1 2 •Since early human times, families have been changing because they must change and adapt in order to survive. There were even many types of hunting and and adapt in order to survive. There were even many types of hunting and gathering societies. In general, in those types of societies, the women gathered edible plant materials and the men hunted. The women usually supplied a majority of the calories consumed by the group. However, the Inuits who lived in a harsh, cold, environment relied primary on hunting for their food, especially during the winter months. They hunt seals. This meant that women played a much less important role. For example, their job was to chew their husbands shoes to keep them soft when they came back from the hunt. •As societies became agricultural and the extended family became the norm, the issues of where people should and how descent should be defined tended to be patrilocal and patrilineal. However, there is at least once example of a societey in which it was the mother’s brother that was responsible for the care of her children. In this case, the model was patriarchal but matrilineal and matrilocal. The mother stayed with her family of origin and her brother helped to raise the children, played the role of male parent and the father was living with his own family and taking care of his sister’s children. •These are variations that occurred prior to industrialization. At that time societies were very homogenous and members shared the same norms and values including religion. 3 After Industrialization, social change accelerated and the types of pressures on families changed. In the United States, the most diverse industrialized nation, there families changed. In the United States, the most diverse industrialized nation, there is tremendous variation in family form based on social class, race, ethnicity, and gender. Rapid social change forced change on families. They had to develop new strategies for economic survival. Jobs were multiplying and changing and it became increasingly important to live in a city in order to find employment. Eventually industrial society was placed by postindustrial society and the service sector began to dominate the economy. Service jobs tend to be “good jobs” or “bad jobs” and people get stuck at one level of employment. Social classes became much more separate with different life chances and different lifestyles. •Social Class: modern American society is now one in which there is an increasing gap between the rich and the poor. This gap was very large during the Golden Age in this society and the last two decades or so have sometimes been called the “new golden age.” Some say that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer and the middle class is disappearing. Whatever the case, middle class and poorer families are having to face many challenges. For the middle class, home owners.

1. 1
2
•Since early human times, families have been changing because
they must change
and adapt in order to survive. There were even many types of
hunting and and adapt in order to survive. There were even
many types of hunting and
gathering societies. In general, in those types of societies, the
women gathered
edible plant materials and the men hunted. The women usually
supplied a majority
of the calories consumed by the group. However, the Inuits
who lived in a harsh,
cold, environment relied primary on hunting for their food,
especially during the
winter months. They hunt seals. This meant that women played
a much less
important role. For example, their job was to chew their
husbands shoes to keep

2. them soft when they came back from the hunt.
•As societies became agricultural and the extended family
became the norm, the
issues of where people should and how descent should be
defined tended to be
patrilocal and patrilineal. However, there is at least once
example of a societey in
which it was the mother’s brother that was responsible for the
care of her children.
In this case, the model was patriarchal but matrilineal and
matrilocal. The mother
stayed with her family of origin and her brother helped to raise
the children, played
the role of male parent and the father was living with his own
family and taking care
of his sister’s children.
•These are variations that occurred prior to industrialization. At
that time societies
were very homogenous and members shared the same norms and
values including
religion.
3

3. After Industrialization, social change accelerated and the types
of pressures on
families changed. In the United States, the most diverse
industrialized nation, there families changed. In the United
States, the most diverse industrialized nation, there
is tremendous variation in family form based on social class,
race, ethnicity, and
gender. Rapid social change forced change on families. They
had to develop new
strategies for economic survival. Jobs were multiplying and
changing and it
became increasingly important to live in a city in order to find
employment.
Eventually industrial society was placed by postindustrial
society and the service
sector began to dominate the economy. Service jobs tend to be
“good jobs” or “bad
jobs” and people get stuck at one level of employment. Social
classes became
much more separate with different life chances and different
lifestyles.
•Social Class: modern American society is now one in which
there is an increasing
gap between the rich and the poor. This gap was very large
during the Golden Age
in this society and the last two decades or so have sometimes
been called the “new
golden age.” Some say that the rich are getting richer and the
poor are getting
poorer and the middle class is disappearing. Whatever the case,
middle class and
poorer families are having to face many challenges. For the
middle class, home

4. ownership, the cost of education for children, health care costs
etc. have becoming
increasingly difficult to accomplish and/or afford. The poor
have been facing
increasing challenges. The dominance of the service economy
has made it
increasingly difficult to find employment without a good
education. Now, with the
economic downturn even the middle class is losing ground.
•Race and racism have had a dramatic impact on families. The
reading provides
some interesting comparisons between African American
families. Since slavery it
has been more difficult for African American men to find
employment. Women
could find work as domestic workers etc. As more African
Americans moved to
cities, industrial jobs became less available and have virtually
disappeared from the
“inner city.” As employment opportunities declined, the
divorce rate increased and
many people did not form families at all.
4
•Ethnicity or culture plays and important role in the shape that
families take. Different ethnic
groups have different norms and values including beliefs about
the role of other kin, the age groups have different norms and
values including beliefs about the role of other kin, the age
of marriage, parenting responsibilities, parenting styles, etc.
•The big changes that have taken place in terms of gender

