EXAM 1
Family Types
Single-parent and step-families
Usually headed by mothers 85%
Divorced/likely she has never been married
Two-provider families (patriarchy – father runs)
Traditional family
Married couple, (father/mother and children)
Family of procreation
Father works, mother stays at home
Married/Cohabitation couples who both work
Over 50% of mothers with children under one year work at least part-time
US Census definition of marriage
Two or more persons (one of whom is the householder) related by birth, marriage, or adoption, residing together
The definition we recognize adds
Respect, responsibility to each other, commitment and identification with one another as family. We include persons related by choice.
Unaffiliated kin – unrelated individuals who act as though they are family
History of marriage and families
Native Americans
Widely dispersed
Extended family
Rules of marriage and divorce
Rules of descent
Patrilineal – ancestral descent through paternal line
Matrilineal – ancestral descent through maternal line
Small families
Child mortality
Native Americans displaced by Anglos
Exposure to diseases, alcohol, firearms
Ethnocentrism – attitude that someone else’s culture is not as good as your own
Colonial families
First immigrants
Needed wives – advertised, imported women
Families were patriarchal
Men were the boss
Coverture: when a woman marries, her identity is subdued into her husband – division of labor in families
Colonial children
Discipline – Christian doctrine
“Small adults”
No period of adolescence
Apprenticeships- trained the new generation of all of their rules
Father was the boss
Single-parent families were very common
Slave families
No freedom or independence; all decisions made by owners
No legal marriage, but they did have marital arrangements and customs
Families were often separated
Life for slave children
1/3 died before age of 10
Extended kin