Diverse Family Units

Irrespective of what form a family takes, it forms a basic social unit upon which societies are based, and can reflect other societal changes. For example, the bar graph shows how much the family structure has changed in a relatively short period of time. What trends do you see in the bar graph? What variables might help explain the increase in single parents between 1960 and 1980 and 2014? What variables might help explain the decrease in children living in two parent/ first marriage families? Which theoretical perspectives can help explain this phenomenon?

The study also revealed that 60 percent of U.S. respondents agreed that if you consider yourself a family, you are a family (a concept that reinforces an interactionist perspective) (Powell, 2010). The government, however, is not so flexible in its definition of “family.” The U.S. Census Bureau defines a family as “a group of two people or more (one of whom is the householder) related by birth, marriage, or adoption and residing together” (U.S. Census Bureau, 2019). While this definition can be used as a means to consistently track family-related patterns over several years, it excludes individuals such as cohabiting unmarried heterosexual and homosexual couples.

Family is, indeed, a subjective concept, but it is a fairly objective fact that family (whatever one’s concept of it may be) is very important to people in the United States. In a 2010 survey by Pew Research Center in Washington, DC, 76 percent of adults surveyed stated that family is “the most important” element of their life—just one percent said it was “not important” (Pew Research Center, 2010). It is also very important to society. President Ronald Reagan notably stated, “The family has always been the cornerstone of American society. Our families nurture, preserve, and pass on to each succeeding generation the values we share and cherish, values that are the foundation of our freedoms” (Lee, 2009). While the design of the family may have changed in recent years, the fundamentals of emotional closeness and support are still present. Most respondents to the Pew survey stated that their family today is at least as close (45 percent) or closer (40 percent) than the family with which they grew up (Pew Research Center).

One Partner or Many?

People in the United States typically equate marriage with monogamy, when someone is married to only one person at a time. In many countries and cultures around the world, however, having one spouse is not the only form of marriage.

A recent article by Thobejane and Flora (2014)^[4] provides an updated view on polygamy, or being married to more than one person at a time. Polygamy is more common that one would think, with 83% of human societies permitting the practice, but it is most common in Africa as a reflection of tribal and religious customs and economic and social structures. Instances of polygamy are almost exclusively in the form of polygyny. Polygyny refers to a man being married to more than one woman at the same time. The reverse, when a woman is married to more than one man at the same time, is called polyandry. It is far less common and only occurs in about 1 percent of the world’s cultures (Altman and Ginat, 1996). The reasons for the overwhelming prevalence of polygamous societies are varied but they often include issues of population growth, religious ideologies, and social status.

While the majority of societies accept polygyny, the majority of people do not practice it. Often fewer than 10 percent (and no more than 25–35 percent) of men in polygamous cultures have more than one wife; these husbands are often older, wealthy, high-status men (Altman and Ginat, 1996). The average plural marriage involves no more than three wives. Negev Bedouin men in Israel, for example, typically have two wives, although it is acceptable to have up to four (Griver, 2008). As urbanization increases in these cultures, polygamy is likely to decrease as a result of greater access to mass media, technology, and education (Altman and Ginat, 1996).

In the United States, polygamy is considered by most to be socially unacceptable and it is illegal. The act of entering into marriage while still married to another person is referred to as bigamy and is considered a felony in most states. Polygamy in the United States is often associated with those of the Mormon faith, although that designation is erroneous as the “Mormon Church” (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) officially renounced polygamy in 1890. The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), on the other hand, still hold tightly to the historic religious beliefs and practices and allow polygamy in their sect. The prevalence of polygamy is often overestimated due shows such as HBO’s Big Love and TLC’s Sister Wives, (2010-present) which has brought issues surrounding a white, polygamous family residing in Utah, Nevada, and Arizona into mainstream American discourse and whether prohibiting polygamy is constitutional in the United States. The patriarch in Sister Wives, Kody Brown, is legally married to one wife but has three other “spiritual wives” and eighteen children among the four wives.

The most extreme FLDS sect has an estimated up to 10,000 followers in the United States, so the number of polygamous marriages or “spiritual unions” is extremely small, but there may be up to 40,000 others in Utah and nearby states who practice polygamy illegally in addition to excommunicated Mormons in polygamous marriages ^[5]

No one knows how many Muslims in the U.S. live in polygamous families, but best estimates from academics range from 50,000 to 100,000 people ^[6]. A man might marry a woman under civil law, and similar to the spiritual unions found in FLDS, an additional two or three marriages might occur in religious ceremonies unrecognized by the state and/or in other countries. While some women consent to polygamous unions, others keep quiet for fear of retribution or deportation and live “invisible lives” (Hagerty, 2018).

Courtship

Courtship is the traditional dating period before engagement and marriage (or long term commitment if marriage is not allowed). It is an alternative to arranged marriages in which the couple or group doesn’t meet before the wedding. During a courtship, a couple or group gets to know each other and decides if there will be an engagement. Courting includes activities such as dating where couples or groups go together for some activity (e.g., a meal or movie). Courting can also take place without personal contact, especially with modern technology. Virtual dating, chatting on-line, sending text messages, conversing over the telephone, instant messaging, writing letters, and sending gifts are all modern forms of courting.

Courtship varies both by time period and by region of the world. One way courtship varies is in the duration; courting can take days or years.

Figure 4. Courting, Tacuinum Sanitatis (XIV century).