5. mostly involve who works
outside the home, the number of hours worked outside the
home, the time spent with
children, etc. Since the 1950’s women have become more and
more likely to work outside
the home and to work for longer hours. This change is largely a
reflection of the increasing
difficulty of supporting a family on one income. The poor have
always struggled with this,
and even during early Industrialization, immigrant families
usually relied on wages from both
parents and even children. In Boston, for example, poor women
worked as domestics or
ran boarding houses and had small stores. Now most middle
class families have two
working parents or are single parent families. Women now
work a “second shift” of
housework and we hear about “latchkey children.”
5
1
2
2
Week 2—Part I
Basic Elements, Change and Diversity in the Family
Families vary dramatically across cultures, subcultures, and

6. historical periods.
Earlier societies changed much more slowly and were much
more homogeneous.
Once industrialization began, technology changed many things
including the
structure of families. The United States is currently the most
culturally diverse
industrial society and Japan is the least diverse. There is much
less consensus about
family form and functioning in this society than there was in
earlier centuries and
than there is in Japan and other more homogeneous societies.
Conceptual definitions of the family
• Institution
• Kinship
• Marriage
As a cultural universal, families have important elements that
are found in all
families. These include:
•The family as an institution, all families are cooperative and
function in order to

7. oversee the bearing and raising of children
•The idea of kinship, all societies and all families have
definitions of kinship.
Kinship is based on blood (and, today, genes), marriage,
adoption. In preindustrial
societies, blood was critically important. I remember being is a
museum in
Germany where they had a “chastity belt.” This was a metal
device that a woman
was forced to wear while her husband was away—trading or at
war usually. This
was seen as a solution to the possibility that the woman could
become pregnant by
another man. Once that kind of practice was abandoned, thank
goodness, paternity
was never certain. Now we have “paternity” tests that can
answer this age-old
question for anyone. This is an excellent example of how
technology can change
the family. We can also point to birth control as a technology
that has changed the
family. How has birth control changed families?
•Or, how do people decide who is a legitimate member of their

8. family?
Cultural Diversity and Family Variation
Variation in family patterns:
• Family types:
– Nuclear
– Extended/consanguine
– Modern nuclear
• One or two parents and their children
– Blended nuclear or extended
– Families of affinity
The early hunting and gathering families were generally
nuclear. Most of these societies were at
least somewhat nomadic because they had to go to where the
plants and animals were and this varied
by the season. As people settled down and began to grow crops
and/or herd animals the family
became more stable and grew to become the extended family.
This pattern is still found in
agricultural environments. The extended family includes
parents and children and other kin. This
could be grandparents, and the brothers and sisters of the

9. parents and grandparents, etc. In Thailand,
for example, first cousins are also called “brothers” and
“sisters.” This shows the importance of the
extended family to that society. With Industrialization the
family tended to become nuclear again
and has tended to become single parent families. Families are
more likely to have two parents when
there is an economic advantage. If only one parent works and
the other does not contribute to the
economic survival of the family, marriages are less likely to
occur or to persist. Also, the partner
that does not contribute economically is not seen as or may not
see themselves as a “valuable”
member of the family. Blended families are much more
common is this society now. That is the
remarriage of at least one of the parents and their children to
another spouse. Sometimes both
partners have children. This practice produces “stepparents”
and “stepchildren.” Blended families
always have to cope with differing ideas and practices from
their previous households. For example,
we often hear discussions about the appropriate role for a
stepparent to play in relation to their
stepchildren. In general, the idea is not to try to replace or

10. alienate the children from the absent
parent.
•Families of affinity are groups of people that do not have blood
ties or legal standing but who
construct relationships through interaction. They choose to see
themselves as belonging together and
as “family.” I have an “Aunt Jean” who is really my mother’s
best friend. I also have some best
friends that a like family to me. In one case, the daughter calls
me her “other mother.” This is
probably more likely for me since I am an only child married to
another only child and we do not
have children.
Family variation (continued)
Power relationships
• Patriarchy vs. matriarchy
Marriage patterns
• Endogamy vs. exogamy
• Monogamy vs. polygamy
5

