Overview
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Chapter 13: Family and Religion Overview |
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LEARNING OBJECTIVES
CHAPTER REVIEW
The family is a social institution found in all societies that unites people in cooperative groups oversee the bearing and raising of children. Kinship refers to a social bond, based on blood, marriage, or adoption. A family unit is a social group of two or more people, related by blood, marriage, or adoption, who usually live together. Families form around marriage, a legally sanctioned relationship usually involving economic cooperation, as well as sexual activity and childbearing, that people expect to be enduring. People without legal or blood ties who feel they belong together may identify themselves as families of affinity.
THE FAMILY: GLOBAL VARIETY
One general pattern is the extended family, or a family unit that includes parents and children, as well as other kin. Such a family form is common in preindustrialized societies. It is also referred to as the consanguine family, meaning based on blood ties. Industrial societies are represented by the nuclear family, a family unit composed of one or two parents and their children. It is also known as the conjugal family.
Marriage Patterns
A number of normative systems identify categories of people suitable for marriage for particular individuals. Endogamy refers to marriage between people of the same social category. It is differentiated from the norm of exogamy, or marriage between people of different social categories.
Monogamy is marriage uniting two partners. Polygamy is defined as a form of marriage that unites three or more people. Polygamy takes one of two forms. One type is called polygyny, by far the more common, referring to a form of marriage uniting one male and two or more females. The second type is called polyandry, referring to a form of marriage uniting one female with two or more males. Historically, most world societies have permitted more than one marital pattern.
Residential Patterns
Patrilocality is a residential pattern in which a married couple lives with or near the husband's family. Matrilocality is a residential pattern in which a married couple lives with or near the wife's family. Neolocality refers to a residential pattern in which a married couple lives apart from the parents of both spouses.
Patterns of Descent
Descent refers to the system by which members of a society trace kinship over generations. The more common, patrilineal descent is a system tracing kinship through males. Matrilineal descent refers to a system of tracing kinship through females. Industrial societies follow the bilateral descent referring to a system tracing kinship through both men and women.
Patterns of Authority
The universal presence of patriarchy is reflected in the predominance of polygyny, patrilocality, and patrilineal descent.
THEORETICAL ANALYSIS OF THE FAMILY
Functions of the Family: Structural-Functional Analysis
The structural-functionalists focus on four important social functions served by the family: Socialization, regulation of sexual activity, social placement and material, and emotional security.
Inequality and the Family: Social-Conflict Analysis
The social-conflict approach studies how the family perpetuates patterns of social inequality. This process includes how we transmit property and inheritance, the persistence of patriarchy, and the persistence of race and ethnic hierarchy.
Constructing Family Life: Micro-Level Analysis
Micro-level approaches explore how individuals shape and experience family life day-to-day. Symbolic-interaction analysis is based on shared activities and the formation of emotional bonds.
Social-Exchange Analysis
Social-exchange theory draws attention to the power of negotiation and family life as exchange.
Courtship and Romantic Love
Preindustrial societies typically are characterized by arranged marriages where the kinship group determines marriage patterns. Marriages are viewed as alliances between different kinship groups for economic and political purposes. In industrial societies personal choice in mate selection dominates, with tremendous emphasis on
romantic love--or the feeling of deep affection and sexual passion toward another person as the basis for marriage. Homogamy, or marriage between people with the same social characteristics, is very common.
Settling In: Ideal and Real Marriage
Marriage and family life tend to be idealized by most people, with real life experiences never quite meeting expectations. Changing patterns of sexual experiences and norms have affected courtship and marriage as well. Research on extramarital sex suggests that this phenomenon is a reality in a fairly significant percentage of marriages.
Child Rearing
Child rearing creates major transitions for families. The issue of latchkey kids is discussed.
The Family in Later Life
With life expectancy increasing, the number of years a couple lives together without children during what is known as the "empty-nest" stage is increasing. Many new challenges are faced by couples during these years.
U.S. FAMILIES: CLASS, RACE, AND GENDER
Social Class
Social class has a major impact on family's standard of living.
Further, research by Lillian Rubin suggests that differences in the lifestyles of working-class and middle-class families affect relationships within a family.
