13.1: Education in Global Perspective

 13.1: Education in Global Perspective 

Education: Transferring Knowledge and Skills To understand how education is related to a nation’s culture and economy, let’s trace the development of universal education and then compare education in three countries at different levels of industrialization. Education in Global Perspective 13.1 Understand how education is related to the culture and economy of a nation, and compare education in Japan, Russia, and Egypt. Have you ever wondered why people need a high school diploma to sell cars or to join the U.S. Marines? You will learn what you need to know on the job. Why do employers insist on diplomas and degrees? Why don’t they simply use on-the-job training? In some cases, job skills must be mastered before you are allowed to do the work. On-the-job training was once adequate to become an engineer or an airline pilot, but with changes in information and technology, it falls far short of what is needed today. This is precisely why doctors display their credentials so prominently. Their framed degrees declare that an institution of higher learning has certified them to work on your body. 418 But testing in algebra or paragraph construction to sell sheets at Target or to serve burritos at Chipotle? As sociologist Randall Collins (1979) said, industrialized nations have become credential societies. By this, he meant that employers use diplomas and degrees as sorting devices to determine who is eligible for a job. Because employers don’t know potential workers, they depend on schools to weed out the incapable. For example, when you graduate from college, potential employers will presume that you are a responsible person—that you have shown up for numerous classes, have turned in scores of assignments, and have demonstrated basic writing and thinking skills. They will then graft their particular job skills onto this foundation, which has been certified by your college. The cartoonist captures a primary reason that we have become a credential society. Watch South Africa School Offers Migrant Children Rare Lifeline Play WatchSouth Africa School Offers Migrant Children Rare Lifeline

12.6.6: Fathers’ Contact with Children after Divorce

 12.6.6: Fathers’ Contact with Children after Divorce

 With most children living with their mothers after divorce, how often do fathers see their children? As you can see from Table 12.3, researchers have found four main patterns. The most common pattern is for fathers to see their children frequently after the divorce and to keep doing so. But as you can see, a similar number of fathers have little contact with their children both right after the divorce and in the following years. Table 12.3 Fathers’ Contact with their Children after Divorce 

Fathers’ Contact with their Children after Divorce

Frequent1	Minimal2	Decrease3	Increase4
38%	32%	23%	8%

1 Maintains contact once a week or more through the years.

2 Little contact after the divorce, maybe two to six times a year.

3 Has frequent contact after the divorce but decreases it through the years.

4 Has little contact after the divorce but increases it through the years. Sometimes called the “divorce activated” father.

Which fathers are more likely to see and talk often to their children? It is men who were married to the mothers of the children, especially those who are older, more educated, and have higher incomes. In contrast, men who were cohabiting with the mothers, as well as younger, less educated men with lower incomes, tend to have less contact with their children. If his former wife marries, the father tends to see his children less (Berger et al. 2012).

12.6.5: Grandchildren of Divorce:

 12.6.5: Grandchildren of Divorce: 

Ripples to the Future Paul Amato and Jacob Cheadle (2005), the first sociologists to study the grandchildren of couples who had divorced, found that the effects of divorce continue across generations. Using a national sample, they compared grandchildren—those whose grandparents had divorced with those whose grandparents had not divorced. Their findings are astounding. The grandchildren of divorce have weaker ties to their parents, don’t go as far in school, and don’t get along as well with their spouses. As these researchers put it, when parents divorce, the consequences ripple through the lives of children who are not yet born.

12.6.7: The Ex-Spouses

 12.6.7: The Ex-Spouses

 Anger, depression, and anxiety are common feelings at divorce. But so is relief. Women are more likely than men to feel that divorce is giving them a “new chance” in life. A few couples manage to remain friends through it all; but they are the exception. The spouse who initiates the divorce usually gets over it sooner (Kelly 1992; Wang and Amato 2000) and remarries sooner (Sweeney 2002). Divorce does not necessarily mean the end of a couple’s relationship. Many divorced couples maintain contact because of their children. For others, the continuities, as sociologists call them, represent lingering attachments (Vaughan 1985; Masheter 1991; author’s file 2005). The former husband may help his former wife paint a room or move furniture; she may invite him over for a meal or to watch television. They might even go to dinner or to see a movie together. Some couples even continue to make love after they divorce (Spielmann et al. 2019).

12.6.4: Children of Divorce Divorce is especially hard on children.

 12.6.4: Children of Divorce Divorce is especially hard on children. 

Let’s first see what those negative effects are, then what helps children adjust to divorce. Negative Effects Children whose parents divorce are more likely than children reared by both parents to have behavioral problems, to get poor grades and drop out of high school, and to get in trouble with the law (Amato 2000, 2010; Haimi and Lerner 2016; Pratt et al. 2019). They are also more likely to divorce, perpetuating a marriage–divorce cycle (D’Onofrio et al. 2019). These negative effects are more common for children in poverty (Mandemakers and Kalmijn 2014). Is the greater maladjustment of the children of divorce a serious problem? This question initiated a lively debate between two psychologists. Judith Wallerstein claims that divorce scars children, making them depressed and leaving them with insecurities that follow them into adulthood (Wallerstein et al. 2001). Mavis Hetherington replies that 75 to 80 percent of children of divorce function as well as children who are reared by both of their parents (Hetherington and Kelly 2003). Without meaning to weigh in on either side of this debate, it doesn’t seem to be a simple case of the glass being half-empty or half-full. If 75 to 80 percent of children of divorce don’t suffer long-term harm, this leaves one-fourth to one-fifth who do. Any way you look at it, one-fourth or one-fifth of a million children each year is a lot of kids who are having a lot of problems.

12.6.1: Ways of Measuring Divorce

 12.6.1: Ways of Measuring Divorce You probably have heard that the U.S. divorce rate is 50 percent, a figure that is popular with reporters. The statistic is true in the sense that each year about half as many divorces are granted as there are marriages performed. The totals are about 2 million marriages and 1 million divorces (Statistical Abstract 2019:Table 134). What is wrong, then, with saying that the divorce rate is about 50 percent? Think about it for a moment. Why should we compare the number of divorces and marriages that take place during the same year? The couples who divorced do not—with rare exceptions—come from the group that married that year. The one number has nothing to do with the other, so in no way do these two statistics reveal the divorce rate. What figures should we compare, then? Couples who divorce come from the entire group of married people in the country. Since the United States has 63,000,000 married couples and about 1 million of them get divorced in a year, the divorce rate for any given year is less than 2 percent. A couple’s chances of still being married at the end of a year are higher than 98 percent—not bad odds—and certainly much better odds than the mass media would have us believe. As the following Social Map shows, the “odds”—if we want to call them that—depend on where you live.