While the date is fairly casual in most European-influenced cultures, in some traditional societies, courtship is a highly structured activity, with very specific formal rules. In some societies, the parents or community propose potential partners, and then allow limited dating to determine whether the parties are suited (in fact, this was common in the U.S. throughout the 1800s). In Japan, some parents hire a matchmaker to provide pictures and resumes of potential mates, and if the couple or group agrees, there will be a formal meeting with the matchmaker and often parents in attendance; this is called Omiai. In more closed societies, courtship is virtually eliminated altogether by the practice of arranged marriages, where partners are chosen for young people, typically by their parents or (in the absence of parents) local authorities. Forbidding experimental and serial courtship and sanctioning only arranged matches is partly a means of guarding the chastity of young people and partly a matter of furthering family interests, which in such cultures may be considered more important than individual romantic preferences. Another variation of courtship is the bundling tradition, which likely originated in Scandinavia and was carried to the U.S. by immigrants. Bundling involved potential mates spending the night together in the same bed, though the couple was not supposed to engage in sexual relations. This practice ceased in the late 19th Century.

In earlier centuries, young adults were expected to court with the intention of finding marriage partners, rather than for social reasons. However, by the 1920s, dating for fun was becoming an expectation, and by the 1930s, it was assumed that any popular young person would have lots of dates. This form of dating, though, was usually more chaste than is seen today, since premarital sex was not considered the norm even though it was widespread. As a result of social changes spurred by the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, the taboo of sex during dating began to wane. Couples today are more likely to “hook up” or “hang out” with large groups rather than go on old-fashioned, paired dates. In recent years, a number of college newspapers have featured editorials where students decry the lack of “dating” on their campuses. This may be a result of a highly-publicized 2001 study and campaign sponsored by the conservative American women’s group Independent Women’s Forum, which promotes “traditional” dating. Also, in recent years dating has evolved and taken on the metamorphic properties necessary to sustain itself in today’s world. This can be seen in the rise in internet dating, speed dating or gradual exclusivity dating (a.k.a. slow dating). Some theorize that courtship as it was known to prior generations has seen its last days and the next closest thing is gradual exclusivity, where the partners respect and value each other’s individual lives but still maintain the ultimate goal of being together even if time or space does not permit it now.

Courtship is used by a number of theorists to explain gendering processes and sexual identity. Despite occasional studies as early as the 1910s, systematic scientific research into courtship began in the 1980s after which time academic researchers started to generate theories about modern dating practices and norms. Both Moore and Perper argued that, contrary to popular beliefs, courtship is normally triggered and controlled by women, driven mainly by non-verbal behaviors to which men respond. This is generally supported by other theorists who specialize in the study of body language, but ignores the ways females are socialized to “gain status” by learning to appear attractive to and demonstrate desire for males.

Feminist scholars, however, continue to regard courtship as a socially constructed (and male-focused) process organized to subjugate women. While some criticize feminist interpretations of courtship by pointing to women’s support of courtship and attraction to magazines about marital and romantic experience, such criticisms generally ignore the emphasis on marital and romantic relationships (in many cases as the sole element of women’s value in male-dominated societies) embedded within feminine socialization norms, and the widespread empirical demonstration that (especially heterosexual) courtship patterns almost universally privilege masculine interests and privilege.

Systematic research into courtship processes inside the workplace as well two 10-year studies examining norms in different international settings  continue to support a view that courtship is a social process that socializes all sexes into accepting forms of relationship that maximize the chances of successfully raising children. This may negatively impact women, particularly those seeking independence and equality at work.

The following video examines the evolving stages of family life—courtship, marriage, child-rearing, and family life in your later years.

Stages of Family Life

The concept of family has changed greatly in recent decades. Historically, it was often thought that many families evolved through a series of predictable stages. Developmental or “stage” theories used to play a prominent role in family sociology (Strong and DeVault, 1992). Today, however, these models have been criticized for their linear and conventional assumptions as well as for their failure to capture the diversity of family forms. While reviewing some of these once-popular theories, it is important to identify their strengths and weaknesses.

The set of predictable steps and patterns families experience over time is referred to as the family life cycle. One of the first designs of the family life cycle was developed by Paul Glick in 1955. In Glick’s original design, he asserted that most people will grow up, establish families, rear and launch their children, experience an “empty nest” period, and come to the end of their lives. This cycle will then continue with each subsequent generation (Glick, 1989). Glick’s colleague, Evelyn Duvall, elaborated on the family life cycle by developing these classic stages of family (Strong and DeVault, 1992):

The family life cycle was used to explain the different processes that occur in families over time. Sociologists view each stage as having its own structure with different challenges, achievements, and accomplishments that transition the family from one stage to the next. For example, the problems and challenges that a family experiences in Stage 1 as a married couple with no children are likely much different than those experienced in Stage 5 as a married couple with teenagers. The success of a family can be measured by how well they adapt to these challenges and transition into each stage. While sociologists use the family life cycle to study the dynamics of family overtime, consumer and marketing researchers have used it to determine what goods and services families need as they progress through each stage (Murphy and Staples, 1979).

As early “stage” theories have been criticized for generalizing family life and not accounting for differences in gender, ethnicity, culture, and lifestyle, less rigid models of the family life cycle have been developed. One example is the family life course, which recognizes the events that occur in the lives of families but views them as parting terms of a fluid course rather than in consecutive stages (Strong and DeVault, 1992). This type of model accounts for changes in family development, such as the fact that in today’s society, childbearing does not always occur with marriage. It also sheds light on other shifts in the way family life is practiced. Society’s modern understanding of family rejects rigid “stage” theories and is more accepting of new, fluid models.