COU/MFT 360.01
Study Guide
Mid-Term
CHAPTER 1
FAMILY COMMITMENTS:
MAKING CHOICES IN A CHANGING SOCIETY
LECTURE OUTLINE
I. Overview
A. Today Americans are cautious and apprehensive, yet hopeful, about marriages and families.
B. There are long-term, happy marriages.
C. Americans believe families are central to society.
D. Families are commissioned with a variety of tasks.
E. Maintaining a marriage today requires both commitment and knowledge.
II. Defining Family
A. Traditionally, both law and social science specified that the family consisted of people related by blood,
marriage, or adoption. Some definitions of the family specified a common household, economic interdependency, and
sexual/reproductive relations.
B. The U.S. Census Bureau defines a family as two or more persons sharing a household and who are related by
blood, marriage, or adoption.
C. The text rejects Burgess and Locke’s limited definition of family, preferring to combine elements of a number of
definitions. Ultimately, there is no “typical” family.
1. Throughout much of this century, the nuclear family has been considered the modern family.
2. The progressively increasing family diversity that we see now has led some scholars to refer to today’s family as
the post-modern family.
3. As families have become less traditional, the legal definition of a family has become much more flexible.
4. The text defines family as any sexually expressive, parent-child, or other kin relationship in which people–usually
related by ancestry, marriage, or adoption–form an economic unit and care for any young; consider their identity to be
significantly attached to the group; and are committed to maintaining that group over time.
III. The Freedom and Pressures of Choosing
A. The best personal decisions are made knowledgeably. Social pressures, beliefs, and values influence
personal decisions. People can and do influence society through individual and group opinions and participation.
Current definitions of the family are more flexible.
B. Personal Troubles and Societal Influences
1. Because personal troubles often reflect societal influences, people must understand themselves in the context
of the larger society.
2. Individual choices largely depend on the alternatives that exist in society.
3. Individual choices are influenced by the speed at which societal changes occur.
C. Social Influences and Personal Choices
1. Social factors limit choice options and make normative choices easier.
2. Sometimes, decisions are made by default.
3. Although social conditions limit choice options, conscious awareness of these forces allow for more
knowledgeable decision making.
IV. Making Choices
A. Choosing by Default
1. People make decisions by default when they are not aware of all the alternatives or they choose the easiest
options (e.g., when spouses focus on career success and neglect their family relationships, their decision is likely the
result of default).
B. 1. Choosing knowledgeably involves rational consideration of many alternatives and the recognition of the
social pressures that influence choices.
2. Knowledgeable decision making has respect for personal feelings and includes regular testing of decisions
against those feelings (as well as the changes in the social environment).
3. Today adulthood is viewed as a time for continued personal development.
e. Contemporary adulthood can be described as a life spiral in which individuals incorporate traditional and
alternative roles and accommodate a variety of life-style choices throughout their lifetimes.
V. A Family of Individuals
Americans place a high value on the family. Family values such as family togetherness, stability, and loyalty focus
on the family as a whole. Placing family well-being over individual interests and preferences is termed familism.
A. Families as a Place to Belong
1. Families create a place to belong by creating both physical and psychological boundaries between themselves
and the rest of the world.
2. Families create a place to belong by performing archival family functions that create, store, preserve or pass on
objects, events, or rituals members consider relevant to their individual and family identities.
B. Family Rhythms of Separateness and Togetherness
1. Family members must negotiate personal feelings about individual separateness and family togetherness in
order to establish family rhythms that all members can be comfortable with.
2. Opposing values of familism (including togetherness and family loyalty) and individualism create tensions within
individuals, between individuals and within society that must be resolved.
3. Some observers feel that there has been “family decline,” while others feel the family is changing.
4. Shifts in the balance of individuality and familism have meant that family members have become less predictable
than in the past.
VI. Marriage and Families: Four Themes
A. Personal decisions must be made throughout the life course.
B. People are influenced by the society around them.
C. Today's society is characterized by increased economic, ethnic, and family diversity where increased tension
exists between family and individual values.
D. Personal decision making feeds back into society and changes it.
CHAPTER 2
AMERICAN FAMILIES IN SOCIAL CONTEXT
LECTURE OUTLINE
I. Overview
A. We as Individuals and families vary as a result of the social settings in which we exist.
B. We really can’t understand our personal lives or family lives without paying attention to our social environment
C. Social-historical circumstances impact families in all societies and cultures.
II. Historical Events
A. In the Depression years, couples delayed marriage and parenthood and had fewer children than they wanted.
B. In the 1950s, family life was not so overshadowed by national crisis.
C. Today, a husband is far less likely to earn a family wage.
D. In the 1960s and 1970s, marriage rates declined and divorce rates increased dramatically
E. The present historical moment is one of adaptation to profound cultural changes and
to economic ups and downs much affected by globalization of the economy.
