Chapter 14
The Family and Intimate
Relationships
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Global view of the Family
Composition: What is the family?
• Nuclear family: a married couple and their
unmarried children living together.
• Extended family: a family in which relatives–
such as grandparents, aunts or uncles– live
in the same home as parents and their
children is known as an extended family.
• Monogamy (一夫一妻制) describes a form of
marriage in which one woman and one
man are married only to each other.
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• Serial monogamy: a person may have several
spouses in his or her life but only one spouse at a
time.
• Polygamy (複婚制): some cultures allow an
individual to have several husbands or wives
simultaneously.
• Polygyny (一夫多妻): refers to the marriage of a
man to more than one woman at the same time.
• Polyandry (一妻多夫): under which some women
have more than one husband at the same time.
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Kinship Patterns: To Whom Are We Related?
• Kinship is culturally learned and it not
totally determined by biological or martial
ties. (e.g., adoption creates a kinship tie that
is legally acknowledged and socially
accepted.)
• How are kinship groups identified?
According to their relationship to an
individual’s mother and father. [three
primarily ways: bilateral descent (雙系繼嗣
both mom and dad); patrilineal decent (父系繼
嗣); matrilineal decent (母系繼嗣).]
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Authority Patterns: Who Rules?
• Patriarchy (父權): a society expects males to
dominate in all family decision making. (e.g.,
Iran, eldest male wields the greatest power)
• Matriarchy (母權): women have greater
authority than men. (very uncommon,
among Native American tribal societies)
• Egalitarian (平權) family: spouses are
regarded as equal. (wives may hold
authority in some spheres, husbands in
others)
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Marriage and Family
• Aspects of Mate Selection
1. Endogamy (內婚制): specifies the groups
within which a spouse must be found and
prohibits marriage with others.
2. Exogamy (外婚制): requires mate selection
outside certain groups, usually one’s own
family or certain kinfolk. The incest taboo,
a social norm common to virtually all
societies, prohibits sexual relationships
between certain culturally specified
relatives.
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The Love Relationship
‘love isn’t in the air these days, at least not in
New Haven…my peers and I find ourselves in a
new world of romance, and we’re feeling a little
out of our league. We are children of the Age of
Divorce, born into the AIDS crisis, reared on
Madonna, Friends, and Beverly Hills 90210. No
wonder we’re confused. We know we want this
thing called love. More than previous
generations, though, we’re unsure of what love is
and how to get it– and we’re not so sure that
fining it will be worth the trouble’. (from Yale
University junior)
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Child-Rearing Patterns in
Family Life
• Parenthood and Grandparenthood
• Adoption: a process that allows for the
transfer of the legal rights, responsibilities,
and privileges of parenthood to a new legal
parent or parents.
• Dual-income families: raise issues about
quality of life– marital relationships, child
care, and standard of living.
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• Single-Parent Family: there is only one
parent present to care for the children. (can
hardly be viewed as a rarity in the United
States)
• Stepfamilies: the rising rates of divorce and
remarriage have led to a noticeable increase
in stepfamily relationships.
(e.g., Tim and Janet are my stepbrother and sister. Josh is my
stepdad. Carin and Don are my real parents, who are
divorced. And Don married Anna and together they had
Ethan and Ellen, my half-sister and brother. And Carin
married Josh and had little Alice, my half-sister.)
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Divorce
• ‘Do you promise to love, honour, and
cherish…until death do you part?’…
• But increasing number of these promises shatter in
divorce.
• Greater social acceptance of divorce: it is no longer
considered necessary to endure an unhappy
marriage. Various religious denominations have
relaxed negative attitudes towards divorce, and
most religious leaders no longer treat it as a sin.
The growing acceptance of divorce is a worldwide
phenomenon.
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Impact of Divorce on Children
• Divorce can be obviously be a painful
experience for both female and male
children, but we should avoid labeling
young people as ‘children of divorce’ as if
this parental experience is the singular
event defining the life of a girl or boy.
• Due to high rate of divorce in the USA and
its impact on children has led policymakers
to reconsider existing divorce laws. (e.g.,
premarital counseling and strict limits on
divorce, etc.)
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Diverse Lifestyles
• Cohabitation: male-female couples who choose to
live together without marrying.
• Remaining Single
e.g., for those not want to limit their sexual
intimacy to one lifetime partner; not want to
become dependent on anyone; more freedoms
• Lesbian and Gay Relationships
• Marriage without Children
economic considerations; child-free vs. childless.
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