 Figure 12.12 The “Where” of U.S. Divorce

Over time, of course, each year’s small percentage adds up. A third way of measuring divorce, then, is to ask, “Of all U.S. adults, what percentage is divorced?” Figure 12.13 answers this question. You can see how divorce has increased over the years and how race–ethnicity makes a difference for the likelihood that couples will divorce. But this figure only shows us the percentage of Americans who are currently divorced. Those who have remarried don’t show up here. Figure 12.13 The Increase in Divorce

We get yet another answer if we ask the question, “What percentage of Americans who marry will ever divorce?” The best estimate is about 42 to 45 percent (Amato 2010; Stanley 2015). A divorce rate of 50 percent, then, is actually fairly accurate.

12.6 Summarize problems in measuring divorce,

 Divorce and Remarriage 

12.6 Summarize problems in measuring divorce, research findings on children and grandchildren of divorce, fathers’ contact after divorce, ex-spouses, and remarriage. The topic of family life would not be complete without considering divorce. Let’s first try to determine how much divorce there is.

12.5.3: The “Sandwich Generation” and Elder Care

 12.5.3: The “Sandwich Generation” and Elder Care 

The “sandwich generation” refers to people who find themselves sandwiched between and responsible for two other generations, their children and their own aging parents. 

Typically between the ages of 40 and 55, these people find themselves pulled in two directions.

 Many feel overwhelmed as these competing responsibilities collide.

 Some are plagued with guilt and anger because they can be in only one place at a time and are left with little time to pursue personal interests—or to just “get away from it all.” 

As during the child-rearing years, women provide more emotional support than men to both grown children and aging parents (Parker and Patten 2013). 

With people living longer, this issue is likely to become increasingly urgent.

12.4.1: African American Families

 12.4.1: African American Families

 Note that the heading reads African American families, not the African American family. There is no such thing as the African American family any more than there is the white family or the Latino family. The primary distinction is not between African Americans and other groups but between social classes (Haynes and Solovitch 2017).

African Americans who are members of the upper class follow the class interests reviewed in Chapter 8—preservation of privilege and family fortune. Viewing marriage as a merger of family lines, they are concerned about the family background of those whom their children marry (Gatewood 1990; Haynes and Solovitch 2017). Children of this class marry later than children of other classes. Middle-class African American families focus on achievement and respectability. Both husband and wife are likely to work outside the home. A central concern is that their children go to college, get good jobs, and marry well—that is, marry people like themselves, respectable and hardworking, who want to get ahead in school and pursue a successful career. African American families in poverty face all the problems that cluster around poverty (Armstrong et al. 2019). Because the men have few marketable skills and few job prospects, it is difficult for them to fulfill the cultural roles of husband and father. Consequently, these families are likely to be headed by a woman and to have a high rate of births to single women. Divorce and desertion are also more common than among other classes. Sharing scarce resources and “stretching kinship” are primary survival mechanisms. People who have helped out in hard times are considered brothers, sisters, or cousins to whom one owes obligations as though they are blood relatives. Men who are not the biological fathers of their children are given fatherhood status (Nelson 2013; Hunter et al. 2019). Sociologists use the term fictive kin to refer to this stretching of kinship. From Figure 12.6, you can see that, compared with other groups, African American families are the least likely to be headed by married couples and the most likely to be headed by women. Because African American women tend to go farther in school than African American men, they face a marriage squeeze. That is, their pool of eligible partners with characteristics that match theirs has shrunk, and they are more likely than women in other racial–ethnic groups to marry men who are less educated than themselves (Lichter and Qian 2019). Figure 12.6 Family Structure: U.S. Families with Children under Age 18 Headed by Mothers, Fathers, and Both Parents

12.4 Summarize resrch on families:ea

 Diversity in U.S. Families

 12.4 Summarize research on families: 

African American, Latino, Asian American, Native American, one-parent, couples without children, blended, and gay and lesbian. In several contexts, we have seen how significant social class is in our lives. Its significance will continue to be evident as we examine diversity in U.S. families.

12.3.5: Family Transitions

 12.3.5: Family Transitions 

The later stages of family life bring their own pleasures to be savored and problems to be solved. Let’s look at two transitions—children staying home longer and adults adjusting to widowhood. Transitional Adulthood Adolescents, especially young men, used to leave home after finishing high school. When the last child left home at about age 17 to 19, the parents were left with what was called an empty nest. Today’s nest is far from as empty as it used to be. With prolonged education and the higher cost of establishing a household, children in the Western world are leaving home later. Many stay home during college, while others who strike out on their own find the costs or responsibilities too great and return home. Much to their own disappointment, some even leave and return to the parents’ home several times. As a result, for the first time since 1880, the percentage of young adults (ages 18 to 34) who live with their parents is larger than those who live with a spouse or partner in a separate household (Fry 2016). Some even bring their boyfriend or girlfriend to live with them at their parent’s house. Sociologists use the term transitional adulthood to refer to this major change in how people become adults. A more playful term, but just as accurate, is waithood (Milkman 2017). Having so many young adults waiting for “full adulthood” is new on the historical scene, so its roadmap is still being worked out. Although adultolescents enjoy the protection of home, they have to grapple with issues of privacy, authority, and responsibilities—items that both the “waiters” and the parents thought were resolved long ago. Widowhood As you know, women are more likely than men to become widowed. There are two reasons for this: On average, women live longer than men, and they usually marry men older than they are. For either women or men, the death of a spouse tears at the self, clawing at identities that merged through the years. With the one who had become an essential part of the self gone, the survivor, as in adolescence, once again confronts the perplexing question “Who am I?” 398 The death of a spouse produces what is called the widowhood effect: The impact of the death is so strong that surviving spouses tend to die earlier than expected. The widowhood effect hits men harder than women, as there are almost twice as many “excess deaths,” as sociologists call them, among widowed men than among widowed women (Schnittker 2019). This indicates that marriage brings greater health benefits to elderly men

Applying Sociology to Your Life What Kind of Parent Will You Be?

 Applying Sociology to Your Life 

What Kind of Parent Will You Be? 

Most people marry and have children, so for the purpose of this applying sociology to your life, let’s assume that you will, too. When you get pregnant or learn that your wife is pregnant, one of your first thoughts is likely to be some version of “I’m not sure I can handle this. I don’t think I know how to be a parent.” Such thoughts aren’t surprising, especially because the family “experts” keep hammering at the same old thing: “Be careful about how you raise your newborn, that fragile little thing, or you might ruin its life.” And they keep singing a related refrain: “We have the answers, so listen to us and follow what we tell you.” A decade earlier these experts were telling parents a different way to raise their children. And a decade from now, those same experts will be giving new answers in carefully scripted best sellers, eagerly sought by concerned parents.