III. Age Structure
A. One of the most dramatic developments of the twentieth century has been the increased longevity of our
population.
B. Aging itself has changed.
C. Family life will be profoundly affected by the changing demography.
D. The historical moment and the age structure affect family life, but so does the family’s place within our culturally
diverse society.
IV. Race and Ethnicity
A. Race is a social construction reflecting how Americans think about race.
B. Ethnicity has no biological connotations, but refers to culture: language, customs, and history.
C. African Americans, Hispanics, American Indians, Asians, and Pacific Islanders are often grouped into a category
termed minority group.
D. The United States is an increasingly diverse nation: Minorities are now almost one-third of the population.
1. African Americans are increasingly split into a middle class that has benefited from the opportunities opened by
the Civil Rights movement and a substantial sector that remains disadvantaged.
2. Latinos are now the largest minority group in the U.S.
3. Asian Americans are often termed a “model minority” because of their strong educational attainment, high
representation in managerial and professional occupations, and family incomes that are highest of all racial/ethnic
groups.
4. A unique feature of American Indian (Native American) families is the relationship of tribal societies to the U.S.
government.
5. Non-Hispanic whites continue to be the numerical majority in the United States.
6. Multicultural (multiracial and multiethnic) families are created by marriage, by establishment of an unmarried-
couple household, and by adoption of children who are of a different race than their new parents.
V. Other Social Characteristics
A. Religion
1. Religious heritage is a significant influence on family life, ranging from what holidays are celebrated to the
placement of family relations in a moral framework.
2. Religion affects family life in complex and perhaps unexpected ways.
B. Region
When we consider family diversity, we usually do not think of regional variation.
VI. The Economy and Social Class
A. Social class may be as important as race or ethnicity in affecting people’s choices.
B. Economic Change and Inequality
1. Clearly, the distribution of income in the United States is highly unequal.
2. Poverty rates fell in the 1960s, and have risen and fallen again since then.
C. Blue-Collar and White-Collar Families
1. In examining social class, social scientists have often compared blue-collar and white-collar workers in
terms of values and lifestyles.
2. Income and class position may affect access to an important feature of contemporary society: technology
VII. Technology and the Family
A. Technology has always affected family life, but recently, links between family and technology have taken the
form of electronic devices and biomedical breakthroughs.
1. Communication technology enables family members to remain in close contact.
2. Electronic surveillance allows parents to check on children; partners on their spouses or lovers; and families on
hired caregivers.
3. We may expect new arenas of biomedical technology to create new issues for family decision making.
4. There are various pros and cons to technology. Technology can transform family relationships.
CHAPTER 3
LECTURE OUTLINE
Different theoretical perspectives illuminate or explain various features of families. This should not be surprising. After
all, no one theory can explain everything. Instead, theoretical perspectives tend to focus on specific features or aspects
of families. Family ecology, family development, structure-functional, interactionist, exchange, family systems, the
feminist and the biosocial perspectives have in common that each attempts to explain why families are as they are. The
perspectives differ in the specific aspects or features they attempt to explain. Of exchange theory and family ecology
theory, we should not think that one is correct and the other incorrect. It may be more helpful to observe that the two
theories do not attempt to explain the same aspects of family living.
The family ecology perspective focuses on how families are affected or influenced by the environments that
surround them. As illustrated by government's formation of family policy, families are both influenced by their
environment and are capable of affecting or changing that environment in ways that can either improve or worsen the
quality of family life. A strength of the family ecology perspective is that it sensitizes us to issues that are not addressed
in other theories, but an inherent weakness is that this perspective is so inclusive that it includes almost everything
and, by doing so, loses some of its explanatory power.
The family development perspective concentrates on how families change over time, sensitizing us to important
family transitions and challenges. But its usefulness is somewhat reduced by this theory's assumption that families have
a common trajectory or life course. A view of the family as a social institution whose values, norms, and activities are
directed toward the performance of certain functions for society and for its members, is the perspective of structure-
functional theory. This perspective gets much of its explanatory power from conclusions drawn from cross-cultural and
historical comparisons, emphasizing the positive things family institutions do for societies and cultures. It has been
criticized for overemphasizing the amount of social harmony and shared values while overlooking the amount of conflict
in societies and cultures. This perspective has been further criticized for failing to point out that what is functional for
one group, subculture, or society might not be so for others.