11. Families also vary in a number of additional ways:
•The most important dimension is probably the variation in
power relationships.
The vast majority of cultural family forms are patriarchal. Most
societies are
patriarchal and the family forms reflect that. In fact, statistics
show that the family
form that is most likely to fall into poverty is the single-female-
head-of-household
type.
•Endogamy is marriage between people from the same social
category. This can
include dimensions such as caste, estate or social class, race,
ethnicity, locality, etc.
In modern societies endogamy is becoming less common
because people move
around more (geographic mobility) and they often experience
mobility in the
workplace. This workplace mobility can be up or down
(vertical) or changing jobs
at the same level (horizontal).
•Polygamy is a type of marriage that incorporates at least three
adults. Most
preindustrial societies have some sort of polygamy. The most
common type is
polygyny which is a marriage in which the male has more than
one wife.
Polyandry is the type of family in which the female has mode
than one husband.
Both types have declined in modern times. This is in part a
result of the fact that, in
industrialized societies, it is more difficult for one person to

12. support more than one
spouse, a fact that is also reflected in the higher divorce rates.
It is also true that
people are more individualistic and are exposed to a variety of
cultural practices
from around the world. This trend means that monogamy, a
form with only two
partners, has become much more common.
Family variation (continued)
• Residential variation
– Patrilocality
– Matrilocality
– Neolocality
• Descent
– Patrilineal
– Matrilineal
– Bilateral
Families also vary in terms of where the family will reside and
how kinship is defined across
generations.
•Residential variation includes three basic patterns:
•Patrilocality means that the married couple will reside with or
near the husband’s family.
This was true in Ireland in earlier centuries. However, the

13. emigration of so many Irish to
this country was due not only to famine but to the fact that
farms could only be divided a
few times to accommodate the needs of all the male children.
When this became true, many
younger male children emigrated from Ireland.
•Neolocality is a cultural norm in which the married couple
lives apart from both
sets of parents. This is what happened for many immigrants to
this society. It is
also true when economic conditions make it more difficult for
native children to
make a living near their parents. As a result, this is more
common in industrial
societies. I was born in Southern California but came to Boston
for graduate
school (at Northeastern). This is a typical choice today, one
that is driven by
economic considerations.
•Matrilocality, of course, is a pattern in which the married
couple lives with or near
the wife’s family. You can find a family form which is
patriarchal and matrilocal.
The rarest form would be a matriarchal and patrilocal family
pattern.
•In some traditional societies there is the expectation that the
new couple will live
with either the husband’s or the wife’s family, thus preserving
the extended family
while allowing economic considerations to enter into the
decision.
•Descent, or decisions about how to trace kinship also vary.

14. Each of these patterns
determines such things as responsibility for others and
inheritance.
•Patrilineal families trace descent through males.
•Matrilineal families trace descent through females.
•Bilateral families trace descent through both females and
males.
•Modern industrial societies tend to trace descent through both
males and females.
1
2
2
Family Functions and
Dysfunctions
SOC 2634 Week 1 Lecture
3
3

15. Family and Society
• Cultural universal
• Major institution
• Adapts to surroundings and circumstances
The family is a major cultural institution. It is probably the
first human institution.
It is essential to the survival of the group and the
society. In the earliest
human societies cooperation was essential for successful
procreation and survival.
Theoretical Perspectives
• Structural-functional
• Conflict
• Symbolic Interaction
Sociologists tend to look at the family and other cultural
institutions from one of the
three major sociological perspectives:
•The structural-functional perspective looks at the functions of
each major
institution. These institutions include the family, religion,

16. education, the economy
and work, and politics. (Politics is defined by sociologists as
“the exercise of power
in a social situation. In the case of the family they focus on the
ways in which the
family contributes to the stability and functioning of the society
as a whole.
•The conflict perspective focuses on the way in which the
family creates and
sustains inequality in societies.
•The symbolic interaction perspective views society on the
micro level (face-to-face
interaction) of the society. They are looking at the meanings
and patterns of
interaction that emerge within the family. The form that a
family takes and the
challenges they face have a large impact on the way in which
the members of the
family interact and the expectations they have about what a
family should be.
Structural-functionalism and the family
• Socialization

17. • Social placement
• Regulation of sexual activity
• Meeting material and emotional needs
The structural-functional perspective looks at the universality of
the family as evidence of its
necessity for and contributions to the stability and productivity
of the society as a whole. The
functions that they consider to be the most important are:
•Socialization: human beings are born dependent and remain
dependent on others for a number of
years. (Think, for example, of all the discussion about when
children are “old enough” to engage in
various activities and when it is that we are really “adults.” The
answer varies across time and
cultures, of course, but these kinds of questions/considerations
are always part of the process of
socialization. Human beings evolved to the point where we do
not rely upon or even really have
instincts. For sociologists, socialization is what has replaced
instincts and is the “process of
becoming human.” In terms of the family, for example, we often
hear about a “mothering instinct”
in women. However, instinctual behavior is universal and there
are many instances of mothers who
are judged to be “unfit” and, when you can find such
exceptions, you know you are not dealing with
an instinct. Little girls are socialized from early in their lives
to “cook” and to “take care” of dolls,
etc. Our society emphasizes “motherhood and apple pie” as “all
American.”

