Ch. 7- Marriage and the Family Flashcards
Micro-institutions
Institutions that structure socialization and the affectual life; tend to be personal and private; they relate to our sense of personal security and shape the satisfaction we find in our personal interactions.
Functionalism
views society as a system composed of various interdependent parts, such as actors, institutions, and the state; these parts have functions to serve within society and are assumed to work together with a tendency toward stability.
Gendered division of labor
the differing ways that work and responsibility are divided up in the family between husband and wife.
Rates
the number of times a particular phenomenon takes place in a specific period of time.
Marriage squeeze
the restricted supply of available partners that result when a woman chooses to delay marriage.
Contracts
Binding relationships, often regulated or enforced by law, that specify and negotiate particular behaviors (i.e., marriage)
Transformation of marriage
Term that refers to postmodern efforts to denaturalize marriage and redefine the nature of the marriage contract (i.e., gay marriage)
Denaturalization
Process by which something assumed to be normal, universal, and accepted is challenged or modified and thus no longer seems obvious or natural.
Nuclear family
a form of family organization typically consisting of husband, wife and the children who are their offspring.
Extended family
a form of family organization that combines several generations and a variety of different kinship relations, as when grandparents, aunts, or uncles live together with a traditional nuclear family.
Consanguineal family
a form of family organization that includes the conjugal nuclear family as well as a larger kinship network of grandparents, uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, and cousins.
Conjugal nuclear family
a form of family organization that emphasizes the marital bond and the nuclear family; are less stable than consanguineal families owing to their lack of close kinship network, but have more autonomy and independence.
Family unit
Term introduced by William Goode that refers to the modern understanding of the family as a self-sustaining group.
Family system
a term introduced by William Goode that refers to the traditional understanding of the family as an interdependent group of individuals who work together as a micro-social system.
Patriarchal
an adjective referring to the organization of the family around father-rule and, more broadly, to the organization of a society or social system around the idea of a male dominance, superiority, and power.