The interactionist perspective concentrates on day-to-day interpersonal communications and relationships
between family members. In this perspective family interaction is seen as central to the process whereby partners
define themselves as persons and as family members, and whereby shared goals, beliefs, values, and norms develop
or emerge. But this theoretical perspective has been criticized for being difficult to test, for having weak research
methods, and for overemphasizing people's ability to define social reality.
Exchange theory emphasizes how people use their personal resources to bargain in relationships to maximize
their benefits ("How much can I get out of this relationship?") and to minimize their costs ("How much is this relationship
going to cost me?"). According to this theory, people use their resources to bargain with others, gain advantage, and
minimize being disadvantaged, even in relationships assumed to be immune from this type of "calculation". You may
want to use your own intellectual skills to think of the strengths and weaknesses of this theoretical perspective.
Family systems theory views families as a web of relationships enmeshed in the broader web of relationships that
is the community or society. In this perspective, both families and societies tend to attain a somewhat stable equilibrium.
Change in family system affects not only its equilibrium, but also brings about change in society's equilibrium, and vice
versa. The strength of the family system is to alert us to the fact that family and society are part of the web of
relationships we recognize as social reality. But this is also its weakness as a theory: this generalization is so broadly
and generally true that once its truth has been grasped, it is difficult to know what else can be learned from the
perspective.
The feminist perspective emphasizes the fact that what is in one person's or group's interests are not necessarily
the interests of all. This theory points out that what one person or group considers a gain may be considered as a loss
by another person or group. According to this perspective, conflict is no one's "fault". Conflict just "is". The conflict
perspective views conflict as a natural, normal, inevitable part of any social relationship, and as something that may
have positive or negative consequences, or both. The strength of conflict theory is its ability to direct our attention to
conflict as an important, inevitable part of life for couples, families, and societies. It has been criticized, however, for
being too "political", too utopian, and as being more inevitable than it may be.
The biosocial perspective, also termed sociobiology or evolutionary psychology, is characterized by concepts
linking psychosocial factors to physiology, genetics, and evolution. This perspective has its roots in the work of
Charles Darwin and in the principle of the survival of the fittest. In the contemporary version of evolutionary theory, it is
the survival of one’s genes, termed inclusive fitness, that is important. Over the past twenty-five years, the biosocial
perspective has emerged as a fairly significant theoretical perspective on the family. Some critics worry that the
perspective has been used to justify socially organized systems of inequality and oppression.
Social scientists have devised a number of research methods to obtain information about family relationships.
Social scientists do this because although we may call upon personal opinion and experience for the beginning of an
answer to the questions that interest us, everyone's personal experience can act as a blinder. Furthermore, we have
no way to be sure that our experiences are typical. Therefore, scientific investigation - with its various methodological
techniques - is designed to provide more effective ways of gathering knowledge about the family. The purpose of,
surveys, laboratory observation and experiment, naturalistic observation, clinicians' case studies, longitudinal studies,
and of historical and cross-cultural data is to provide us with more accurate, reliable, and valid knowledge about the
family.
I. Overview
A. Theoretical perspectives or theories contain concepts that help identify and explain specific aspects of family
behavior.
B. Theoretical perspectives or theories vary in what each may see as important and significant about families.
II. Theoretical Perspectives of the Family
A. The Family Ecology Perspective.
1. This perspective explains how a family influences and is influenced by the environments that surround it.
2. This theory focuses on how government policies–as part of the socio-cultural environment–affects families and
how families can influence the environments that affect them.
3. Put another way, the family ecology model is concerned with family policy–all the procedures, regulations,
attitudes, and goals of government that affect families.
4. A strength of this theory is that it sensitizes us to significant socio-cultural issues, like globalization, that may not
be addressed by other theories.
5. A weakness of this theory is that its coverage is so broad that virtually nothing is left out, or, put differently,
borders on the truism that ultimately everything affects everything else, and vice versa.
B. The Family Development Perspective
1. This theory focuses on how families change over time.
2. It is limited because it assumes all families are similar and traditional.
3. It assumes almost everyone marries for a lifetime; that the patterns of the life cycle are highly predictable, and
that divorce does not exist.
C. The Structure-Functional Perspective
1. This theory focuses on the functions performed by the family as a social institution.
a. to raise children responsibly
b. to provide economic support
c. to give emotional security
2. It illuminates differences in family functions among societies at different historical times.
3. It is limited in that there is a tendency to assume the traditional family pattern is normative and thus, because it
"persists or continues,” must be more "functional" for society.
D. The Interactionist Perspective
1. This theory focuses on the interactions between family members.
2. It is interested in how self and family identity develop as a result of family interactions.
3. It assumes there are no common family patterns because families are composed of unique personalities who
interact with distinct patterns of interaction.
