The document discusses definitions of family across cultures, comparing traditional ideals of family in Japan and the United States, as well as marriage and divorce rates between the two countries. Japan traditionally valued multigenerational households with inheritance passed through sons, while the US ideal involved married couples with children, though modern families vary in both places. Divorce rates are higher in the US at around 3.4 per 1,000 people compared to around 1 in 4 marriages ending in divorce in Japan.

1. Beth Gutierrez
Danny Sanchez
Danielle Lyon
Jasmine Walker

2. General Questions
A. How do you define a family?
B. Does this definition vary for different
cultures?
C. Are you a child from parents of two
different origins?
D. Are any of you from a divorced family?

3. What is Family?
 Is a social institution that binds people together through
blood, marriage, law, and/or social norms
 Three dimensions we think is family:
 Kinship
 Bonds through blood, marriage, or adoption
 Membership
 Anyone being cooperative
 The saying “Everyone who lives under one roof and expresses love
and solidarity”
 legal ties
 Makes bonds through law
 Ex. “brother-in-law
 The book

4. Why focus on Japan and America
 Japan:  United States:
 Lower mortality
 Higher marriage rate
 Lower teen birth rate
 Smaller percentage of single
women
 Higher fertility rate
 The book

5. Japan’s ideal family
 Past history
 In the past before World War II, the image of an ideal family in Japan is
a mom and dad with a first son taking the inheritance.
 Back then there was arranged marriage
 First sons lived in same household as the parents.
After World War II
 After the war, the USA affected the new way of family structures in
Japan.
 Many marriages are no longer arranged
 Their goals in a family
 For their inheritance to continue
 Their son to carry out the name
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/japanese_family

6. American’s ideal family
 Past history
 Having a house wife
 Mother’s didn’t work
 Father worked
 2 kids
 Children were out by the age of 18
 Present
 Now, both parents in family worked
 Middle-class Family
 Two kids
 Have a suitable household and transportation

7. 5 Functions of a Family
1) Regulating sexual behavior
 It’s a way of saying that different families have different views of the
type of people that is ok to have relations with, the factors includes a
person's characteristics, race, age, religion and also the number of
people you may marry.
 Views like these are different across the world and are different for each
religion.
 For instance Christians say you shouldn’t have sex or have a child
out of wed lock.
2) Replacing the members of society who dies
 everyone knows that people die all the time. this just means that
when one person passes another is put into its place.
 Whether it’s a dog, a new baby or a new significant other
 For instance when you have a married couple that may be in there 30’s
not to many people just stay a widow ,they get back out there and find
someone else it’s nothing against their deceased other it’s just the way
of life everyone needs somebody.

8. 5 Functions of a Family
3) Socializing the young
 family is extremely important when it comes to this factor. your family
is what helps you develop into the person that you are today starting
from birth. socializing the young is basically molding a child.
 teaching him/her what’s right and what’s wrong , how to speak , act
and carry their selves in the public eye this is what people identify as
the “rules of life” .
4) Providing care and emotional support
 everyone needs to be helped and to be cared for when not properly cared
for or being taken care of it causes people to self destruct and becoming
sometimes mentally and physically unstable.

9. 5 Functions of a Family
5) Conferring Social Status
 basically the category in which you fall under .
 Your race, class level; this is completely out of your control being as
though you don't choose the family in which your born into and you
cant pick and choose the jobs that your parents qualify for or the
amount of money they make. these are characteristics of "life
chances"
 Life chances-a critical set of potential social advantages, including the
chance to survive the first year of life, to live independently in old age,
and everything in between.
Closing
 Not all family's accomplish all of these factors. so women have
children that are not the off spring of their current husband, others
cant be replaced when another person passes, some families
don’t protect one another and some mothers don’t tech their
children the basics of life.

10. Racial Divisions
 People chooses their partner by their age, height, weight,
income, education, race, sex, social class, religion and many
other things.
 All societies have formal (enforce by law) or informal
(enforced by social pressures) which are norms that define
who may date or marry whom.
 Norms that require or encourage people to choose a partner
from a social category other than their own is called
Exogamy.
 Norms that requires or encourages people to choose a
partner from the same social category of their own is called
Endogamy.

11. Racial Divisions
 Ethnic and especially racial categories are persistent in the
United States because most people choose partners who
belong to their ethnic and racial category. At one point of time
United States used to have laws that forbid people to choose
partners outside these categories.
 Most Japanese people choose people partners of their same
race which is called endogamy.
 5 percent of them break from endogamy and choose partners
from a different race.
 95.5 percent of marriages in Japan are both Japanese.
 The reason why Japanese practice endogamy is because
Japan’s immigration policies allow only a few foreigners into
the country.

12. Different culture marriages
 Japanese wedding ceremonies are usually small and private.
 Sake ceremony is one of the oldest traditions in Japanese culture; it
is the heart of Japanese wedding ceremonies and takes the place of
the vows.
 Brides may wear colorful silk kimono or a shiromuku, a gown
passed down over the ages and still used today as traditional bridal
dresses, or they can wear a modern wedding gown. In Japan
wearing white symbolizes purity, elegance and "new beginning".
 The groom usually wears a men's kimono called haoiri-hakama or a
tuxedo.
http://www.worldlyweddings.com/japanese-traditions-a/128.htm

13. Different culture marriages
 In the United States the traditional western wedding custom
of the bride wearing white dress is from the Victorian era,
which symbolizes purity and a white veil symbolizes virginity.
 After the wedding ceremony there is a wedding reception
where meals and a cake is served.
 At the reception the guest will toast the newlyweds before the
meal and after the meal the newlyweds will cut the cake for
the people to eat.
 A favorite custom during the reception it throwing the bouquet
backwards to all the unmarried females

14. Marriage
Marriage is the process by which two people who
love each other make their relationship public,
official, and permanent.
It is the joining of two people in a bond that
supposedly lasts until death, but in practice is
increasingly cut short by divorce.
People marry for many reasons, including one or
more of the following:
 legal, social, libidinal, emotional, economic, spiritual, and
religious.
 These might also include arranged marriages
 http://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/marriage
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage

15. Side by Side
United States Japan
Marriage rate: Marriage rate:
 6.8 per 1,000 total  5.5 per 1,000 population
population
Divorce rate :
Divorce rate:  approximately 27%.
 3.4 per 1,000 population  1 in every 4 marriages
(44 reporting States and D.C.)
ends up to divorce.
 http://www.stat.go.jp/english/data/handbook/c02cont.htm
 http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/divorce.htm  http://www.divorcerate.org/divorce-rate-japan.html

16. Side by Side cont.
Japan: 2.2
USA:4.0
Germany: 2.4
France: 1.9
Italy: 0.7
UK: 2.6
Sweden: 2.4
From above statistics, it is clear that divorce rate is about half than US divorce
rate.
http://www.divorcerate.org/divorce-rate-japan.html

17. Divorce
Reasons for divorce
 1. laws have been passed to make divorce easier to obtain.
 2. people no longer feel ashamed to be divorced. Sociologists point to
a decline in the influence of religion as another factor.
 3. People now demand more from marriage and if it does not live up
to the ideal they hold then they will get divorced. (marriage is highly
valued in society, due to the image the media present of marriage as
based on romance and happiness)
 4. Women today are more likely to be independent - with a good
education, fewer children and a job. If they are unhappy in a marriage
it is easier for them to leave and start again.
 approx. 70% of divorces are initiated by women.
 http://sixthsense.osfc.ac.uk/sociology/research/marriage_divorce.asp