Spank—never spank. Let children be dependent—not that much dependence. Give them freedom—no, too much freedom confuses them. Supervise their play—no, give them free play and let them find themselves. Be goal directed—no, let children enjoy childhood and just have fun. On and on. But be ultra-careful, they warn, with fingers pointing at you, their shrill voices screaming in your ears, making you think that one false step, and you can ruin your child forever. Really? Well, let’s look around the world. American family experts today: “Don’t sleep with your child. Your child will become too dependent, won’t learn to make the separation so essential for its development. Besides, dear new mother and father, you might crush the little thing as you turn in your sleep, slowly squeezing the life out of its tiny helpless body.” Fear. Listen to those experts. Co-sleeping, as it is called, isn’t some strange new parenting practice that harms children. In Japan, almost all mothers sleep with their babies. And when mothers of Nso, a tribe in Africa, learned that German mothers and their babies don’t sleep together, they were shocked. “How can those mothers be so cruel?” they wondered. “Make sure you look your children in the eye,” so they will learn proper eye contact with adults. Absolutely the right way, say the experts. How wrong those Gusii mothers in Africa must be. They figure that direct eye contact with their children is too stimulating for them. “Don’t pick up your child every time she cries. She needs to learn independence.” Those Gusii mothers again. Not only do they pick their babies up when they cry, but they also nurse them when they cry. They figure that the bodily contact—the touching and the breast and the cooing—makes the babies feel secure. What’s the answer? The answer is that there is no single right way of being a parent. Children are resilient. Relax. Your children will do just fine. Follow the basics that you already know—give your babies love and security and plenty of food. Let them be little kids and enjoy themselves. When they are frightened or sad, comfort them. And don’t worry about the “right” way to do this. If the child feels better, you did just fine. Those family experts are selling books! Or else they are little parrots who haven’t been able to write their own books, repeating what they’ve read about the right way to rear children. From looking around the world, you can see that there are different ways of rearing children. There is no such thing as the right way. Despite contrasting childrearing practices, most adults turn out just fine. Knowing this should help you relax about being a parent—and enjoy it more. SOURCES: Based on Caplan 2012 and Levine and Levine 2016. For Your Consideration → If you are a parent already, how would you describe your parenting?

Helicopter Parenting

Helicopter Parenting

 Parents who hover over their children, involved in almost all aspects of their lives as they try to make certain that everything goes according to plan—their plan—are called helicopter parents. Helicoptering has become common among upper-middle-class parents, who are almost obsessively concerned that their children have the right experiences and make the right choices in life. The helicoptering that begins in childhood often doesn’t end with childhood, as some deans have discovered when parents have called to complain that their child received an “unfair” grade. Helicoptering can make children dependent. Those who have decisions made for them can find it difficult to stand on their own. Consider this real-life event: The fresh college graduate was on a job interview. Things went well, and the interviewer was about to offer him the job. When the interviewer mentioned salary, the man said, “My mom is really good at negotiating,” and he got up and brought in his mother, who had been waiting outside the office. (author’s files) And no, he did not get the job. The interviewer was not interested in hiring his mother

The Right Way to Rear Children Helicoptering will come and helicoptering will go. The social classes will always have different approaches to child rearing. But what is the right way? For this answer, read the following Applying Sociology to Your Life. 

12.3.4: Child Rearing

 12.3.4: Child Rearing

 With it common for both wife and husband to work outside the home, who’s minding the kids, especially the preschoolers? As you can see from Figure 12.5, 40 percent of the preschoolers are cared for by their parents at home. For these children, usually only one parent is working outside the home, but some parents are juggling two work shifts to be able to care for their children at home. Another 19 percent of preschoolers are cared for by relatives, most commonly the grandparents. Of the other 41 percent not cared for at home or with relatives, the most common arrangement is day care. 

Figure 12.5 Who Takes Care of the Babies and Preschoolers?

Day Care You know that quality child care is important, but did you know that children who receive quality care do better at language, math, and reading? They even have better memories (Li et al. 2013). About 30 percent of U.S. children are in day care, but only a minority of these children receives high-quality care—stimulating learning activities, emotional warmth, and attentiveness to their needs (Belsky 2009; Statistical Abstract 2019:Table 593). 

A primary reason for this dismal situation is the low salaries paid to day care workers. They average only about $11.27 an hour (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2019). 395 How can you find quality day care and how can you watch your children while you are at work? Let’s look at this in the following Applying Sociology to Your Life. Applying Sociology to Your Life Finding Quality Day Care Let’s assume that you have become a parent, and also that you have to work full-time. How do you find quality day care? If your parents, the new grandma and grandpa, are around—and willing—you don’t have to be concerned. But let’s suppose they aren’t. It is difficult for you to judge the quality of day care, since things might look “quality,” but you don’t know what takes place when you are not there. What should you look for? Here are the two factors that best predict quality care: a staff that has taken courses in early childhood development and a low ratio of children per staff member (Belsky et al. 2007; Manning et al. 2019). If you have nagging fears that your child might be neglected or, forbid the thought, even abused, choose a center that streams live Web cam images on the Internet. While at work, you can “visit” the day care center via cyberspace and monitor your child’s activities and care. Day care has become a primary socializing agent for millions of children. The text explains how to select superior day care facilities. Credit: AMELIE-BENOIST/BSIP/Superstock Nannies For upper-middle-class parents, nannies have become a popular alternative to day care centers. Parents love the one-on-one care and the convenience of not having to drive the child to a day care center or having to take time off from work when the child becomes ill. A recurring problem, however, is tensions between the parents and the nanny: disagreements over discipline styles and jealousy that the nanny might see the first step, hear the first word, or—worse yet—be called “mommy.” There can also be what parents find heart-breaking—the child crying when the nanny leaves but not when the mother goes to work. Social Class Do you think that social class makes a difference in how people rear their children? If you answered “yes,” you are right. Sociologists have found that working-class parents tend to think of children as wildflowers that develop naturally, while in the middle-class mind, children are like tender garden flowers that need careful nurturing if they are to bloom (Lareau 2011). These contrasting views make a world of difference in how people rear their children. Working-class parents are more likely to set limits for their children and then let them choose their own activities, while middle-class parents are more likely to try to push their children into activities that they think will develop their thinking and social skills. The parent’s type of work is especially significant (Kohn 1963, 1977; Mose 2016). Because members of the working class are closely supervised on their jobs, where they are expected to follow explicit rules, their concern is less with their children’s motivation and more with their outward conformity. These parents are more apt to use physical punishment, which brings about outward conformity, and may or may not change attitudes. Middle-class workers, in contrast, are expected to take more initiative on the job. This leads them to have more concern that their children develop curiosity and self-expression. Middle-class parents are less likely to use physical punishment and more likely to withdraw privileges or affection. Hearing from the Author: How Social Class Affects Parenting Listen to the Audio Listen to the Audio 396 Helicopter Parenting Parents who hover over their children, involved in almost all aspects of their lives as they try to make certain that everything goes according to plan—their plan—are called helicopter parents. Helicoptering has become common among upper-middle-class parents, who are almost obsessively concerned that their children have the right experiences and make the right choices in life. The helicoptering that begins in childhood often doesn’t end with childhood, as some deans have discovered when parents have called to complain that their child received an “unfair” grade. Helicoptering can make children dependent. Those who have decisions made for them can find it difficult to stand on their own. Consider this real-life event: The fresh college graduate was on a job interview. Things went well, and the interviewer was about to offer him the job. When the interviewer mentioned salary, the man said, “My mom is really good at negotiating,” and he got up and brought in his mother, who had been waiting outside the office. (author’s files) And no, he did not get the job. The interviewer was not interested in hiring his mother. The Right Way to Rear Children Helicoptering will come and helicoptering will go. The social classes will always have different approaches to child rearing. But what is the right way? For this answer, read the following Applying Sociology to Your Life. Applying Sociology to Your Life What Kind of Parent Will You Be? Most people marry and have children, so for the purpose of this applying sociology to your life, let’s assume that you will, too. When you get pregnant or learn that your wife is pregnant, one of your first thoughts is likely to be some version of “I’m not sure I can handle this. I don’t think I know how to be a parent.” Such thoughts aren’t surprising, especially because the family “experts” keep hammering at the same old thing: “Be careful about how you raise your newborn, that fragile little thing, or you might ruin its life.” And they keep singing a related refrain: “We have the answers, so listen to us and follow what we tell you.” A decade earlier these experts were telling parents a different way to raise their children. And a decade from now, those same experts will be giving new answers in carefully scripted best sellers, eagerly sought by concerned parents. Credit: Wavebreak Media Ltd PH15/Alamy Stock Photo Spank—never spank. Let children be dependent—not that much dependence. Give them freedom—no, too much freedom confuses them. Supervise their play—no, give them free play and let them find themselves. Be goal directed—no, let children enjoy childhood and just have fun. On and on. But be ultra-careful, they warn, with fingers pointing at you, their shrill voices screaming in your ears, making you think that one false step, and you can ruin your child forever. Really? Well, let’s look around the world. American family experts today: “Don’t sleep with your child. Your child will become too dependent, won’t learn to make the separation so essential for its development. Besides, dear new mother and father, you might crush the little thing as you turn in your sleep, slowly squeezing the life out of its tiny helpless body.” Fear. Listen to those experts. Co-sleeping, as it is called, isn’t some strange new parenting practice that harms children. In Japan, almost all mothers sleep with their babies. And when mothers of Nso, a tribe in Africa, learned that German mothers and their babies don’t sleep together, they were shocked. “How can those mothers be so cruel?” they wondered. “Make sure you look your children in the eye,” so they will learn proper eye contact with adults. Absolutely the right way, say the experts. How wrong those Gusii mothers in Africa must be. They figure that direct eye contact with their children is too stimulating for them. “Don’t pick up your child every time she cries. She needs to learn independence.” Those Gusii mothers again. Not only do they pick their babies up when they cry, but they also nurse them when they cry. They figure that the bodily contact—the touching and the breast and the cooing—makes the babies feel secure. What’s the answer? The answer is that there is no single right way of being a parent. Children are resilient. Relax. Your children will do just fine. Follow the basics that you already know—give your babies love and security and plenty of food. Let them be little kids and enjoy themselves. When they are frightened or sad, comfort them. And don’t worry about the “right” way to do this. If the child feels better, you did just fine. Those family experts are selling books! Or else they are little parrots who haven’t been able to write their own books, repeating what they’ve read about the right way to rear children. From looking around the world, you can see that there are different ways of rearing children. There is no such thing as the right way. Despite contrasting childrearing practices, most adults turn out just fine. Knowing this should help you relax about being a parent—and enjoy it more. SOURCES: Based on Caplan 2012 and Levine and Levine 2016. For Your Consideration → If you are a parent already, how would you describe your parenting?