Ethnicity and Race
Ethnicity and race are powerful social forces that affect family life, although families in all racial and ethnic categories are diverse and conform to no single stereotype.
Racially Mixed Marriages Most spouses have similar social backgrounds with regard to class, race, and ethnicity. However, over this century, ethnicity has become less important. Eighteen percent of the U.S. population is African, Asian, or Native American, but the proportion of "mixed" marriages in the U.S. today is 2.3 percent, attesting to the continuing importance of race and ethnicity in choosing a marriage partner.
Gender
Cultural views regarding gender in U.S. society significantly affect the family. Jessie Bernard suggests every marriage is actually two separate ones--his and hers. Cultural values tend to promote the idea that marriage is more beneficial for women than for men. Empirical research supports the very opposite. Married women have poorer mental health, less happiness, and more passive attitudes than single women.
TRANSITIONS AND PROBLEMS IN FAMILY LIFE
Divorce
The divorce rate in the U.S. during this century has fluctuated dramatically with changing conditions in society. The United States has one of the highest marriage rates in the world. However, while the marriage rate has remained stable over the century, the divorce rate has risen significantly--a tenfold increase.
Causes of Divorces Societal factors affecting the divorce rate include: individualism is on the rise, romantic love often subsides, women are now less dependent on men, many of today's marriages are stressful, divorce is more socially acceptable, and legally a divorce is easier to get.
Who Divorces? People at greater risk include: young spouses, women in stressful careers, couples who marry because of an unexpected pregnancy, marrying after a brief courtship, couples with alcohol or other substance-abuse problems, geographically mobile couples, and couples with few financial resources.
Remarriage
About 80 percent of people who divorce in the U.S. remarry. Remarriage rates are higher for men than for women. Remarriage often creates a blended family, consisting of a biological parent and stepparent, along with children of their respective first marriages and any children of the remarriage.
Family Violence
Many families are characterized by family violence, or emotional, physical, or sexual abuse of one family member by another. The family has been characterized as one of the most violent institutions in our society.
Violence against women transcends the boundaries of social class. Common stereotypes of abusers are brought into question using empirical data. Low reporting rates deflate the official statistics. The argument is made that the seriousness of abuse is greater for wives than for husbands. The Bureau of Justice estimates that at least 840,000 women are victims of domestic violence each year. The issue of marital rape is discussed. All states today have marital rape laws.
Violence against children There are about two million reported cases of child abuse each year in the United States. The actual number is likely much higher. These children often feel guilt, self-blame, and suffer psychological problems as a result of abuse. Most abusers are men. Their abusive behaviors are often learned during their own childhoods.
One-Parent Families
Over the last twenty years there has been a dramatic increase in the number of one-parent families. Women head 76 percent of one-parent families. Distributions for non-Hispanics (19 percent), African Americans (54 percent), Hispanics (31 percent), and Asians (18 percent) are discussed.
Cohabitation
Cohabitation is the sharing of a household by an unmarried couple. Cross-cultural comparisons are discussed. Most cohabiting couples do not marry, and only a small percentage have children. Commitment tends not to be as strong as in marriage.
Gay and Lesbian Couples
In 1989, Denmark became the first country to legalize homosexual marriages. In 1996, the United States Congress debated and rejected same-sex marriage. Hawaii and several cities confer limited benefis on gay and lesbian couples. About one million gay couples are raising children of previous heterosexual relationships. Many feel they must keep their relationships a secret to avoid prejudice and discrimination. This situation can place considerable strain on relationships.
Singlehood
Singlehood is increasing in the United States. About one in four households contain a single adult. Singlehood is still primarily a transitory stage, although financially independent women are a fast-growing category of people who choose singlehood as a lifestyle.
The impact of new reproductive technology on the family in recent years has been dramatic and many benefits have been realized. However, the new technology has brought with it many difficult ethical problems. One method, in vitro fertilization, involves the union of the male sperm and the female ovum on glass rather than in the woman's body.
LOOKING AHEAD: FAMILY IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
Family life has dramatically changed in recent decades. This transformation has generated controversy. Five general conclusions are proposed looking ahead to the next century. First, the divorce rate will likely remain high.
