Week 4 - Chapter 15 PDF

Families and Intimate 15 Relationships What proportion of children in the United States live in a “typical” American family made up of a mother, father, and their children? a 25 percent b 50 percent c 70 percent d 90 percent Turn the pag...

Families and Intimate 15 Relationships What proportion of children in the United States live in a “typical” American family made up of a mother, father, and their children? a 25 percent b 50 percent c 70 percent d 90 percent Turn the page for the correct answer. 475  I f you answered b (50 percent), you would be correct. But if you answered c (70 per- cent), you would also be correct. How is that possible? This is a bit of a trick ques- tion because it depends on precisely how you think about families. Roughly half of all children (46 percent) currently live in households with a mother and father who are in their first marriage. But then another 7 percent of children live with two parents who are cohabiting but not legally married to each other. And another 15 percent of children live with a mother and father who married each other after their first marriages ended. If you add these numbers together, then fully 68 percent live with two parents, although these two-parent families are a highly diverse group (Pew Research Center, 2015j). Most scholars agree that there is no such thing as a “typical” family in the United States today. As popular television shows such as Modern Family, Blackish, and The Fosters reveal, no one family form or structure accounts for the majority of U.S. households today. Families today include people who live alone, single parents with children, stepfamilies, grandparents who share a home with their grandchildren, same-sex couples both with and without children, cohabiters both with and without children, and even divorced spouses who share a home because they can’t afford two separate homes. Data from the U.S. Census show that less than 20 percent of all households in 2016 were made up of a married couple with children under age 18. And the notion that the “typical” household includes a breadwinner dad, a stay-at-home mom, and two perfect children is even more dated. Just 14 percent of children under 18 live in a household with a breadwinner father and stay-at-home mother in their first marriage (Livingston, 2015). Census data can tell us what the “statistical” norm is, or those behaviors that are objec- tively more or less common in the United States today. Sociologists, by contrast, help shed light on what the “cultural” norm is—and why. Are certain family forms considered “best” for the health and well-being of American society? Or are all family forms equally healthy and desirable? And, if so, why do so many Americans still hold on to the belief that some family forms are superior to others, often couching their arguments in terms of “what’s best for the children”? LEA R NING OBJECTIV ES 1 BASIC CONCEPTS Learn how sociologists define and describe families. 2 THEORETICAL AND HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON FAMILIES Review the development of sociological thinking about families. Learn how families have changed over the last 500 years. 3 RESEARCH ON FAMILIES TODAY Learn about patterns of marriage, childbearing, divorce, remarriage, and child- free families. Analyze how these patterns today differ from those of other periods. 4 UNANSWERED QUESTIONS Understand the ways that cohabitation differs from marriage, how parents’ sexual orientation affects their children, and the linkage between marital status and happiness. 476 CHAPTER 15Families and Intimate Relationships  Sociologists David Popenoe and Judith Stacey have been engaged in a decades-long debate over this very question. Popenoe (1993, 1996) argues that families have changed for the worse since 1960. Over the past five or six decades, divorce, nonmarital births, and cohabitation rates have increased, while marriage and marital fertility rates have decreased. He claims these trends underlie social problems such as child poverty, ado- lescent pregnancy, substance abuse, and juvenile crime. Increasing rates of divorce and nonmarital births throughout the latter half of the twentieth century created millions of female-headed households and have removed men from the child-rearing process—a situ- ation that is harmful to children, Popenoe argues. Stacey (1998, 2011) counters that the “traditional” American family of the 1950s— praised by Popenoe, conservative politicians, conservative media sources like Fox News, and online communities like OneMillionMoms as the panacea for all social problems—is a dated and oppressive institution. According to Stacey, the “modern family” with “bread- winner father and child-rearing mother” perpetuated the “segregation of the sexes by extracting men from, and consigning white married women to, an increasingly privatized domestic domain.” The modern family has been replaced by the “postmodern family”— single mothers, blended families, cohabiting couples, lesbian and gay partners, dual-career families, and families with a breadwinning mother and stay-at-home dad. The postmod- ern family is well suited to meet the challenges of the current economy and is an appropri- ate setting for raising children, who need capable, loving caretakers—regardless of their gender, marital status, employment status, or sexual orientation, argues Stacey. Popenoe agrees that children need capable, loving caretakers, yet he maintains that “two parents—a father and a mother—are better for a child than one parent.” He claims that biological fathers make “distinctive, irreplaceable contributions” to their children’s welfare. Fathers offer a strong male role model to sons, act as disciplinarian for trouble- prone children, provide daughters with a male perspective on heterosexual relationships, and, through their unique play styles, teach their children about teamwork, competition, independence, self-fulfillment, self-control, and regulation of emotions. Mothers, on the other hand, teach their children about nurturance and communion, the feeling of being connected to others. Both needs can be met only through the gender-differentiated parent- ing of a mother and father, Popenoe argues. Stacey retorts that the postmodern family is better suited to the postmodern economy, in which employment has shifted from unionized heavy industries to nonunionized clerical, service, and new industrial and high-tech sectors. The loss of union-protected jobs means that many men no longer earn enough to support a wife and children. And, during the reces- sionary years of the early twenty-first century, men who suffered long-term unemployment often relied on their wives to fully support their families. At the same time, demand for cleri- cal and service labor, escalating consumption standards, increases in women’s educational attainment, and high and steady divorce rates have led the vast majority of women, including mothers of young children, to seek employment outside the home. Stacey also disagrees with media rhetoric and claims by conservatives, such as Pope- noe, who elevate the married, two-parent family as the “ideal” family form. Rather than condemning nontraditional family forms, Stacey reasons, family sociologists and policy makers should develop strategies to mitigate the harmful effects of divorce and single parenthood on children. She suggests restructuring work schedules and benefit policies to accommodate familial responsibilities; redistributing work opportunities to reduce unem- ployment rates; enacting comparable worth standards of pay equity to enable women as well as men to earn a family wage; providing universal health care, prenatal and child care, and sex education; and rectifying the economic inequities of divorce (Biblarz and Stacey, 2010). Families and Intimate Relationships477  Claiming that “marriage