But soon individuals get more realistic. Misunderstandings are caused by different family tradi tions, unrealized expectations, financial problems, unsolved power struggles. Discipline is a frequent prob lem because children often see the stepparent as an enemy.
In order to succeed, the stepfamily must loosen the links that connected the two previous biological families and struc ture a new social unit that.
9. Care for the Elderly
Generally, grown children still bear the main re sponsibility for their aged parents. The sense of obligation is strong. The elderly also get help from savings, pensions, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
Some 40 percent of Americans between the ages of 55 and 59 have at least one living parent. Social scientists call middle-aged adults the sandwich generation because they are responsible for their own teenage (college-age) children and for their elderly parents. Care for the elderly falls most often on daughters and daughters-in-law. They say: "A son's a son till he takes a wife, but a daughter's a daughter for the rest of her life." Yet 61 percent of the women also work. No wonder, women of the sandwich generation are subjected to stresses that are often combined with their own age-related problems, including lower energy levels, diseases, and family losses.
The motivations and expectations of the middle-aged differ in the life cycle. Intergenerational nervous tension is usu ally less if financial independence allows each generation to live separately. Both generations seem to prefer intimacy "at a distance" as long as possible. When middle-aged adults fail to take responsibility for their parent, it may re flect not "hardheartedness," but a stressful situation with which they can’t cope.
Chapter 3
Alternative Life Styles
Americans now enjoy more alterna tives in building their relationships to individ ual choice. A life style is the general pattern of living that people develop to meet their biologi cal, social, and emotional needs.
1. Singlehood
The number of Americans living alone has increased 90 % since 1970. Yet singles are hardly a monolithic group, with the divorced (11.5 million), widowed (12.7 million), and never-married (45.7 million). The figures suggest that a growing proportion of Americans may elect never to marry at all. In recent years, the notion that people must marry if they want to achieve hap piness and well-being has been questioned. Many Americans no longer think of singlehood as a category for the unchosen. Singles have found that as their numbers have grown, a singles subculture is available to them in most metropolitan areas. They can move into a singles apartment, go to a singles bar, and take a singles vacation and so on. And if they wish, they can lead an active sex life without getting an unwanted mate, child, or repu tation.
2. Unmarried Cohabitation
The number of adults who share living quar ters with an unrelated adult of the opposite sex has increased in recent decades. Indeed, nearly half of all Americans from 25 to 35 years of age have at some time lived in such an ar rangement. Cohabiting before marriage is even more common (some 58 percent of recently married couples have done so. The media often call cohabiters "unmarried marrieds" and their relationships "trial marriages". College students com monly define cohabitation as part of the court ship process, rather than as a long-term alter native to marriage.
Couples living together but not married are not free from money, sex, and house work. As with married men, cohabiting men are more likely to initiate sexual activity, make most of the spending decisions, and do little of the housework. Cohabiting couples experience many of the same sorts of problems as married couples.
3. Gay Couples
Few people in the history of Western society have been more scorned than gays. The society fails to answer to the question: "Do you think homosexual relations should or should not be legal?" Although gays have won some important victories in their fight to prohibit discrimination
on the basis of sexual orienta tion, they do not enjoy the freedom to practice a gay life style openly in all spheres of American life.
Gays are a varied group. They are found in all occupational fields, political groups, religious, and ethnic groups.
Homosexual adults who do not regret their sexual orientation, and who can function socially, are no more distressed psychologically than are traditional couples. The research shows that lesbians tend to form more lasting ties than do male homosexuals. However, whereas lesbian and heterosexual couples place consid erable emphasis on fidelity, male homosexual couples tolerate outside sexual relations. Homosexual men tend to share household duties according to each person's skills and preferences and only rarely on the basis of stereotyped roles of "husband" and "wife."
Conclusion
W
e hear a good deal nowadays about the coming death of the family. Many Americans view the family as an institution in crisis: divorce rates are high; birth rates are low; the proportion of unmarried mothers has increased; single-parent households have grown in number; mothers of young children have entered the labor force in large numbers; and the elderly are placing growing reliance on the govern ment rather than the family for financial sup port.
No doubt, the meaning of marriage has been changing and with it the family institu tion. But declarations concerning the death of the family seem exaggerated. Some sociologists insist that the family is timeless; it is rooted in our social and an imal nature. Since society is always changing, the family must change to reflect this fact. The family is simply changing to reflect personal life style choices available in today's society.
Despite massive re search, historians have not located a "golden age of the family". Indeed, concerns about the family have a long history. The "family question" is not new. So, families will continue to adapt in unforeseen ways, and it is safe to assume that de bate will continue.
Bibliography
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2. Abramhamson, Mark. Functionalism. Englewood Cliffs. Prentice Hall. 1987.
3. Arens, W. The original sin: Incest and its meaning. New York: oxford Press. 1989.
4. Balkwell, Carolyn. Transition to Widowhood. Family relations. 1981.
5. Belsky, Jay, Graham B. Spenser and Michael Rovine. Stability and change in Marriage across the transition to parenthood. Journal of Marriage and the Family. 1989.
Glossary
bilineal Reckoning descent and transmitting property through both the father and the mother.
complementary needs Two different personality traits that are the counterparts of each other and
that provide a sense of completeness when they are joined. '
endogamy The requirement that marriage occur within a group.
egalitarian An arrangement in which power and authority is equally distributed between husband and wife.
exchange theory The view that proposes that peo ple involved in a mutually satisfying relationship will exchange behaviors that have low cost and high reward.
exogamy The requirement that marriage occur outside a group.
extended family A family arrangement in which kin—individuals related by common ancestry— provide the core relationship; spouses are function ally marginal and peripheral.
family A social group whose members are related by ancestry, marriage, or adoption and who live together, cooperate economically, and care for the young.
family life cycle Changes and realignments related to the altered expectations and requirements im posed on a husband and wife as children are born and grow up.
family of orientation A nuclear family that con sists of oneself and one's father, mother, and sib lings.
family of procreation A nuclear family that con sists of oneself and one's spouse and children.
group marriage The marriage of two or more husbands and two or more wives.
homogamy The tendency of like to marry like, homosexuality A preference for an individual of the same sex as a sexual partner.
incest taboos Rules that prohibit sexual inter course with close blood relatives.
life style The overall pattern of living that people evolve to meet their biological, social, and emo tional needs.
marriage A socially approved sexual union be tween two or more individuals that is undertaken with some idea of permanence, matching hypothesis The notion that we typically experience the greatest payoff and the least cost when we select partners who have a degree of phys ical attractiveness similar to our own matriarchy The vesting of power in the family in women.
matrilineal Reckoning descent and inheritance through the mother's side of the family. matrilocal A bride and groom live in the house hold or community of the wife's family. monogamy The marriage of one husband and one wife.
neolocal Newlyweds set up a new place of resi dence independent of either of their parents or other relatives.
norm of legitimacy The rule that children not be born out of wedlock.
nuclear family A family arrangement in which the spouses and their offspring constitute the core relationship; blood relatives are functionally marginal and peripheral.
patriarchy The vesting of power in the family in men
patrilinean Reckoning descent and inheritance through the father’s side of the family
patrilocal A bride and broom live in the household or community of the husband’s family.
polyandry The marriage of two or more husbands and one wife.
polygyny The marriage of one husband and two or more wives.
romantic love The strong physical and emotional attraction between a man and a woman.
Бородино. М.Ю. Лермонтов
Загадочная система из шести экзопланет
Одна беседа. Лев Кассиль
Лев Николаевич Толстой. Индеец и англичанин (быль)
Стеклянный Человечек