Marriage and Family Midterm
Family as a Social Construction -
✅ Ways in which family are formed- the roles and functions families perform, their
structure in terms of who occupies them, and the experiences of their members- are born out of
social, economic, cultural, political, and historical context in which those families exist.
Families are socially, not biologically constructed -
✅ True
Example of family as a social construction -
✅ Childhood as Distinct Stage of Life- "adults in training"
Families is an idea about how human relationships should be organized -
✅ True
Kinship -
✅ The ties which exist between individuals who are seen as related both through birth and
marriage.
Fictive Kin -
✅ Non-blood related people that one considers to be part of one's family
Example of Fictive Kin -
✅ Carol Stack's "All Our Kin" inner city black neighborhood, network of kin and friends
effectively replaces nuclear family as primary unit of social organization
Standard North American Family (SNAF) -
✅ A conception that the family is a legally married couple sharing a household. Man is in
paid employment and woman may also earn an income but is responsible for taking care of the
household, husband, and children
SNAF was an ideological analogous to a genetic code -
✅ True
SNAF -
✅ Majority of families in the US do not fit this ideological family form; concept not
reality
Chosen Family Discourse: LGBTQ 1980s -
✅ Gay families emerged that challenged many cultural representations and practices that
effectively denied gays and lesbians access to kinship
For a long time, gays were seen as having no families because they do not want to procreate and are
rejected from family -
✅ True
LGBTQ Families -
1
, ✅ Families with one or more members that are LGBTQ
Productive Labor -
✅ Making a living
Reproductive Labor -
✅ Maintaining a living
Gittins Reading- Functionalist -
✅ Functionalist view of family long dominated sociology
Gittins defining characteristics of family -
✅ Household and emotional relationships
Murdock's Definition of Family -
✅ Common residence, economic co-operation, reproduction, sexuality
Baca Zinn -
✅ Feminist rethinking of racial-ethnic families has demystified the idea of a natural and
timeless nuclear family
Baca Zinn Three Themes -
✅ Family is socially constructed, family is closely connected with other structures and
institutions in society, family processes can be deceptive and hidden.
Women of color have challenged the notion that gender produced a universal women's family
experience -
✅ More work to do
Coontz Definition of Family... -
✅ Is changing overtime
Coontz- Diversity in Emotional and Sexual Arrangements -
✅ No labels on same-sex relationships, mother's breadwinning, sexual "honor" of women
Coontz- Families during U.S. Colonization -
✅ Africans enslaved, European- Native American society had no state institution beyond
family and family and kinship groups owned land
Coontz- Families in Early Commercial and Industrial Economy -
✅ Growth of wage labor, national market economy, nuclear family strengthens, gradual
separation of work and home, motherhood emotional center of family, after civil war- family
modern characteristics
Coontz- Family and Consumer Economy -
✅ Companionate Marriage- rise in divorce and dating, portrayals of "typical" American
family after WWII
Dill Three Groups -
✅ African American slaves, Chinese Sojourners, and Chicano(a)s
2
Family as a Social Construction -
✅ Ways in which family are formed- the roles and functions families perform, their
structure in terms of who occupies them, and the experiences of their members- are born out of
social, economic, cultural, political, and historical context in which those families exist.
Families are socially, not biologically constructed -
✅ True
Example of family as a social construction -
✅ Childhood as Distinct Stage of Life- "adults in training"
Families is an idea about how human relationships should be organized -
✅ True
Kinship -
✅ The ties which exist between individuals who are seen as related both through birth and
marriage.
Fictive Kin -
✅ Non-blood related people that one considers to be part of one's family
Example of Fictive Kin -
✅ Carol Stack's "All Our Kin" inner city black neighborhood, network of kin and friends
effectively replaces nuclear family as primary unit of social organization
Standard North American Family (SNAF) -
✅ A conception that the family is a legally married couple sharing a household. Man is in
paid employment and woman may also earn an income but is responsible for taking care of the
household, husband, and children
SNAF was an ideological analogous to a genetic code -
✅ True
SNAF -
✅ Majority of families in the US do not fit this ideological family form; concept not
reality
Chosen Family Discourse: LGBTQ 1980s -
✅ Gay families emerged that challenged many cultural representations and practices that
effectively denied gays and lesbians access to kinship
For a long time, gays were seen as having no families because they do not want to procreate and are
rejected from family -
✅ True
LGBTQ Families -
1
, ✅ Families with one or more members that are LGBTQ
Productive Labor -
✅ Making a living
Reproductive Labor -
✅ Maintaining a living
Gittins Reading- Functionalist -
✅ Functionalist view of family long dominated sociology
Gittins defining characteristics of family -
✅ Household and emotional relationships
Murdock's Definition of Family -
✅ Common residence, economic co-operation, reproduction, sexuality
Baca Zinn -
✅ Feminist rethinking of racial-ethnic families has demystified the idea of a natural and
timeless nuclear family
Baca Zinn Three Themes -
✅ Family is socially constructed, family is closely connected with other structures and
institutions in society, family processes can be deceptive and hidden.
Women of color have challenged the notion that gender produced a universal women's family
experience -
✅ More work to do
Coontz Definition of Family... -
✅ Is changing overtime
Coontz- Diversity in Emotional and Sexual Arrangements -
✅ No labels on same-sex relationships, mother's breadwinning, sexual "honor" of women
Coontz- Families during U.S. Colonization -
✅ Africans enslaved, European- Native American society had no state institution beyond
family and family and kinship groups owned land
Coontz- Families in Early Commercial and Industrial Economy -
✅ Growth of wage labor, national market economy, nuclear family strengthens, gradual
separation of work and home, motherhood emotional center of family, after civil war- family
modern characteristics
Coontz- Family and Consumer Economy -
✅ Companionate Marriage- rise in divorce and dating, portrayals of "typical" American
family after WWII
Dill Three Groups -
✅ African American slaves, Chinese Sojourners, and Chicano(a)s
2