must be re-estab- family Ċ A group of individuals related to one lished as a strong social institution,” Popenoe another by blood ties, marriage, or adoption, who form an economic unit, the adult members argues that employers should stop relocating of which are responsible for the upbringing of married couples with children and should provide children. All known societies involve some form more generous parental leave. He also supports of family system, although the nature of family relationships varies widely. While the main family a two-tiered system of divorce law. Marriages form in modern societies is the nuclear family, without minor children would be relatively easy extended family relationships are also found. to dissolve, but marriages with young children kinship Ċ A relation that links individuals through would be dissolvable only by mutual agreement blood ties, marriage, or adoption. Kinship relations or on grounds involving a wrong by one party are by definition part of marriage and family, but they extend much more broadly. While in against the other. The proposal has encountered most modern societies few social obligations are skepticism among feminist scholars, who address involved in kinship relations extending beyond the the costs for children and adults alike of reinstat- immediate family, in other cultures, kinship is of vital importance to social life. ing grounds of fault for divorce. marriage Ċ A socially approved sexual Where does the “truth” lie—with Stacey, with relationship between two individuals. Marriage Popenoe, or somewhere in between? In this chap- historically has involved two persons of ter, we will learn what families actually look like opposite sexes, but in the past decade, marriage between same-sex partners has been legalized in the twenty-first century, how families have in a growing number of states and nations changed through history, the wide range of forms throughout the world. Marriage normally forms that families take, and some of the challenges the basis of a family of procreation—that is, it is expected that the married couple will produce family members face today. We will see that the and bring up children. postmodern family is clearly the statistical norm in the United States in the twenty-first century. Although cultural norms tend to lag slightly behind statistical realities, in recent years, the number of television shows, films, and advertising campaigns upholding a broad and inclusive image of “family” has flourished. For instance, an ad for Google Home features gay dads Ross and Alex asking the device for information on local traffic so that they can decide which parent should drive their children to school (Rook, 2017), while a TV spot for Honey Maid features a young boy whose parents have divorced and each remarried. When Isaac talks about his blended family, he casually mentions that his stepdad has black hair and his dad has brown hair, but he doesn’t see other differences. Both men are his “dads” (Nudd, 2014). Two years ear- lier, department store Target began actively marketing their wedding registries to same- sex couples, who could identify as “bride,” “groom,” or “partner” as they registered for wedding gifts (Maxwell, 2012). These cultural images and practices may ultimately help to contribute to more expansive attitudes about what constitutes a “normal American family.” In the chapter ahead, we will show how common such patterns are and discuss the implications of shifting families for the well-being of children and their parents. T HE ANSWER I S B OR C. 1 BASIC CONCEPTS A family is a group of people directly linked by kin connections, the adult members of which take care of the children. Kinship ties are connections among individuals, estab- lished either through marriage, the lines of descent that connect blood relatives (mothers, 478 CHAPTER 15Families and Intimate Relationships fathers, children, grandparents, etc.), or adoption. Marriage can be defined as a socially acknowledged and approved sex- ual union between two adult individuals. When two people marry, they become kin to each other; however, the marriage bond also connects a wider range of kinspeople. Parents, brothers, sisters, and other blood relatives become relatives of the partner, or “in-laws,” through marriage. Virtually all societies contain what sociologists and anthropologists call the nuclear family, two adults living together in a household with their own The Kazaks in Mongolia usually live in extended families and or adopted children. In most traditional collectively herd their livestock. The youngest son will inherit societies, the nuclear family was part the father’s house, and the elder sons will build their own of a larger kinship network. When close houses close by when they get married. relatives, in addition to a married couple and children, live either in the same household or in a close and continuous relationship with one another, we speak of an extended family. An extended family may include grandparents, brothers and their wives, sisters and their husbands, aunts, nephews, and so on. Whether nuclear or extended, families can be divided into families of orientation, or families of origin, and families of procreation. The first is the family into which a person is born or adopted; the second is the family into which one enters as an adult and within which a new generation of children is brought up. A further distinction concerns place of residence. In the United States, when nuclear family Ċ A family group consisting of two people marry, they do not necessarily set two adults and dependent children. up their own household in the same area where extended family Ċ A family group consisting the bride’s or groom’s parents live, although they of more than two generations of relatives living either within the same household or very close often do so. In some other societies, however, to one another. married couples live close to or within the same families of orientation Ċ The families into dwelling as the parents of the bride or groom. which individuals are born. Also known as When the couple lives near or with the bride’s families of origin. parents, the arrangement is matrilocal. In families of procreation Ċ The families individuals initiate through marriage, a patrilocal pattern, the couple lives near or cohabitation, or by having children. with the groom’s parents. matrilocal Ċ A family system in which the In Western societies, marriage, and there- husband is expected to live near the wife’s fore family, is associated with monogamy. It parents. is illegal for a man or woman to be married to patrilocal Ċ A family system in which the wife more than one individual at any one time. But is expected to live near the husband’s parents. in many parts of the world, monogamy is far monogamyŚĊŚA form of marriage in which each married partner is allowed only one spouse less common than it is in Western nations. In at any given time. his classic research, George Murdock (1967, polygamy Ċ A form of marriage in which 1981) compared several hundred societies from a person may have two or more spouses 1960 through 1980 and found that polygamy, a simultaneously. marriage that allows a husband or wife to have Basic Concepts479  more than one spouse, was permitted in over 80 polygyny Ċ A form of marriage in which a man percent of them (see also Gray, 1998). There are may simultaneously have two or more wives. two types of polygamy: polygyny, in which a polyandry Ċ A form of marriage in which a man may be married to more than one woman at woman may simultaneously have two or more husbands. the same time, and polyandry, much less com- mon, in which a woman may have two or more husbands simultaneously. Of the 1,231 societies tracked, Murdock found that just 15 percent of societies were monogamous, 37 percent had occasional polygyny, 48 percent had more frequent polygyny, and less than 1 percent had polyandry (Murdock, 1981). Yet recent work suggests that polygamy has grown less common over time due to multiple social and economic conditions, including increasing levels of democracy, a declining acceptance of arranged mar- riage, an increase in marriages based on a desire for love and companionship, CONCEPT CHECKS 3 and strides in the education and human rights protections afforded to women. Polygyny is widely considered disad- 1. Contrast a family of orientation and a family of procreation. vantageous to women, and as such, has 2. Provide an example of a nuclear versus an ex- declined as women gain more rights and tended family. power in many parts of the world (Bailey 3. What are several alternatives to monogamy? and Kaufman, 2010). 