18. •Social placement: because children are dependent and because
of the importance of descent and
children as the future, it is critical in all societies for children
to be a member of a family and for the
“caregivers” to be clearly identified.
•Regulation of sexual activity: in the earliest types of societies,
it was important for a family to form
alliances with other families. Some sort of “incest taboo” is
one of the mechanisms which restrict
sexual activity between certain kin. In this society we consider
members of our immediate family to
be inappropriate sexual partners. This would include siblings,
parents, grandparents, great-
grandparents etc. First cousins are also on this list.
•Meeting material and emotional needs: children must be
“taken care of.” This nurturing includes
the basic food and shelter but also must address emotional
needs. Parents are expected to “bond
with” and satisfy the emotional needs of their children.
Conflict Perspective and the Family
• Perpetuation of inequality
• Patriarchy
• Inheritance
• Cultural and social capital
• Economic conditions

19. The conflict perspective is all about who has power and how it
is used. One interesting focus is on the
powerlessness of children in the family. Their dependency
makes them very vulnerable to manipulation and
control. Women, too, are sometimes viewed as particularly
vulnerable because of their relative inequality
within societies and within the family itself. The same is true
for the elderly who become increasingly
vulnerable because of declines in their physical, mental, and
economic conditio. Contemporary social problems
include domestic violence in the form of physical, sexual, and
emotional abuse of family members.
•Families perpetuate inequality because they reflect the
inequality within a society as a whole. For example, this
is an increasingly individualistic and competitive society and
the socialization of children reflects this. We hear
a lot about “sibling rivalry” and we also know that this
individualistic approach to life contributes to the high
divorce rate in this society. In the past, couples often stayed
married out of a sense of “duty.” This is much less
likely to be the case today. People “grow apart” and they have
different ideas about what is most important.
There is a tendency to focus on one’s own needs at the expense
of family stability.
•Patriarchy, or the control of the society by males, is the most
common pattern. It is reflected in the family as
well. In earlier centuries, fathers were the “head of the
household” and they even had control over the “life and
death” of family members. We still live in a patriarchal society
but women have more say when they make an
economic contribution to the family. Housework and childcare
are largely invisible since Industrialization took
men off the farm and into the factory (work world). Prior to
that, all members of the family contributed to the

20. work on the farm.
•Cultural and social capital vary according to the economic
standing of the family. Children are at an advantage
if they are born into wealthier families where the parents tend to
have more cultural capital such as larger
vocabularies and more education. Social capital refers to the
kinds of skills that the parents have. In addition
not only benefit from the knowledge and skills of their parents
but also from the fact that these parents can send
them to better schools and connect them with people who may
increase their opportunities and chances of
success.
•Finally, the conflict perspective points out that the family must
adapt and change in the face of changing
economic conditions. The extended family form declined once
people had to move to cities to find work.
Families became smaller as geographical and economic mobility
increased. Richard Sennett wrote a book
called The Hidden Injuries of Class which looks at the
“American Dream” which involves the expectation that
our children will be “better off” than we are. However, when
this successful upward mobility does happen, the
children often come to have different norms and values than the
parents. The “injury” that results is to the
parents who may be proud of their children but no longer feel
close to them They feel “inferior” to their own
children.
Symbolic-Interaction Perspective
• Face-to-face interaction

21. • Emerging:
– Meaning
– Consensus
• Emotional bonds
• Micro level
The symbolic interaction perspective looks at how people
interact and what the
results are. These sociologists are concerned with”
•Face-to-face interaction rather than institutions. They do not
look at “the
American family” but rather patterns of interaction within
individual families.
Current concerns include such things as how and why children
become delinquent,
the impact of birth order on a child, the role of internet
interactions on dating,
marriage, and divorce, the experiences of stepchildren in
“blended” families, the
kinds of situations which increase the likelihood of domestic
violence, etc. For
example, the article for Week 2 on grandparents in Ghana looks
at particular
examples of what grandparents mean in that society.
•This perspective looks at the emergence of this meaning and at
the type of
consensus which emerge through interaction. In general, people
want interactions
to go smoothly and we all try to come to some sort of consensus
or agreement about

22. what is happening, what should happen, and what is likely to
happen next.
•Children become emotionally dependent upon their parents
because they must rely
on them in order to survive. Spouses also bond. A good
marriage includes
emotional support and general agreement about goals and
priorities. This happens
over time as a result of continuing face-to-face interaction.
•Again, this is a micro level perspective that does not look the
functioning of
institutions such as the family, religion, education and the
economy but focuses on
the way in which our culture, our norms and values, are
expressed and shaped by
direct interation.