Marriage and Family 2

Marriage and Family

Define marriage and family and summarize related cultural themes.
The modern understanding of the concept of marriage and family is more encompassing than what was known in the old society. However, in both cases family has remained to be one of the primary social structures in the society. There have been several definitions of marriage and family since they became institutions within the human social life. They all try to capture all the elements that make up families and marriages institutions observed in the society. Therefore, marriage can best be described as a legally recognized agreement of a permanent union made between two people based on the traditional sexual relationship. In this case, the definition incorporates the fact that marriage is legally recognized. However, for the matter of a polygamy marriage, the people can be more than two and not necessarily of opposite sex in countries where gay marriages have been legalized. Among the sociologist, the significant concerns on the purpose and definition of marriage are its relationship with the institution, family. According to Jieyu (2017), history puts marriage at the core of a family as it forms the foundation that leads to the existence of a family. He further states that a family makes up the basic unit of the society.

In the old Canadian society, that is, during the years before the 20th century, a family was made up of a husband, wife, roughly two children and maybe a pet (Gates, 2015). However, the current society across the world have experienced several changes such as gay couple, single parents and married couples without children.

As a result, several sociologists such as Jieyu (2017) and Gurman (2014) have gone ahead to define “family” based on the father, mother and child structure while others on how people in a community relate with each other outside the strict guidelines of status roles. In this context, the word family refers to a socially acknowledged group united through marriage, adoption or blood which results in an emotional connection and it identified as the smallest unit within a society.