2 THEORETICAL AND HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON FAMILIES The study of families and family life encompasses contrasting approaches. Many per- spectives adopted even a few decades ago now seem dated and unconvincing in light of recent research and changes in the social world, including the legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States. Nevertheless, it is valuable to trace the evolution of soci- ological thinking before discussing contemporary approaches to the study of families. We discuss three of the main theories used to understand the contemporary family and then provide a historical context for understanding contemporary families. Sociological Theories of Families FUNCTIONALISM The functionalist perspective sees society as a set of social institutions that perform spe- cific functions to ensure continuity and consensus. According to this perspective, fami- lies perform important tasks that contribute to society’s basic needs and help perpetuate social order. Sociologists in the functionalist tradition regard the nuclear family as fulfill- ing specialized roles in modern societies. With the advent of industrialization in the late nineteenth century, families became less important as a unit of economic production and more focused on bearing, rearing, and socializing children. According to American sociologist Talcott Parsons, the two main functions of fami- lies are primary socialization and personality stabilization (Parsons and Bales, 1955). 480 CHAPTER 15Families and Intimate Relationships Primary socialization is the process by which children learn their society’s cultural norms and primary socialization Ċ The process by which children learn the cultural norms and expectations for behavior. Because this process expectations for behavior of the society into happens during early childhood, the family is the which they are born. Primary socialization most important site for the development of the occurs largely in the family. human personality. Personality stabilization personality stabilization Ċ According to refers to the role of the family in assisting adult functionalist theory, the family plays a crucial role in assisting its adult members emotionally. family members emotionally. Marriage between Marriage is the arrangement through which two adults is the arrangement through which personalities are supported and kept healthy. personalities are supported and kept healthy. In industrial societies, families may play a critical role in stabilizing adult personalities because the nuclear family is often geographi- cally distant from its extended kin and cannot draw on larger kinship ties. Parsons regarded the nuclear family as best equipped to handle the demands of indus- trial society. In the “conventional” family, one adult can work outside the home for pay while the second adult cares for the home and children. In practical terms, this specializa- tion of roles has historically meant the husband adopts the “instrumental” role as bread- winner and the wife assumes the “affective,” or emotional support, role in the home. Today, Parsons’s view of families seems inadequate and outdated. Functionalist theories of families have come under heavy criticism for justifying the domestic division of labor between men and women as something natural and unproblematic. Moreover, functionalist perspectives presume that a male-female married couple is essential for the successful rearing of children and the efficient operation of households; Parsons failed to consider that same-sex and single-parent families may run efficiently and effectively par- ent and socialize their children. He also failed to recognize that in many families, wives may be better suited to breadwinning and their husbands better suited to childrearing, or that the two would share both tasks equally. Yet, viewed in historical context, his theories are more understandable. The immediate post–World War II years (when Parsons pro- posed his theories) saw men reassuming positions as sole breadwinners after returning from the war overseas; this arrangement was rational for the family because men typically earned far more than women (Becker, 2009). Because women were no longer needed in the labor force in large numbers, they returned to their traditional roles of wives, mothers, and homemakers after having worked in offices, factories, shipyards, and stores during the war when the men were away. Assessing Parsons’s view in light of contemporary society, however, we can criticize functionalist views on other grounds. In emphasizing the importance of the family, such theories neglect the role of other social institutions—such as government, media, peers, and schools—in socializing children. The theories also neglect family forms that do not reflect the nuclear family. Families that did not conform to the white, suburban, middle-class ideal were considered deviant, including childless families, single-parent families, or families in which husbands were not primary breadwinners. SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONIST APPROACHES Symbolic interactionist approaches to studying the family stand in stark contrast with functionalist perspectives. Whereas functionalist approaches emphasize stability and maintaining the current social order, symbolic interactionism emphasizes the contextual, subjective, and even ephemeral nature of family interactions, power relations, and inter- personal communication (LaRossa and Reitzes, 1993). Sociologist Ernest Burgess (1926) Theoretical and Historical Perspectives on Families481  was one of the earliest scholars to apply symbolic interactionist approaches to the family, which he described as “a unity of interacting personalities” in which the behavior or identi- ties of individual family members mutually shaped one another over time. Symbolic interactionist approaches do not take power differentials for granted, and they do not necessarily assume that men have more power than women or that adults have more power than children. For example, Willard Waller (1938) developed the prin- ciple of least interest to show that the partner who is least committed to, or interested in, their romantic relationship has more power and might often exploit that power. Think about some of the couples you know; your friend might be an independent and assertive person, but if he or she is very intent on making a relationship work with a partner who is slightly less excited about the relationship, your friend might cede the upper hand to the partner in an effort to keep the relationship going. More contemporary work emphasizes the ways that family members continually negotiate, define, and redefine their roles. Recall from Chapter 10 the concept of “doing gender” (West and Zimmerman, 1987). In this view, the ways that men and women behave are neither biological nor static; rather, these roles are socially constructed based on the immediate social context. Marriage and romantic relationships are a particularly important site of doing gender. Studies have explored the ways