12.3.3: Childbirth

 12.3.3: Childbirth 

As you have seen, the family adapts to social change. 

Because we never have a shortage of change in our society, marriage and family are in a continual process of change. 

In this context, let’s look at bearing children. 

Ideal Family Size 

The number of children that Americans consider ideal has changed over the years. 

You can track these changes in Figure 12.2. 

Look at the abrupt change that took place in the 1970s, how women suddenly decided that they preferred fewer children. 

What happened? 

Figure 12.2 The Number of Children Americans Think Are Ideal The following interactive is not accessible to keyboard and screen reader users. What follows is an explanation of what appears on the screen. Two lines show the change in the number of two and four children families.1. Two childrenThe graph shows year on the x-axis and percent on the y-axis. It is shown that the percentage of two children families has increased from 36 percent in 1936 to 51 percent in 2018. The line decreases and increases slightly over time.2. Four plus childrenThe graph shows year on the x-axis and percent on the y-axis. It is shown that the percentage of four plus children families has decreased from 64 percent in 1936 to 41 percent in 2018. The line decreases and increases slightly over time. Recall the emphasis of the sociological perspective introduced in Chapter 1, how historical events influence our lives. This abrupt change in ideal family size occurred in the context of three major events: the arrival of the birth control pill, the onset of the sexual revolution, and a fundamental change in how women viewed work—from a temporary activity before marriage to long-term careers. 

Sometimes our ideals change, but we are not able to put them into practice. As you can see from Figure 12.3, this was not the case with this shift in ideal family size. With the arrival of the birth control pill, there was a remarkable drop in births. 

Figure 12.3 The Remarkable Change in Two- and Four-Children Families SOURCE: Based on U.S. Census Bureau 2015. 1. Two children The graph shows year on the x-axis and percent on the y-axis. It is shown that the percentage of two children families has increased from 22 percent in 1976 to 36 percent in 2014. 2. Four plus children The graph shows year on the x-axis and percent on the y-axis. It is shown that the percentage of four plus children families has decreased from 36 percent in 1976 to 12 percent in 2014. If they had their way, some couples would specify not just the number of children but also their characteristics, the topic of the following Sociology and Technology: The Shifting Landscape. Sociology and Technology: The Shifting Landscape What Color Eyes? How Tall? Designer Babies on the Way Ready to shop for your child? You might begin by browsing the online catalogue of sperm donors at the London Sperm Bank. With a few clicks, you can check the donor’s race–ethnicity, eye color, hair color, and height—even the man’s religion, education, and TV preferences (de Lange 2014). Satisfied? Click “Add to Cart” and go to Check Out. Actually, they haven’t added those check-out clicks yet. But the list of donor characteristics is there. In the coming world of Designer Baby Clinics, you will be able to put in your order. Not like fast food, of course, because it will still take the usual nine months. The allure of choosing a daughter who will be a scientist, a son who will be musical—or a basketball star—is apparent. To pick superior qualities for your child, isn’t this like being able to pick a superior college? Moral Dilemmas But with this allure comes moral dilemmas. Let’s suppose that a couple wants a blue-eyed red-headed boy.