Even though societies throughout the world are diverse, there are marriage and cultural themes that are common among all of them. The themes are created from the process of mate selection, inheritance, decent and authority. Under mate selection, every society has a criterion that defines who marries whom. For the cultures that uphold endogamy, members of the community marry within the social group. On the other hand, those practicing exogamies allow members of the society to find spouses outside the social group (Liddle, 2015). Secondly, inheritance defines marriage and family as customary in the community and is divided into bilinear, patrilineal and matrilineal. In the case of a bilinear, the property can be passed to any gender within the family lineage while patrilineal allows only male descendants. On the other hand, matrilineal allows only female descendants. Thirdly, descent describes how people are related to the society. In this case, it can either be bilinear, patrilineal of the matrilineal system. Lastly, authority within the community can be categorized as either patriarchy, a system where men dominate women; matriarchy, women, dominate men or egalitarian where all genders share equal power (Gurman, 2014).
Compare and contrast three theoretical perspectives of marriage and family.
There are three main theoretical perspectives of marriage and family. They include symbolic interactionism, Functionalism, and conflict. Under symbolic interaction, the institution of marriage uses symbols such as wedding bands, white bridal dresses, vows and wedding cakes. Others within the American marriage institution include music and church ceremony. In the traditional practices, women find taking the last name of their husbands as a symbol of long-term union. On the other hand, functionalism describes every aspect of the society as being interdependent and adds values to the functioning of the community in general. In this case, the government provides education for children as the family pay taxes as a contribution to the government revenue. According to Sexton and Lebow (2015), the family depends on the state to provide education for the children who grow up and become taxpayers and parents, and the cycle continues. As a result, there is order, stability, and productivity in the society. Lastly, the conflict perspective describes the existence of disagreement and fights because of limited resources hence defining different social status within a community. Learning (n.d.) explains that low-income families might end up appearing as victims when conflicts occur between them and the rich. In this case, conflict perspective differs from functionalism and symbolic interaction perspectives since it outlines the negative aspects of marriage and family. Furthermore, conflict perspective challenges the functionalism status quo and supports the social change because of inequalities such as race, religion, and gender.
Identify cultural and social class distinctions between families amongst the five racial/ethnic groups in the U.S.
African Americans
African American families are organized into extended families consisting of father, mother, children, and relatives. The families tend to have meals together as an extended family. However, few prefer taking meals within their small families. Their household is made up of more than two children, parents, uncles, aunts, and grandparents. The families tend to have a strong sense of loyalty and commitments, and the roles of each member of the family are clearly defined.
White Americans
Among the white Americans, the family structure is mostly nuclear, that is, consist of father, mother, and children. The mother is tasked with the role of cooking and serving food in the family, and they tend to have meals together as they have family discussion or arguments. The people making up most of the white family household include father, mother and two children. The white families usually uphold loyalty within the families and have the roles of the husband and the wife are well defined. They tend to have well-planned family activities and follow specific life pattern every year.
Hispanics
Hispanics family structure is mainly extended consisting of father, mother, children, uncles, aunts, and grandparents. During meals, they invite them to extend families to dine with them. However, every family comes with their own dishes. The Hispanics household consist of more children than the white Americans in addition to relatives. The families of Hispanics are extended, tight-knit and consist of highly supporting relatives. They have a strong sense of commitment; responsibilities and each person see that they fulfill their roles within the family.
Asian Americans
Their families are mainly extended consisting of father, mother, and relatives. The roles of each member of the family are well stipulated. The women are tasked with the part of caring for children as the men are tasked with providing the financial needs of the family members. They take all meals together as extended families. The family members have high loyalty towards the family and strictly live according to their family cultures and values. They tend to carry out family events and have a specific pattern of social activities year after year.
Mexicans-Americans
Mexican American families are patriarchal as either the father of the grandfather is considered as the head of the family. Mexican American families are mainly extended and patrilineal since the men in the family are responsible for carrying the lineage and name through to the next generations. In the family, the father and mother have well-defined roles as the mother is mostly considered as the caregivers while the father the provider. Meals in the family are takes as extended families, but each family brings their family dish to the table.
Review the growing types of nontraditional families in the U.S and identify two family trends in the U.S.
The population of gay families is currently growing in the American Society since same-sex marriages were legalized. Furthermore, McMillan, McIsaac, and Janssen (2016) explain that child-rearing in the country are currently taking different forms from what people used to know in the 20th Century. According to research done by Perales (2017), up to 50% of children in the current society will grow up in families made up of two parents. Miller (2014) on the other hand states that the country is currently being filled with blended families, that is, couples coming into new relationships with children from a former marriage. Also, the number of single parents, families having adopted children, foster and grandparents bringing up grandchildren types of families are visible within the current American society. The current change has been greatly influenced by political, social and economic changes in the country. Most women currently are employed and earning enough to take care of themselves and their children. As a result, some have moved away from two-parenting families to raise their children alone. The political and social acceptance of gay marriages in the country has led to more gay families in the country. Poor economic states for some families and individuals have led to them offering their children for adoption to wealthier families while some of the orphans being attached to foster families. As a result, the traditional concept of families has considerably changed, and people currently view a family differently from what people in the 20th century did.
Describe consequences of divorce.
Consequences of divorce are experienced by everyone within the family and the society at large. Divorce causes emotional turmoil primarily on women and may take years to overcome if the marriage lasted for a long time. Separation can result in financial hardship when one of the partners is left with few financial assets. Amato (2014) states that parting can lead to loss of friendship between the married couples and old women find it hard to form new friends after a divorce process. On the side of the children, divorce negatively impacts the relationship between the child and either or both parents and even the grandchildren. Also, separation may force either partner into depression and other psychological related health problems.
What factors have been associated or found in long-term, successful marriages?
Some of the factors that are common in all successful marriages include love and commitment, sexual faithfulness, patience and forgiveness, humility, honesty and trust, and selflessness. Insider (2016) describes love as a decision to remain committed to a partner. It is common to find couples in a successful marriage committed to each other despite the life challenges that threaten their marriages. Also, successful marriages consist of partners who have devoted their body to only their partners. Becvar (n.d.) explains that partners in long-term relationship dedicate their minds’ sexual fantasies only to their spouses. No one can be perfect, and most people in long-term relations acknowledge the fact that their spouses are human and are susceptible to making mistakes. For a successful marriage to work and what is observed in most marriages, partners have unending patience and forgiveness towards their spouses.
References
Amato, P. R. (2014). The consequences of divorce for adults and children: An update. Društvena istraživanja: časopis za opća društvena pitanja, 23(1), 5-24.
Becvar, D. S. (n.d.). Envisioning and Creating Long Term Successful Marriages. PsycEXTRA Dataset. doi:10.1037/e579162012-047
Gates, G. J. (2015). Marriage and family: LGBT individuals and same-sex couples. The Future of Children, 25(2), 67-87.
Gurman, A. S. (2014). Handbook of family therapy. Routledge.
Insider, D. B. (2016, June 07). Successful marriages: Three compatibilities you need to make a relationship work. Retrieved January 28, 2018, from http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/love-sex/successful-marriages-three-compatibilities-you-need-to-make-the-relationship-work-a6862986.htmlJieyu, L. (2017). Marriage and Family. In Gender, Sexuality and Power in Chinese Companies (pp. 123-141). Palgrave Macmillan, London.
Learning, L. (n.d.). Reading: Theoretical Perspectives on Marriage and Family. Retrieved January 28, 2018, from https://courses.lumenlearning.com/alamo-sociology/chapter/reading-theoretical-perspectives-on-marriage-and-family/Liddle, H. A. (2015). Multidimensional family therapy. Handbook of family therapy, 231-249.
McMillan, R., McIsaac, M., & Janssen, I. (2016). Family structure as a correlate of organized sport participation among youth. PloS one, 11(2), e0147403.
Miller, D. P., Nepomnyaschy, L., Ibarra, G. L., & Garasky, S. (2014). Family structure and child food insecurity. American Journal of Public Health, 104(7), e70-e76.
Perales, F., Johnson, S. E., Baxter, J., Lawrence, D., & Zubrick, S. R. (2017). Family structure and childhood mental disorders: new findings from Australia. Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology, 52(4), 423-433.
Sexton, T. L., & Lebow, J. (Eds.). (2015). Handbook of family therapy. Routledge.