that couples negotiate housework and how they “do gender,” even when no longer performing the household tasks typically associated with their sex. Emslie and colleagues (2009) studied the ways that colorectal cancer patients “did gender” when their illness prevented them from carrying out the gender-typed household roles they previously performed. The couples developed narratives to maintain their gendered identities, where women organized “cover” for housework and child care when they were ill, and men focused on making sure that their families were financially secure and spouses were “protected” from the stress of the men’s cancer battles. Symbolic interactionist approaches have been applied to parent-child relationships as well. Whereas scholarship on functionalist traditions took a “top down” approach to socialization and presumed that parents taught and socialized their children, symbolic interactionist studies find that children often shape, influence, and guide their parents in particular social situations. Several recent studies of immigrant and refugee families, for instance, show that parents and children often must renegotiate their roles when they inhabit unfamiliar contexts (e.g., Katz, 2014). Children may have relatively higher status than their parents, especially if they have a better understanding of the language and practices in the United States. This knowledge allows them to serve as the family’s liaison to school teachers and health care providers. Symbolic interactionist scholars offer provocative insights into family dynamics, but this perspective is critiqued on the grounds that it places too much emphasis on coop- eration and consensus. Other critics find that the perspective is overly descriptive; it tells us what is happening, but it does not tell us why. Finally, some scholars, especially those working in the feminist tradition, find fault with the perspective’s lack of attention to social structure and deeply embedded gender differences in social and interpersonal power. FEMINIST APPROACHES For many people, families provide solace and comfort, love and companionship. Yet fam- ilies can also be sites of exploitation, loneliness, and profound inequality. In this regard, feminism has challenged the vision of families as harmonious and protective. In 1965, the American feminist Betty Friedan wrote in The Feminine Mystique of “the problem with no name”—the isolation and boredom of many suburban American housewives 482 CHAPTER 15Families and Intimate Relationships trapped in an endless cycle of child care and housework. Other writers followed, explor- ing the phenomenon of the “captive wife” (Gavron, 1966) and the damaging effects of “suffocating” family settings on interpersonal relationships (Laing, 1971). During the 1970s and 1980s, feminist perspectives dominated debates and research on families. Where, previously, family sociology had focused on family structures, the his- torical development of the nuclear and extended family, and the importance of kinship ties, feminism directed attention inside family dynamics to examine women’s experiences in the domestic sphere. Many feminist writers questioned the vision of families as coopera- tive units based on common interests and mutual support, arguing instead that unequal power relationships within families meant that certain family members benefited more than others (Ferree, 2010). Feminist approaches to understanding families focus on a broad range of topics, yet three are particularly important. The first is the domestic division of labor—the way in which tasks are allocated among household members, where women often specialize in homemaking and child rearing and men specialize in breadwinning. Feminists disagree about the historical emergence of this division. Some see it as an outcome of industrial capitalism, where factory work would take men out of the home to work for pay (unlike earlier agricultural economies) and women would be left to manage the home front. Oth- ers link it to patriarchy and thus see it as predating industrialization. Although a domestic division of labor probably did exist before industrialization, capitalist production caused a sharper distinction between the domestic and work realms. This process resulted in the crystallization of “male spheres” and “female spheres” and the power relationships that persist today. Until recently, the male breadwinner model has been widespread in most industrialized societies. Feminist sociologists have studied the way men and women share domestic tasks, such as child care and housework. They have investigated the validity of claims such as that of the “symmetrical family” (Young and Willmott, 1973)—the belief that, over historical time, family roles and responsibilities are becoming more egalitarian. Findings have shown that women still bear the main responsibility for domestic tasks and enjoy less leisure time than men, even though more women are working in paid employment outside the home than before (Bianchi, Sayer, Milkie, and Robinson, 2012; Hochschild and Machung, 1989). Data from the 2016 American Time Use Study showed that, on an average day, 21 percent of men did housework, such as cleaning or doing laundry, compared with 50 percent of women. Not only are men less likely to do housework, but when they do, they spend less time doing it, only about 30 percent as much time on average as women in 2016 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics [BLS], 2017a). Interestingly, in same-sex couples, partners tend to share housework more equally than do heterosexual couples, revealing the complex ways that gender shapes household arrangements (Goldberg, Smith, and Perry-Jenkin, 2012). Some sociologists have examined the contrasting realms of paid and unpaid work, focusing on the contribution of women’s unpaid domestic labor to the overall economy (Brandolini and Viviano, 2014; Oakley, 1974). Others have investigated the distribution of resources among family members and the patterns of access to and control over household finances (Pahl, 1989). A second theme is the unequal power relationships within many families, especially the phenomenon of domestic violence, including intimate partner violence. Spousal abuse, marital rape, incest, and the sexual victimization of children have all received more public attention as a result of feminists’ claims that the violent and abusive sides of family life have long been ignored in both academic contexts and legal and policy circles. Feminist sociologists consider how the family serves as an arena for gender oppression Theoretical and Historical Perspectives on Families483  and physical abuse. For example, through much of U.S. history, a husband had the legal right to engage his wife in coerced or forced sex. For most of the twentieth century, mari- tal rape was considered an exemption to rape laws, although the exemption was repealed in all states as of 1993. Yet, a dozen states still maintain laws that handle marital rape in quite different ways from rape outside of marriage. Depending on the state, marital rape might be charged under a different section of the criminal code, restricted to a shorter reporting period, and held up to different standards and definitions of force and coercion; assailants are even given slightly different punishments (Byrne, 2015). For instance, in South Carolina, the most extreme case, marital rape is punished less severely than non- marital rape, victims have only 30 days to report, and the law requires a higher level of violence be used. Caring activities constitute a third theme that feminists address. This broad realm encompasses a variety of processes, from attending to a family member who is ill to looking after an older relative over a long period. Sometimes caring means simply being attuned to someone else’s psychological well-being. Not only do