Second, family life will be highly variable. Third, in most families, men will continue to play a limited role in child rearing. Fourth, we will continue to feel the effects of economic changes in our families. And fifth, new reproductive technology will increase.
Religion primarily concerns the purpose and meaning of life. Emile Durkheim distinguished between the profane, meaning that which is an ordinary element of everyday life, and the sacred, or that which people set apart as extraordinary, inspiring a sense of awe and reverence. Religion is a social institution involving beliefs and practices based on a conception of the sacred. The sacred is approached through ritual, or formal ceremonial behavior. Religion is a matter of faith, or belief anchored in conviction rather than scientific evidence.
THEORETICAL ANALYSIS OF RELIGION
Functions of Religion: Structural-Functional Analysis
Emile Durkheim argued society has an existence of its own, beyond the lives of the people who create it. Society and the sacred are inseparable in Durkheim's view. In technologically simple societies a totem is an object in the natural world collectively defined as sacred. Durkheim pointed to three major functions of religion: social cohesion, social control, and providing meaning and purpose. A weakness in the structural-functional view is that it downplays the dysfunctions of religion, particularly its role in producing destructive social conflict.
Constructing the Sacred: Symbolic-Interaction Analysis
Peter Berger, operating from the symbolic-interaction view, theorized that religion is a socially constructed reality much as the family and the economy are. The sacred can provide security and permanence for society as long as society's members do not recognize the socially constructed character of religion.
Inequality and Religion: Social-Conflict Analysis
The social-conflict view of religion draws attention to the social ills perpetuated by the existence of religion. Karl Marx theorized that the powerful in society benefit by religion because it defines the present society as morally just. Advocates of this view also argue that major world religions support patriarchy.
RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE
Max Weber: Protestantism and Capitalism
According to Max Weber, religion is not merely the conservative force as portrayed in the work of Karl Marx. Rather, Weber saw religion as a force which can promote dramatic social change. Weber's work points out that industrial capitalism in Europe paralleled the rise of Calvinism. The doctrine of predestination, central to this religion, was a key variable in causing people to seek material success as a sign that God favored them. Weber believed that the "spirit of capitalism" emerged from the protestant "work ethic."
Liberation Theology
Liberation theology is a fusion of Christian principles with political activism, often Marxist in character. Adherents believe that as a matter of faith and justice greater social equality must be promoted.
A church is a type of religious organization well-integrated into the larger society. Two types of church organizations are the state church--a church that is formally allied with the state--and a denomination--a church, independent of the state, that recognizes religious pluralism.
A sect is a type of religious organization that stands apart from the larger society. Sects tend to lack the formal organization of a church. Leaders often manifest charisma--or extraordinary personal qualities that can turn an audience into followers. Proselytizing is an attempt to obtain new members through conversion, a personal transformation resulting from new religious beliefs. Sects tend to reject the established society. Sects tend to attract disadvantaged people.
Cult A cult is a religious organization that is largely outside a society's cultural traditions. It represents something almost completely new. Cults often arise from the diffusion of religious ideas cross-culturally. They tend to be more extreme than sects, requiring members to change their entire lifestyle and self-concepts.
Among hunting and gathering societies religion typically takes the form of animism, or the belief that elements of the natural world are conscious life forms that affect humanity.
With industrialization, science begins as a force which diminishes the scope of religious power and thinking. But, science cannot answer certain fundamental questions related to the spiritual dimension of human existence.
Religious Commitment
About 90 percent of U.S. adults identify with a specific religion. Religiosity is the importance of religion in a person's life. Research results vary based on how the concept is defined.
Religion: Class, Ethnicity, and Race
Social Class Jews, Episcopalians, and Presbyterians have the highest social class standing in our society. Catholics, Lutherans, and Baptists are more representative of the lower social strata.
Ethnicity Religion is also closely related to ethnicity and race, with certain religions predominating in particular geographic regions.
Five characteristics identity Christian fundamentalists: Interpret sacred texts literally, reject religious pluralism, pursue the personal experience of God's presence, oppose secular humanism, and endorse conservative political goals.
LOOKING AHEAD: RELIGION IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
Science, it seems, is both unable to answer certain questions, and with tremendous leaps of technological advances in recent history, increases our anxiety about our future.
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