 As Figure 12.4 shows, the technicians will fertilize several eggs, test the embryos, and plant the one(s) with the desired characteristics in a uterus. And the embryos that are not used? They will be flushed down the toilet. Some people find this objectionable. Figure 12.4 On Our Way to Designer Babies SOURCE: Adapted from Naik 2009. Reproduced with permission. Photo Credit: Yatso/Shutterstock The details of the figure are as follows: A woman’s eggs are fertilized with sperm in a lab, creating several embryos. A single cell is removed from each embryo, and then tested for biomarkers associated with females, green eyes, and blond hair. Only embryos with the biomarkers for the required traits are placed in the woman’s womb. The procedure virtually guarantees that the child will be female and increases the probability she will have green eyes and blond hair. Others are concerned that selecting certain characteristics represents a bias against people who have different characteristics. To order a tall designer baby, for example, is this a bias against short people? If it isn’t quite clear why this is a bias, perhaps this will help. If there is a preference for boys, a lot of female embryos will be flushed down the toilet. Or consider this: Two deaf parents want a deaf child. They fear that if their child is part of the hearing world it will drive a wedge between them (Fordham 2011). Would it be moral or immoral to produce a deaf child? Oh, the moral dilemmas our new technologies bring! For Your Consideration → One more moral issue to consider: a super race. If we can produce people who are superior physically, intellectually, and emotionally, would it be wrong to do so? Or would it be immoral not to do so if this is within our capacity? 

Marital Satisfaction after Childbirth Sociologists have found that after the birth of a child, satisfaction with the marriage usually decreases (Maas et al. 2015; Musick et al. 2016). 

To understand why, recall from Chapter 5 that a dyad (two persons) provides greater intimacy than a triad (after adding a third person, interaction must be shared). 

In addition, the birth of a child unbalances the life that the couple has worked out.

 To move from the abstract to the concrete, think about the implications for marriage of coping with a fragile newborn’s 24-hour-a-day needs of being fed, soothed, and diapered—while the parents’ sleep is disrupted and their expenses grow. Then when the last child reaches age 6, marital happiness increases. This is when the child starts school and is away from home a lot. This happiness is short-lived, though, and takes a nosedive when the child reaches age 12 or 13. You can figure this one out—the devil years of adolescence. But those years don’t last forever (although many parents think they will), and happiness increases again when the last child gets through the troubled, rebellious years (Senior 2010). Husbands and wives have children because of biological urges and because of the satisfactions they expect. New parents bubble over with joy, saying things like “There’s no feeling to compare with holding your own child in your arms. Those little hands, those tiny feet, those big eyes, that little nose, that sweet face …” and they gush on and on. 

There really is no equivalent to parents. It is their child, and no one else takes such delight in the baby’s first steps, first word, and so on. Let’s turn, then, to child rearing.

12.3.2: Marriage

 12.3.2: Marriage 

Ask Americans why they married, and they will say that they were “in love.” Contrary to folklore, whatever love is, it certainly is not blind. That is, love does not hit us willy-nilly, as if Cupid had shot darts blindly into a crowd. If it did, marital patterns would be unpredictable. When we look at who marries whom, however, we can see that love follows social channels. The Social Channels of Love and Marriage The most highly predictable social channels are age, education, social class, and race–ethnicity. For example, a Latina with a college degree whose parents are both physicians is likely to fall in love with and marry a Latino slightly older than herself who has graduated from college. Similarly, a girl who drops out of high school and whose parents are on welfare is likely to fall in love with and marry a man who comes from a background similar to hers. Sociologists use the term homogamy to refer to the tendency of people who have similar characteristics to marry one another. Homogamy occurs largely as a result of propinquity, or spatial nearness. This is a sociological way of saying that we tend to “fall in love” with and marry someone who lives near us or someone we meet at school, church, work, or a neighborhood bar. The people with whom we associate are far from a random sample of the population, since social filters produce neighborhoods, schools, and places of worship that follow racial–ethnic and social class lines. As with all social patterns, there are exceptions. Although most Americans marry someone of their same racial–ethnic background, 10 percent do not. Ten percent is a lot of people. With 63 million married couples in the United States, this comes close to about 6 million couples (Statistical Abstract 2019: Table 60). 

Kanye West and Kim Kardashian are an example of the most common pattern of marriages between African Americans and whites. Credit: Kevin Mazur/WireImage/Getty Images 392 One of the more dramatic changes in U.S. marriage is the increase in marriages between African Americans and whites. Today it is difficult to realize how norm-shattering such marriages used to be, but they were once illegal in forty states (Staples 2008). In Mississippi, the penalty for interracial marriage was life in prison (Crossen 2004b). Despite the risks, a few couples crossed the “color line,” but it took the social upheaval of the 1960s to shatter this barrier. In 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the state laws that prohibited such marriages. Figure 12.1 shows this change. Look at the race–ethnicity of the husbands and wives in these marriages, and you will see that here, too, Cupid’s arrows don’t hit random targets. Why do you think this particular pattern exists? Why do you think it is changing? Figure 12.1 Marriages between Whites and African Americans: The Race–Ethnicity of the Husbands and Wives

12.3.1: Love and Courtship in Global Perspective

 12.3.1: Love and Courtship in Global Perspective Have you ever been “love sick”? Some people can’t eat, and they are obsessed with thoughts of the one they love. Some neuroscientists decided to study “love sickness,” and they found that it is both real and extreme: Love feelings release dopamine and light up the same area of the brain that lights up when heroin addicts are craving heroin (Bernstein 2015). Evidently, then, love can be an addiction. 

From your own experience, you probably know the power of romantic love—mutual sexual attraction and idealized feelings about one another. 

Although people in most cultures talk about similar experiences, ideas of love can differ dramatically from one society to another (de Munck et al. 2011; Baykose et al. 2019). 

In the following Cultural Diversity around the World, we look at a society where people don’t expect love to occur until after marriage. 390 Cultural Diversity around the World 

Arranged Marriage in India: Probing Beneath the Surface 

The idea that parents should choose their child’s husband or wife shocks Western sensibilities. 

Arranged marriage seems to violate our basic ideas of the rights of individuals to forge their own path in life. 

And it does just that. In fact, this is what is wrong with the Western system, say the Indians. 

Young people don’t have the experience to make such life-significant decisions. 

They need to depend on their elders, who have more experience.

 Their parents know them well, have their best interests at heart, and can make a much better choice of mate than they can.

 This billboard in India caught my attention. As the text indicates, even though India is industrializing, most of its people continue to follow traditional customs. This billboard is a sign of changing times. Credit: James M. Henslin Such thinking is foreign to us, of course. 

It is almost the polar opposite of what we expect and see as the right way to do things. The distinction gets even more complicated when we learn that Indians’ ideas of love also differ from ours. 

We expect love to occur before marriage, and to base marriage on love. Indians expect to base marriage on wise parental decisions, and then love will develop after marriage. 

We each—the Westerner and the Indian—shake our heads in wonderment at the strange customs of the other. 

Each wonders how life could possibly work out the way the other does things. But each system works.

 So perhaps we can learn from one another. 

I have done work in several states of India, so let me share with you what I learned from the experience of an Indian friend.

 As I saw an arranged marriage unfold, I realized that there is much more to this process than met my Western eye. 

My friend, Atal, began to look for a husband for his daughter, Bhanumati. From my Western perspective, this was a strange approach to marriage, but as I observed the process, my perspective changed. I saw that this was a burden for Atal. It was a part of his father role, and everyone—his wife, daughter, and son—was looking to him expectantly. They had full confidence that he would do right, a confidence that placed a heavy burden on his shoulders. Bhanumati is a pretty young woman, age 23, intelligent, with an engaging personality. 