women shoulder concrete tasks such as cleaning and child care, but they also invest significant emotional labor in main- taining personal relationships (Pinquart and Sorensen, 2006). While caring activities may be grounded in love and deep emotion, they also require an ability and willingness to listen, perceive, negotiate, and act creatively. Caring activities often involve long spells of unpaid labor, and these responsibilities often limit women’s ability to work for pay outside the home. In these ways, caregiving indirectly contributes to women’s relative economic disadvantage in society. Research shows persuasively that women’s economic disadvan- tage relative to men, especially among older adults, is due in part to their tendency to cut back on paid work when caring for their families, thus reducing the pensions that they are entitled to in old age (Harrington, Meyer, and Herd, 2007). Critiques of feminist theory emphasize that the focus on gender draws attention away from social-class influences, race differences, and other important sources of intersectionality. CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES IN THE SOCIOLOGY OF FAMILIES Recent theoretical and empirical studies conducted from a feminist perspective have gen- erated increased interest in the family among both academics and the general population. Terms such as the second shift—referring to women’s dual roles at work and at home—have entered our vocabulary. But because feminist studies often focused on issues within the domestic realm, they did not always address trends and influences outside the home. Since the 1990s, an important body of sociological literature on the family has emerged that draws on feminist perspectives but is not strictly informed by them. Of primary concern are the larger transformations in family forms—the formation and dissolution of families and households and the evolving expectations within personal relationships. The rise in divorce and single parenting, the emergence of “reconstituted families” (i.e., remar- riages), same-sex families, and the popularity of cohabitation and child-free families are all topics of inquiry. In the recent recessionary years, scholars also have focused on shifting gender roles within families, where men’s and women’s “traditional” roles have converged or even crossed over. As the recession disproportionately struck “male” industries such as finance and manufacturing, an increasing number of households now have breadwinner wives and dads who either stay at home with children or juggle part-time work with child-rearing (Rampell, 2009). The number of stay-at-home dads has doubled since 1989, from 1.1 mil- lion to 2 million in 2012; fathers now represent 16 percent of stay-at-home parents, up from 484 CHAPTER 15Families and Intimate Relationships 10 percent in 1989 (Livingston, 2014a). Cultural images also are starting to reflect such trends, with the popular media replete with images of stay-at-home dads (A. Williams, 2012) and women who “wear the pants in the family” (Rosin, 2012). These transformations within our families are inextricably tied to the larger changes occurring at the societal, and even global, levels. Historical Perspectives on Families Sociologists and laypersons alike tend to roman- ticize the ways families were in the past, when extended families were believed to prevail and Sociologists today are interested in transformations in family members were mutually dependent family forms, including the rise in remarriage and emer- gence of blended families such as the Trumps. on, and supportive of, one another. However, the notion that the extended family was the predominant form of family in premodern Western Europe has been disproved. His- torical research shows that the nuclear family has long been preeminent. Premodern household size was indeed larger than it is today, but not by much. In the United States, for example, throughout the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, the aver- age household size was 4.75 persons. The current average is just 2.5 (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2017b). This low number is partly due to the high proportion of Americans who live alone today, especially older widowed women and young professionals who maintain their own homes (Klinenberg, 2012a). Since the earlier figure includes domestic servants, the absolute difference in family size is small. In the premodern United States and Europe, children as young as seven or eight often worked, helping their parents on the farm. Most who did not remain in the family enter- prise left the parental household at an early age to do domestic work for others or to follow apprenticeships. Children who went away to work rarely saw their parents again. Other factors made family groups then even more impermanent than they are now. Rates of mortality (numbers of deaths per 1,000 of the population in any one year) for people of all ages were much higher. A quarter or more of all infants in early modern Europe did not survive beyond the first year of life, and women frequently died in child- birth. The notion of staying married until “old age” often was not realized due to mortal- ity. The death of children or of one or both spouses often shattered family relations. THE DEVELOPMENT OF FAMILY LIFE Historical sociologist Lawrence Stone (1980) distinguished three phases in the development of the family from the 1500s to the 1800s. Early in this period, from the fif- teenth century to the early seventeenth century, the main form was a type of nuclear fam- ily that lived in fairly small households but maintained deeply embedded relationships within the community, including with other kin. According to Stone (although some historians have challenged this idea), the family was not a major focus of emotional attachment or dependence for its members, not in the way we associate such qualities with family life today. Individual freedom of choice in marriage and other matters of family life were subordinated to the interests of parents, other kin, or the community. Theoretical and Historical Perspectives on Families485  Sex within marriage was not regarded as a affective individualism Ċ The belief in source of pleasure but as a necessity to produce romantic attachment as a basis for contracting marriage ties. children. Outside of aristocratic circles, where it was sometimes actively encouraged, erotic or romantic love was regarded by moralists and theologians as a sickness. As Stone (1980) put it, the family during this period “was an open-ended, low-keyed, unemotional, authoritarian institution....It was also very short-lived, being frequently dissolved by the death of the husband or wife or the death or very early departure from the home of the children.” Next came a transitional form of family that lasted from the early seventeenth cen- tury to the beginning of the eighteenth. Although largely a feature of the upper classes of society, this form was very important because from it spread attitudes that have since become almost universal. The nuclear family became a more separate entity, distinct from other kin and the local community. There was a growing emphasis on marital and parental love, although the authoritarian power of fathers also increased. The third phase, which emerged in the mid-eighteenth century and persisted through the mid-twentieth century, gave rise to the type of family system cur rently wide- spread in the West. This family is a group tied by close emotional bonds, domestic privacy, and child-rearing. It is marked by affective individualism, marriage ties based on personal choice, and sexual attraction or romantic love. Sexual aspects of love became glorified within marriage instead of in extramarital relationships. The family became geared to consumption rather than production, as a result of workplaces being