Chapter 11: Relationships and Families Flashcards
homogamy
For example, Asians tend to marry Asians, Muslims often marry other Muslims, and those who are highly educated usually marry others who are highly educated.
monogamy
Polygamy
refers to the practice of having more than one partner
Anthony Giddens calls “pure relationships”
relationships defined by the interests and needs of each partner rather than by laws, traditions, or necessity
Homogamy is typically the result of….
assortive mating
assortive mating
- the non-random matching of people into relationships
mere exposure effect
You are more likely to be attracted to someone simply because you are around them more frequently and are more exposed to them. This exposure is often controlled by geographic or social arrangements that favour homogamy.
marriage market
The idea that we use assets like attractiveness, income, or education to attract desirable mates. Those who are more economically attractive, such as through their educational attainment or salary, will be more competitive on the marriage market and therefore be able to attract a higher status partner.
family
a social institution consisting of a socially recognized and intimate primary group usually joined by blood, marriage, cohabitation, or adoption that serves as a cooperative and economical unit.
Kinship
In general, we establish kinship ties in three ways:
- Through blood, such as the kinship between a parent and child
- Through affinities, such as kinship ties with people not related by blood, like partners or spouses
- Through social ties with those not connected through blood or partnership, such as through religious affiliation or community membership.
Polyamory +ex (2)
- when people have multiple sexual relationships with the consent of all of the people involved.
- One example is consensual non-monogamy (CNM), where a couple agrees to allow one another to pursue other relationships while remaining a couple.
Talcott Parsons argued that
- men and women fulfil specialized instrumental and expressive roles within families that are supposed to help contribute to the functioning of society, like earning a wage and child-rearing
Conflict Perspectives and families
- Friedrich Engels argued that the organization of social life and family structure are tied to the organization of economic systems.
- Early subsistence systems, like hunting and foraging, were notable for their lack of private property and their greater equality among the sexes. With the advent of private ownership of property (by men) and the idea that family life is private and distinct from public life, women lost power and control inside and outside of families because they were not property owners and largely took on the work within the home. Think of the traditional nuclear family, where men are the primary breadwinners and women are expected to stay at home and tend to domestic and childrearing tasks; this economic and social arrangement concentrates autonomy and economic power in the hands of men.
- For conflict scholars, the differences in power and status in the family are neither natural nor inevitable but are instead the product of changes to economic life. Economic change, therefore, can bring about more equality in family structures.
Feminist Perspectives of family
- Betty Friedan criticized the family institution for curtailing women’s sense of fulfilment and identity and for locking women into gender roles that normalized domestic and care work. Her critique also extended to media representations that normalized and reinforced women’s domestic and care roles, and to structural functionalist ideas of instrumental and expressive traits that normalized and naturalized the gendered division of labour.
- One of the key achievements of feminist analysis of the family was to highlight inequalities in the areas of domestic and care work. Feminists showed that the men and women who provided care work and household management were contributing not only to the well-being of their family but also to their society and economy