She is also educated, with a master’s degree in English. 

Despite her education, Bhanumati would never question her father choosing her spouse.

 Nor did her brother when it came time for his marriage. 

This traditional way of mate selection in India makes sense to the people who live there.

 I saw Atal’s disappointment as he tried to fulfill his duty of arranging a good marriage for his daughter. 

He made several overtures to families of eligible sons, only to be rejected. 

My friend is a poor man, and he was unable to afford the dowry that these parents demanded. Atal’s problem was unexpectedly solved when a young American visitor “fell in love” with Bhanumati. This man, an engineer with a good job, would make a good husband. Everyone—Atal, his wife, his son, and his daughter—approved of the match. The man, of course, had to follow the Indian custom of seeing his future bride only in the presence of her parents or brother. Behind the scenes of arranged marriages, as you can sense, there is much more than the father’s decision. The responsibility is laid on him, but to fulfill it and keep a good family life, the father must have his family’s agreement. Without it, the system fails. 

My friend is a good man, a gentle and considerate husband and father. Tradition laid this responsibility on his shoulders, and he fulfilled it well. 

You can see that other men might have used this power to benefit themselves and not their child. 

You can also see how this duty is an example of the patriarchy we reviewed in Chapter 7, of how power is vested in men.

 As strange as it seems to us, the Indian view of love works. 

With the marriage arranged, Bhanumati is freed to develop feelings of love for her husband-to-be. 

From marriage, the Indians say, comes love. We, of course, say that marriage comes from love. 

Americans and Indians confuse one another, but perhaps sharing this experience will help you to understand a different way of life.

 For Your Consideration → What do you think love is, anyway? Watch Arranged Marriages and Online Dating Play WatchArranged Marriages and Online Dating 391 Because romantic love plays such a significant role in Western life—and often is regarded as the only proper basis for marriage—social scientists have probed this concept with the tools of the trade: experiments, questionnaires, interviews, observations, and completing online forms (Bolmont et al. 2014; Surti and Langeslag 2019). In a fascinating experiment, psychologists Donald Dutton and Arthur Aron discovered that fear can produce romantic love (Rubin 1985). Here’s what they did. A rickety footbridge sways in the wind about 230 feet above the Capilano River in North Vancouver, British Columbia. Walking on it makes you feel like you might fall into the rocky gorge below. A more solid footbridge crosses only 10 feet above the shallow stream. The researchers had an attractive woman approach men who were crossing these bridges. She told them she was studying “the effects of exposure to scenic attractions on creative expression.” She showed them a picture, and they wrote down their associations. The sexual imagery in their stories showed that the men on the unsteady, frightening bridge were more sexually aroused than were the men on the solid bridge. More of these men also called the young woman afterward—supposedly to get information about the study. You may have noticed that this research was really about sexual attraction, not love. The point, however, is that romantic love usually begins with sexual attraction. Finding ourselves sexually attracted to someone, we spend time with that person. If we discover mutual interests, we may label our feelings “love.” Apparently, then, romantic love has two components. The first is emotional, a feeling of sexual attraction. The second is cognitive, a label that we attach to our feelings. If we attach this label, we describe ourselves as being “in love.”

12.3 Summarize research on love and courtship, marriage, childbirth, child rearing, and family transitions.

 The Family Life Cycle 12.3 Summarize research on love and courtship, marriage, childbirth, child rearing, and family transitions. We have seen how the forms of marriage and family vary widely, looked at marriage and family theoretically, including major shifts in gender. Now let’s discuss love, courtship, and the family life cycle.

12.2.3: The Symbolic Interactionist Perspective:

 12.2.3: The Symbolic Interactionist Perspective: 

Changing Symbols With symbolic interactionists focusing on face-to-face interaction, their research on marriage and family covers many topics. 

For our purposes, let’s take another quick look at historical change and see how changing symbols (ideas and expectations) underlie marital adjustment. 

The Love Symbol: Unrealistic Expectations In 1933, sociologist William Ogburn noted that people were placing more emphasis on personality as they chose a husband or wife. 

A few years later, in 1945, sociologists Ernest Burgess and Harvey Locke observed that affection, understanding, and compatibility were becoming more central to marriage.

 These sociologists were observing a major shift in mate selection, a trend that has amplified until “affection, understanding, and compatibility” are now considered an essential part of a “healthy” marriage, and we have a difficult time understanding why they weren’t always essential aspects of marriage. 

Today’s husbands and wives take it for granted that their spouse will—or should—meet most of their emotional needs. 

These expectations have been bound symbolically into what we call “love,” idealized in phrases like “Love conquers all” and “Find your true love.” Love is now so prized and expected that our “natural” response has become “Why else would you marry?” 

Our cultural expectation of “finding your one true love” who will bring you “true happiness” sets us up for disappointment. 

We come to expect that marriage will give us some sort of perpetual emotional high. 

Marriage simply cannot deliver this. 

When disappointments arise in marriage, as they inevitably do, and usually fairly soon after the “I dos” are said, spouses tend to blame one another. 

Each believes that the other has somehow failed the relationship.

Their engulfment in the idea of love—what love is supposed to do for them—blinds them to the reality of day-to-day married life.

 Our culture promotes an impossibility: that marriage, ideally a lifelong relationship, should be based on a temporary emotional state.

 Changing Ideas about Children Ideas about children have also undergone a deep shift, so much so that some customs of earlier generations can seem strange to us. Some historians say that people in medieval society viewed children as miniature adults, and they made no sharp separation between the worlds of adults and children. Other historians disagree (Aries 1962; Corsaro 2017). Whatever the reality might be, at the age of 7, boys began to work as apprentices, learning an occupation, while girls remained at home, learning homemaking duties associated with their future wifely role. 

These customs don’t make sense to us.

 We consider age 7 to be a tender phase of early childhood, not a time for apprenticeship. 

In short, children have undergone a cultural transformation from learning adult occupations into impressionable, vulnerable, and innocent beings.

 As ideas of children have changed, so have ideas of parenting. These new expectations have placed stress on marriage. 

Changing Expectations of Parenting As mentioned in an earlier chapter, until about 1940 U.S. children “became adults” when they graduated from the eighth grade. 

For most, this was the end of their formal schooling, and they went to work. 

Because we now expect children to be dependent much longer, and we think of 14- and 15-year-olds as children, not as young adults, we expect parents to continue to nurture them for many more years. 

We have even developed new ideas of “good” parenting, notions unheard of during earlier generations, such as expecting parents to help their children achieve “self-actualization” so they can “reach their full potential.” 

These changed expectations have placed greater responsibilities on the already burdened shoulders of parents. 

Changing Marital Roles 

Just as you would expect, as parenting roles shift, so do marital roles. It used to be assumed as “natural” that the husband would be the breadwinner, that his earnings would be the primary source of support for the family. 