separate from the home. Women became associated with domesticity and men with being the breadwinners. Originating among affluent groups, this family type became fairly universal in Western countries with the spread of industrialization. In premodern Europe, marriage usually began as a property arrangement. In the mid- dle years of marriage, the couple focused mainly on raising children, whereas in the later stages, marriage was about love. Few couples married for love, but many grew to love each other as they jointly managed their household, raised their children, and shared a lifetime of experiences together. By contrast, in most of the modern West, marriage begins with a couple in love; in its middle, it is mostly about raising children (if there are children), and marital quality wanes. By later life, those couples whose marriages survive are typically marked by high levels of love, affection, and companionship (Karney and Bradbury, 1995; Umberson et al., 2005). MYTHS OF THE TRADITIONAL FAMILY As we discussed in this chapter’s introduction, some people today feel that families have changed for the worse. They glorify the “traditional” nuclear family and vilify the new “postmodern” families described by sociologist Judith Stacey. Critics of contemporary American families contrast the apparent decline of the family with more traditional forms of family life from yesteryear. Were families of the past as harmonious as many people recall, or is this memory an idealized fiction? As Stephanie Coontz (1992, 2005) points out, the rosy glow cast on the “traditional family” fades when we delve into his- torical evidence about families in prior centuries. Many admire the colonial family of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as dis- ciplined and stable, but it suffered from the same disintegrative forces as its counterparts in Europe. Especially high death rates meant that the average marriage lasted less than 12 years, and more than half of all children saw the death of at least one parent by the 486 CHAPTER 15Families and Intimate Relationships time they were 21. The much-admired discipline of the colonial family was rooted in the strict authority of par- ents over their children, which would seem exceedingly harsh by today’s standards. The Victorian family of the 1850s was also less than ideal by contempo- rary standards. In this period, wives were more or less forcibly confined to the home. Women were expected to be virtuous and sexually restrained, while men were sexually licentious. Wives and husbands often had little to do with each other, commu- nicating only through their children. Moreover, domesticity wasn’t even an option for poorer groups. Black slaves in the American South lived Television shows like The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet painted and worked in appalling conditions. an idyllic portrait of family life in the 1950s. In reality, women often In the factories and workshops of felt trapped in the domestic sphere. the North, white families, many of whom were immigrants, worked long hours with little time for home life. Children often worked long hours under dangerous conditions in factories until states started to pass compulsory schooling laws in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By 1918, every state required children to complete elementary school, which virtually eliminated the pool of child workers (Graham, 1974). Many people regard the 1950s as the time of the “ideal” American family, captured in old television shows such as Father Knows Best and Leave It to Beaver, where women worked only in the home and men earned the family wage. Yet many women felt unfulfilled and trapped in their domestic role. As discussed earlier, many had held paid jobs during World War II as part of the war effort but lost those jobs when CONCEPT CHECKS 3 1. According to the functionalist perspective, men returned from the war. Moreover, what are the two main functions of the family? men were often emotionally removed 2. How do symbolic interactionist approaches from their wives and observed a sexual to studying family differ from functionalist double standard, seeking sexual adven- approaches? What are two critiques of the symbolic interactionist perspective? tures for themselves but setting strict 3. According to feminist perspectives, what codes for their spouses. three aspects of family life are sources of con- Betty Friedan’s best-selling book The cern? Why are these three aspects troubling Feminine Mystique appeared in 1963, to feminists? but its research referred to family life 4. Stephanie Coontz has dispelled the myth of the peaceful and harmonious family believed in the 1950s. Friedan struck a chord in to exist in past decades. Give two examples of the hearts of thousands of women when problems facing the family during this time. she spoke of an oppressive domestic life Theoretical and Historical Perspectives on Families487  bound up with child care, endless drudgery, and a husband who often prioritized work over his family life. Even more severe were the alcoholism and violence suffered within some families during a time when society was unprepared to confront these issues. Let’s now examine the changes affecting personal relationships, marriage, and fami- lies today. No doubt some of these changes are profound and far-reaching. But interpret- ing their likely implications, particularly in the United States, means acknowledging just how unrealistic it is to contrast present conditions with a mythical view of the traditional family. 3 RESEARCH ON FAMILIES TODAY Contemporary research on families, both in the United States and worldwide, is uni- fied by four key themes. First, family structure continues to change and evolve. Second, there is tremendous variation in what families look like; our family experiences are pow- erfully shaped by our social group memberships, including race, social class, religion, sexual orientation, and age. Third, families are an important influence on the health and well-being of both adults and children. And, finally, while families have been historically thought of as a safe haven, they also have a dark side where family members may inflict abuse and pain on one another. We review recent research on the current state of fami- lies and suggest ways they may change in future decades. Changes in Family Patterns Worldwide Many family forms exist today. In some areas, such as remote regions in Asia, Africa, and the Pacific Rim, traditional family systems are changing slowly, with most still main- taining or aspiring to one lifelong marriage with children. In most developing coun- tries, however, changes are occurring rapidly. In some nations in Western and Northern Europe, for instance, only a minority will ever marry, with most preferring to cohabit with their romantic partner. Among the complex origins of these changes is the spread of Western ideals of romantic love. Another is the development of centralized government in areas previously comprising autonomous smaller societies. People’s lives become influenced by their involvement in a national political system; moreover, governments attempt to alter traditional ways of behavior. Because of rapid population growth, states frequently introduce programs advocating smaller families, the use of contraception, and so forth. Another influence is large-scale migration from rural to urban areas. Often, men go to work in towns or cities, leaving family members in the home village. Alternatively, a nuclear family group moves to the city. In both cases, traditional family forms and kinship systems may weaken. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, employment opportunities away from the land and in organizations such as government bureaucracies, mines, plantations, and industrial firms disrupt family systems previously centered on landed production in the local community. These changes have created worldwide movement toward the predominance of the nuclear family, breaking down extended-family systems and other types of kinship groups. This movement was first documented by William J. Goode in his book World Revo- lution in Family Patterns (1963) and has been borne out by subsequent research. Building on Goode’s work, sociologists have identified seven important changes that have charac- terized global family change over the past half-century: 488 CHAPTER 15Families and Intimate Relationships  1. Clans and other kin groups are declining in influence. 2. There is a general trend toward the free choice of a spouse. 3. The rights of women are more widely recognized, with respect both to initiating marriage and to making decisions within families. 4. Kin marriages are less common. 5. Higher levels of sexual freedom are developing in societies that were formerly very restrictive. 6. Birth rates are declining, meaning that women are giving birth to fewer babies. 7. There is a general trend toward extending children’s rights. In many countries, especially Western industrial societies, five additional trends have occurred within the past three decades: 1. An increase in the number of births that occur outside of marriage. 2. A liberalization of laws and norms regarding divorce. 3. An increase in nonmarital cohabitation among romantic partners. 4. An increasing age at first marriage and first birth. 5. A growing number of and acceptance for same-sex couples and their families. Countries vary widely in how rapidly these changes are occurring (Ng, 2016). For instance, most nations in Asia are witnessing a rapid transition in family life, with divorce rates slowly rising, family size decreasing, and multigenerational families declining in number, a function of young adults’ desire for autonomy and independence, and turning away from Confucian values (Ng, 2016). Still, divorce rates remain low relative to West- ern nations, and marriage is nearly universal. In sharp contrast, only a minority of young adults ultimately marry in Scandinavian nations; they instead form long-term cohabiting relationships in which they bear and rear children. In 2014, fully 70 percent of births in Iceland were out of wedlock; rates were just slightly lower in Sweden and Norway. How- ever, nearly all these births were to cohabiting partners in committed long-term relation- ships (Chamie, 2016). Research on Families Today489  SOCIAL CLASS AND AMERICAN FAMILIES Sociologists studying racial and ethnic differences in American families are always keenly aware of the role that social class plays. As we learned in Chapter 11, whites, blacks, Native Americans, Latinos, and Asians differ starkly with respect to their levels of education, the kinds of jobs they hold, their income, their savings, and whether they own homes. Economic and occupational stability is a powerful influence on families, where those with richer resources are more likely to marry and to have children within (rather than outside of) marriage. Even studies that focus primarily on race are essen- tially studies of social class, because race and class have historically been so closely intertwined. For example, while some early work (Lewis, 1969; Stack, 1997) attributed racial differences in the organization of the extended family to cultural or interpersonal factors, contemporary researchers have concluded that “the differences between black 496 CHAPTER 15Families and Intimate Relationships and white extended family relationships are mainly due to contemporary differences in social and economic class positions of group members. Cultural differences are less sig- nificant” (Sarkisian and Gerstel, 2004). This finding leads us to a thought-provoking and policy-relevant question: Are racial differences in family formation due primarily to economic or to cultural factors? Con- sider an example of four individuals, all women, who are the heads of their households: (1) a black doctor, (2) a white doctor, (3) a black nurse’s aide, and (4) a white nurse’s aide. The cultural argument suggests that blacks and whites are different, which means that the black doctor and black nurse’s aide should have family lives that are more similar to each other than they are to the family lives of the white doctor or white nurse’s aide. The class argument argues the opposite: that the two nurse’s aides and the two doctors will be more similar to each other than they will be to people of the same race but from a different class position. Recent studies show that race and class each have distinctive and often complicated influences on family behavior. For instance, while whites from working-class and poor, often rural, backgrounds—often residing in the southern United States—report very strong ideological support for marriage and bearing children within marriage, their behaviors often depart from these conservative ideals. White young adults of lower- and working- class backgrounds are much more likely than their wealthier peers to get pregnant prior to marriage, marry young, and subsequently divorce (Cahn and Carbone, 2010). Because they often do not attend college, they marry young and bear children young—often before they are financially or emotionally prepared. As a result, they often struggle unsuccessfully with the challenges of marriage and babies, and ultimately divorce. In the past decade, white working-class families have been particularly vulnerable to the opioid crisis, where a young adult’s addiction can derail his or her life chances and destabilize family well- being. For young adult addicts with small children, addiction and death by overdose often means that older white adults become custodial grandparents to their orphaned grand- children (Whalen, 2016). Middle-class young adults, by contrast, show much more stable family formation pat- terns. Many cohabit while in school or working in their first jobs, so they marry later and bear children later. Delaying marriage until they are emotionally and financially ready is one of the key reasons college-educated young whites have lower rates of divorce than their more economically disadvantaged counterparts (Cahn and Carbone, 2010). Research comparing middle-class blacks with their less-advantaged counterparts was very scarce until the past decade, when scholars began to explore middle-class black families in depth (Lacy, 2007; Landry and Marsh, 2011; Pattillo, 2013). Although middle- class black families are much more likely than their less economically advantaged peers to live in married-couple households, recent studies detect a new form of middle-class black family, especially among young adults—the single-person household. Due in part to the shortage of marriageable men described earlier, college-educated black women often live on their own without a romantic partner (Marsh et al., 2007). Studies of intersection- ality, or the complex interplay between race and class, provide important insights into the ways both culture and structure shape family lives. Nonmarital Childbearing Nonmarital childbearing continues to be one of the most hotly debated and well-researched areas of family sociology. This intense interest is driven, in part, by the fact that the number of children born out of wedlock today is more than six times higher than it was in the 1950s (see Figure 15.4). Nonmarital childbearing Research on Families Today497  Figure 15.4 Birth Rate and Percentage of Births to Unmarried Women, 1940–2015 60 Percent of all births to unmarried women and birth rate per 1,000 unmarried women* 50 40 30 Percent Birth rate 20 10 0 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 *Ages 15 to 44. Source: Martin et al., 2017. rates peaked in 2008 and have since declined, but they remain high—especially for eth- nic minorities. In 2015, 71 percent of all births