It was also assumed that the wife would be the homemaker, that she would stay home, take care of the house and children, and attend to the personal needs of her husband and children. 

If each did these things well, they were considered a good husband and father, wife and mother. 

Traditional roles—whatever their faults—provided clear-cut guidelines for newlyweds. 

After a couple married, each knew what to expect of the other. Today, the roles of husband and wife are not defined clearly, and newlyweds are expected to work out their own marital realities. Although this gives them a great deal of flexibility, it also produces tension and conflict. A couple’s ideas may not mesh. Who is supposed to do what housework? 

How should they divide child-rearing responsibilities? How much should they save? 

How much should they spend? 

On what? 

Wives are asking to what extent they should be career-oriented, while husbands wonder how much more they should focus on the home. 

When guidelines for any role, including marriage and parenting, are unclear, frustration and discontent are inevitable.

 How do you fulfill a marital role if you can’t agree on what that role is? 

That the idea of love can be a source of marital conflict and divorce might sound strange, but you might be able to see how the idea that love brings unlimited emotional satisfaction can be a source of shattered dreams. 

Our new ideas about children, parenting, and how to be a husband or wife also place tremendous pressures on spouses.

 These pressures and their related tensions create an “emotional overload” that becomes a push toward divorce. 

In Hindu marriages, the roles of husband and wife are firmly established. Neither this woman, whom I photographed in Chittoor, India, nor her husband question whether she should carry the family wash to the village pump. Women here have done this task for millennia. As India industrializes, as happened in the West, who does the wash will be questioned—and may eventually become a source of strain in marriage. Credit: James M. Henslin Hearing from the Author: Hindu Marriages Listen to the Audio

12.2.2: The Conflict/Feminist Perspective:

 12.2.2: The Conflict/Feminist Perspective: Shifting Power Conflict and feminist theorists stress that marriage and family roles reflect the basic social inequality that runs through society. Male Domination of Marriage and Family Historically, women have served men as wife, sister, and mother. The wife was expected to prepare her husband’s food, to take care of his clothing, and to satisfy his sexual and emotional needs. The woman’s life was expected to revolve around her home, including the care of the children. This backstage work is called reproductive labor—the work that a wife performs behind the scenes that allows her breadwinner husband to flourish in his more public life. Deciding who a daughter or son would marry was a father’s right and responsibility. To forge alliances, kings would arrange for their daughters to marry the sons of other kings. Members of the nobility would do the same, arranging for their children to marry “suitably,” which meant that the marriage would provide an advantage for the father’s lineage. Over time, fathers in the West gradually lost this right. Although arranged marriages are no longer part of our current marital customs, the traditional wedding ceremony reflects this lost right. At many weddings, the mother sits passively to the side as the father walks his daughter down the aisle and “gives” her to her husband. This is but a pale reflection of the power that men have wielded historically, but it is a reflection nonetheless. Both custom and the law once allowed men to discipline not only their children but also their wives. Not too far in our own past, a husband could spank his wife—if she “needed” it. Beating a wife was considered permissible if she became rebellious or had an affair. In some areas—such as Pakistan—husbands are still permitted to beat their wives as a form of discipline. “Honor killings,” which we reviewed in Chapter 10, are the ultimate sanction that men can give women for violating the rules by which they control them. Marriage as an Arena for an Ongoing Historical Struggle Industrialization brought major change to husband–wife relationships. As more and more women took paid jobs, their experiences at work changed their views of the world. Increasingly, wives came to resent arrangements that women at earlier periods had taken for granted. Housework and child care (or as sociologists put it, the division of labor at home) became a pivotal source of conflict. Women started chafing—and complaining—that it was unfair for them to work at jobs outside the home and to shoulder almost all the housework and child care. The husbands resented this accusation, pointing out how many more hours they were putting in at work. Gradually, husbands accepted more responsibility for housework and child care, although this part of the family’s division of labor still falls primarily on women’s shoulders. Husbands and wives still struggle to achieve a satisfying balance of work, child care, and housework, the root of many of today’s marital problems. Today’s wives are considerably less dependent on their husbands for financial security. With their greater independence, wives are less willing to put up with relationships that they don’t find fulfilling. Conflict and feminist theorists view the high divorce rate not as a sign that the family has grown weaker, but as evidence that women have made headway in their millennia-old struggle with men. Husbands and wives however, don’t view their conflicts through this historical lens. They don’t see their marital problems as part of some flowing tide of history. Rather, they experience direct, personal troubles with their spouse, which they generally attribute to failings within their personal relationship.

12.2.1: The Functionalist Perspective:

 12.2.1: The Functionalist Perspective: Functions and Dysfunctions Functionalists stress that to survive, a society must fulfill basic functions (that is, meet its basic needs). Functionalists focus on how marriage and family are related to other parts of society, especially the ways that marriage and family contribute to society’s well-being. 387 Why the Family Is Universal Although the form of marriage and family varies from one group to another, the family is universal. The reason for this, say functionalists, is that the family fulfills six needs that are basic to the survival of every society. These needs, or functions, are (1) economic production, (2) socialization of children, (3) care of the sick and aged, (4) recreation, (5) sexual control, and (6) reproduction. To make certain that these functions are performed, every human group has adopted some form of the family. Functions of the Incest Taboo Functionalists note that the incest taboo helps families to avoid role confusion. This, in turn, helps parents socialize children. For example, if father–daughter incest were allowed, how should a wife treat her daughter—as a daughter or as a second wife? Should the daughter consider her mother as a mother or as the first wife? Would her father be a father or a lover? And would the wife be the husband’s main wife or the “mother of the other wife”? And if the daughter had a child by her father, what relationships would everyone have? Maternal incest would also lead to complications every bit as confusing as these. The incest taboo also forces people to look outside the family for marriage partners. Anthropologists theorize that exogamy was especially functional in tribal societies, because it forged alliances between tribes that otherwise might have killed each other off. Today, exogamy still extends both the bride’s and the groom’s social networks by building relationships with their spouse’s family and friends. Isolation and Emotional Overload As you know, functionalists also analyze dysfunctions. The relative isolation of today’s nuclear family creates one of those dysfunctions. Because the members of extended families are embedded in a larger kinship network, they can count on many people for material and emotional support. In nuclear families, in contrast, the stresses that come with crises—the loss of a job, a death, or even family quarrels—are spread among fewer people. This places greater strain on each family member, creating emotional overload. In addition, the relative isolation of the nuclear family makes it vulnerable to a “dark side”—incest and other forms of abuse, matters that we examine later in this chapter.

12.2: Marriage and Family in Theoretical Perspective

 12.2: Marriage and Family in Theoretical Perspective

 Marriage and Family in Theoretical Perspective 

12.2 Contrast the functionalist, conflict, and symbolic interactionist perspectives on marriage and family. As you just read, human groups around the world have many forms of mate selection, ways to view the parent’s responsibility and ways to trace descent. Although these patterns are arbitrary, each group perceives its own forms of marriage and family as natural. Now let’s see what pictures emerge when we view marriage and family theoretically.

12.1.3: Common Cultural Themes

 12.1.3: Common Cultural Themes Despite this diversity, several common themes run through marriage and family. As Table 12.1 illustrates, all societies use marriage and family to establish patterns of mate selection, descent, inheritance, and authority. Let’s look at these patterns. Table 12.1 Common Cultural Themes: Marriage in Traditional and Industrialized Societies

Mate Selection

 Each human group establishes norms to govern who marries whom. If a group has norms of endogamy, it specifies that its members must marry within their group. 

For example, some groups prohibit interracial marriage. 

In some societies, these norms are written into law, but in most cases, they are informal.

 In the United States, most whites marry whites, and most African Americans marry African Americans—not because of any laws but because of informal norms. 

In contrast, norms of exogamy specify that people must marry outside their group. 

The best example of exogamy is the incest taboo, which prohibits sex and marriage among designated relatives. As you can see from Table 12.1, how people find mates varies around the world, from fathers selecting them to the highly personal choices common in Western cultures. Descent 

 How are you related to your father’s father or to your mother’s mother? You would think that the answer to this question would be the same all over the world—but it isn’t. Each society has a system of descent, the way people trace kinship over generations. We use a bilineal system; that is, we think of ourselves as related to both our mother’s and our father’s sides of the family. This is so obvious. Doesn’t everyone do it this way? Actually, no. Ours is only one way that people reckon descent. Some groups use a patrilineal system, tracing descent only on the father’s side; they don’t think of children as being related to their mother’s relatives. Others don’t consider children to be related to their father’s relatives and follow a matrilineal system, tracing descent only on the mother’s side. The Naxi of China don’t even have a word for father (Hong 1999). Inheritance Marriage and family are also used to determine rights of inheritance. In a bilineal system, property is passed to both males and females; in a patrilineal system, only to males; and in a matrilineal system (the rarest form), only to females. No system is natural. Rather, each way of reckoning inheritance matches a group’s ideas of fairness and logic. Authority Some form of patriarchy, men-as-a-group dominating women-as-a-group, runs through all societies. Contrary to what some think, there are no historical records of a society that was a true matriarchy, where women-as-a-group dominated men-as-a-group. 

Although U.S. family patterns are becoming more egalitarian, or equal, some of today’s customs still reflect their patriarchal origin. 

One of the most obvious is the U.S. naming pattern: Despite some changes, the typical bride still takes the groom’s last name, and children usually receive the father’s last name.

12.1.2 : what is marriage

 12.1.2: What Is Marriage? We have the same problem in defining marriage. For just about every element you might regard as essential to marriage, some group has a different custom. Consider the sex of the bride and groom. Until recently, opposite sex was taken for granted. Then came the U.S. Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges 2015 decision, which struck down state bans, and same-sex marriages became legal throughout the United States. Same-sex marriage is not something new. When Columbus landed in the Americas, some Native American tribes already had same-sex marriages. Through a ceremony called the berdache, a man or woman who wanted to be a member of the opposite sex was officially declared to have his or her sex changed. The “new” man or woman put on the clothing and performed the tasks associated with his or her new sex and was allowed to marry. Even sexual relationships don’t universally characterize marriage. The Nayar of Malabar don’t allow a bride and groom to have sex. After a three-day celebration of the marriage, they send the groom packing—and he can never see his bride again (La Barre 1954). This can be a little puzzling to figure out, but it works like this: The groom is “borrowed” from another tribe for the ceremony. Although the Nayar bride can’t have sex with her husband, after the wedding she can have approved lovers from her tribe. This system keeps family property intact—along matrilineal lines. At least one thing has to be universal in marriage: You can at least be sure that the bride and groom are alive. So you would think. But even for this there is an exception. On the Loess Plateau in China, if a son dies without a wife, his parents look for a dead woman to be his bride. After buying one—from the parents of a dead unmarried daughter—the dead man and woman are married and then buried together. Happy that their son will have intimacy in the afterlife, the parents throw a party to celebrate the marriage (Fremson 2006; Tan et al. 2019). With such tremendous cultural variety, we can define marriage this way: a group’s approved mating arrangements, usually marked by a ritual of some sort (the wedding) to indicate the couple’s new public status.

12.1.1: What Is a Family? “

 12.1.1: What Is a Family? “What is a family, anyway?” Family should be easy to define because it is so significant to humanity that it is universal. Although every human group organizes its members in families, the world’s cultures display an incredible variety of family forms. The Western world regards a family as a husband, wife, and children, but in some groups, men have more than one wife (polygyny) or women more than one husband (polyandry). 

How about the obvious?

 Can we define the family as the approved group into which children are born? 

If so, we would overlook the Banaro of New Guinea.

 In this group, a young woman must give birth before she can marry—and she cannot marry the father of her child (Murdock 1949). What if we were to define the family as the unit in which parents are responsible for disciplining children and providing for their material needs? 

This, too, seems obvious, but it is not universal. 

Among the Trobriand Islanders, it is not the parents but the wife’s eldest brother who is responsible for providing both the children’s discipline and their food (Malinowski 1927). 

Such remarkable variety means that we have to settle for a broad definition. A family consists of people who consider themselves related by blood, marriage, or adoption. 

A household, in contrast, consists of people who occupy the same housing unit—a house, apartment, or other living quarters. 

We can classify families as nuclear (husband, wife, and children) and extended (including people such as grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins in addition to the nuclear unit). 

Sociologists also refer to the family of orientation (the family in which an individual grows up) and the family of procreation (the family that is formed when a couple has its first child). Often one of the strongest family bonds is that of mother–daughter. The young artist, an eleventh grader, wrote: “This painting expresses the way I feel about my future with my child. I want my child to be happy and I want her to love me the same way I love her. In that way we will have a good relationship so that nobody will be able to take us apart. I wanted this picture to be alive; that is why I used a lot of bright colors.” Credit: Courtesy of the Center for Talent Innovation, N.Y. copyright 1994.

12.1 Define marriage and family

 Marriage and Family in Global Perspective

 12.1 Define marriage and family, and summarize their common cultural themes. These men and I were living in the same physical space, but our cultural space—which we carry in our heads and show in our behavior—was worlds apart. My experiences with working-class men in this remote part of Mexico helped me understand how marriage and family can differ vastly from one culture to another. To broaden our perspective for understanding this vital social institution, let’s look at how marriage and family customs differ around the world.

quizz study

 Terms studied in this round

universal citizenship

Everyone has the same basic rights by being born in a country, or by becoming a naturalized citizen

oligarchy

small group seizes power of the government

totalitarianism

total control of the people by the government

social integration

Those who are most likely to vote are the older, more educated, affluent and employed -Those who are less likely to vote are the younger, less educated, poor and unemployed

Political action committees-PAC

Solicit contributions from many, and then use that large amount to influence legislation

lobbyists

People who are paid to influence legislation on behalf of their clients

pluralism

A diffusion of power among special interest groups, that prevents using the government from oppressing the people