to black women, 66 percent of births to American Indian or Alaska Native women, and 53 percent of births to Hispanic women occurred outside marriage, compared with 29 percent for non-Hispanic white women and 16 percent for Asian or Pacific Islander women (Martin et al., 2017). Yet these numbers can be misleading because they suggest that babies are being born to women without male partners, thus denying the children a “father figure.” Recent studies show that 58 percent of all nonmarital births take place in cohabiting unions (Curtin, Ventura, and Martinez, 2014), meaning that many of these children are raised by two parents who just happen not to be legally married to each other. A key question sociologists address is, why do women have children out of wedlock? This is an important concern to policy makers because children born to unmarried mothers are more likely to grow up in a single-parent household, experience instability in living arrangements, and live in poverty. As these children reach adolescence, they are more likely to have low educational attainment, engage in sex at younger ages, and have a premarital birth. As young adults, children born outside marriage are more likely to be idle (neither in school nor employed), have lower occupational status and income, and have more troubled marriages and more divorces than those born to married par- ents. Of course, most studies conclude that it is not single mothers who are the problem, but rather, the economically disadvantaged conditions that both give rise to and follow 498 CHAPTER 15Families and Intimate Relationships from nonmarital childbearing (Child Trends, 2012). We revisit this topic in our consid- eration of single-parent families. Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas (2005) ask why low-income women continue to have children out of wedlock when they can hardly afford to do so. Following in the tradition of scholars such as Carol Stack and Elijah Anderson, Edin and Kefalas lived with their subjects—among poor blacks, whites, and Puerto Ricans in Philadelphia and in Camden, New Jersey. Their interviews with 165 low-income single mothers in black and white neighborhoods led them to argue that single mothers were not eschewing marriage. To the contrary, women of all ethnicities whom they interviewed highly valued marriage but believed that getting married at that time would make things worse, either commit- ting them to terrible relationships or leading to divorce. As one woman told Edin and Kefalas, “I’d rather say I had a child out of wedlock than that I married this idiot.” Or, as others said, a failed marriage would be worse than having children on their own. In an environment in which more men than ever were going to prison or were unemployed, these women needed to be able to fend for themselves. Two-thirds of the pregnancies in the study were neither planned nor actively avoided. This figure is much higher than the national average, where 34 percent of all nonmarital pregnancies are considered “unintended” (Curtin, Ventura, and Martinez, 2014). In the poor communities that Edin and Kefalas (2005) studied, women stopped using contraception when the relationship became serious, even if the woman and man had not planned to have children together. But why do women have children out of wedlock in the first place? For one thing, the researchers find that young people in poor communities feel very confident about their ability to raise children, more so than most middle-class people do. This is because most of the pregnant mothers came from social environments in which young people helped raise the other children in a family or in a building. Second, poor people place a high value on children, perhaps an even higher value than do middle-class families. Part of the reason for this is that they have fewer things to make their lives meaningful; going to college and finding a professional job are rarely options for low-income inner-city young women. For them, one of the worst things is to be child- less. Finally, many women in the study reported that having a child had actually saved their lives, bringing order to an otherwise chaotic life (Edin and Kefalas, 2005). A third reason to “retreat from marriage” has to do with the changing meaning of mar- riage in low-income communities. Although low-income women do value marriage, what qualifies a man as a potential marital partner has changed over the last 50 years. Edin and Kefalas comment that “in the 1950s all but the most marginally employed men found women who were willing to marry them. Now, however, even men who are stably employed at relatively good jobs at the time of the child’s birth...aren’t automatically deemed mar- riageable.” This view is consistent with the work of sociologist William Julius Wilson (1987), who theorized that a lack of “marriageable” men contributed to low rates of mar- riage among poor African Americans. Taken together, this research suggests that women have become more selective. When women who value motherhood highly also set the bar higher for marriage, higher rates of nonmarital fertility follow. Through Edin and Kefalas’s (2005) work, we can understand the worldviews of black, white, and Puerto Rican young people who are having children out of wedlock. Class-Based Cultural Practices The relationship between social class and family life in the contemporary United States is central to another recent work of field-based Research on Families Today499  sociology. Annette Lareau (2011) closely observed 12 families—6 white, 5 black, and 1 interracial—and found that middle-class and working-class people have different cul- tural practices for raising children. Middle-class parents engage in “concerted cultiva- tion,” working hard to cultivate their children’s talents through many nonschool-based activities, as well as continuous linguistic interaction. Working-class and poor parents adopt a different style of child-rearing, the “accomplishment of natural growth”: Talk is brief and instrumental, children learn to be more compliant with adult directives, and they participate in few organized activities outside school. They learn to occupy them- selves, often playing with neighborhood friends. As a result of these child-rearing strategies, Lareau claims, middle-class children develop a sense of entitlement and value an individualized sense of self. They become com- fortable questioning authority and making demands on adults and institutions. In contrast, the working-class child-rearing strategy promotes a sense of constraint in children, who become more cautious in dealing with adults, bureaucratic institutions, and authority. Like anthropologist Carol Stack, Lareau also finds that working-class and low-income parents place great importance on close kin ties; thus, these children develop closer relationships with their siblings, cousins, and other relatives. Lareau argues that there are important signs of hidden advantages and disadvan- tages “being sown at early ages”; but because her research subjects were young, it was not possible to make claims about the way these child-rearing strategies affect adult outcomes. Further research would benefit from testing some of Lareau’s hypotheses in large samples of children. Like Edin and Kefalas, Lareau recognizes that social class is crucial to understanding family life in the contemporary United States. Her work sets a new standard in show- ing both how these differences emerge and operate and their potential implications. She emphasizes that the differences between working-class and middle-class culture do not reflect radically different values and priorities but, instead, vastly different levels of income and wealth. Her evidence suggests that if poor and working-class people had more money, their child-rearing strategies would change. 500 CHAPTER 15Families and Intimate Relationships