4. It is limited in that it neglects the social environment, overlooks conflict, and assumes family interactive patterns
are similar across all societies.
E. Exchange Theory
1. This theory focuses on the exchange of resources (rewards and costs) between family members.
2. It examines how resource transactions form and stabilize relationships.
3. It proposes that relationships will thrive when they are based on equitable exchanges and will suffer and/or
dissolve when exchanges are one-sided.
4. It has been criticized for its failure to recognize the family in emotional terms.
F. Family Systems Theory
1. This theory views the family as a whole that is more than the sum of its parts (members).
2. As a system (comparable to a computer or human body), families seek to maintain equilibrium.
3. It proposes that a change in any part of the system (family member) or in the social environment will affect all
other parts of the system.
4. Physical and psychological boundaries define who is in or out of the system and regulate the flow of information
and feedback with other related systems.
5. It has been criticized for its lack of specificity, its failure to recognize class, race, and ethnicity, and its portrayal
of family conflict as a system dysfunction.
G. Feminist Perspectives
1. The central focus of feminist perspectives is on gender issues, bringing attention to women and their
experiences.
2. Like the broader conflict perspective, feminist perspectives examine the role of power within family relationships
as well as the effects of politics and the economic organization of the larger society on the family.
3. Feminist theory analyses of the family (including the division of labor) emphasize the sex-gender system in which
men have more power than women.
4. Feminist perspectives are under fire from conservatives for allegedly contributing to the breakdown of family.
H. The Biosocial Perspectives
1. The biosocial perspectives on the family, also termed sociobiology or evolutionary psychology, are
characterized by concepts linking psychosocial factors to physiology, genetics, and evolution.
2. This perspective has its roots in Charles Darwin’s work, including the notion of the survival of the fittest.
3. In the contemporary version of evolutionary theory, it is the survival of one’s genes, termed inclusive fitness that
is important.
4. Sociobiologists point out that biological propensity, or predisposition, does not mean that a person’s behavior
cannot be influenced or changed by social structure.
5. Social science researchers are doing some interesting work from a biosocial perspective.
III. Studying Families
A. Overview
1. Experiential reality (what is personally experienced) and agreement reality (what members of a society agree are
true) may be inaccurate and may misrepresent the actual experiences of families.
2. The way to a clear understanding of all families is through scientific investigation via scientific methods.
B. The Blinders of Personal Experience
1. We often assume our own family is "normal" or "typical".
2. We often are highly committed to the view of family life that is shaped by our experiences.
C. Scientific Investigation: Removing Blinders
Scientific investigation involves collecting data systematically through a variety of techniques.
1. Surveys
a. Scientific surveys include face to face, telephone interviews, or distributed questionnaires.
b. Once returned, they are counted and statistically analyzed.
c. Representative samples are needed so that results can be generalized to other persons not in a sample.
d. Surveys provide uniformity of response but fail to consider context in which questions are answered.
e. People do not always respond to surveys honestly (give normative answers) and real-life responses are not
guaranteed.
2. Laboratory Observation and Experiments
a. In laboratory observations, behaviors are measured under controlled conditions.
b. Participants in experiments are randomly assigned to treatment and control groups to determine if specific
treatments are effective.
c. Although experiments provide direct observation of human behavior, due to laboratory settings they are artificial
situations that might not represent the true behaviors observed in real life situations.
3. Naturalistic Observation
a. While living or spending extensive time with families, researchers carefully record activities, conversations, and
other aspects of family life.
b. Focus of technique is to identify family interrelationships and communication patterns and draw implications for
understanding overall family behaviors.
c. Although setting is natural, technique requires a lot of researcher time and the conclusions may be highly
subjective.
4. Clinicians' Case Studies
a. These are documented reports by clinicians who see individuals, couples, and families over a lengthy period of
time.
b. They provide realistic and strong detail of communication patterns and other interactions between family
members, but how clinicians view individuals and families is highly subjective.
5. Longitudinal Studies
a. These are studies that gather information on individuals or families over a long period of time.
b. They are costly to do and often original subjects are lost over time.
c. They are also subject to influences of social change.
6. Historical and Cross-Cultural Data
a. This technique examines demographic, economic, and/or legal records for analysis of the family.
b. Often data are unavailable and uneven.
c. This technique can provide an interesting picture of family behaviors over time.
D. The Application of Scientific Techniques
1. To get around the drawbacks of one research tool or technique, researchers who study families will often
combine techniques.
2. Ideally, a number of scientists will examine one topic by several different methods.
CHAPTER 4
OUR GENDERED IDENTITIES
LECTURE OUTLINE
I. Gendered Identities
A. Overview
1. Gender influences virtually every aspect of people’s lives and relationships.
2. “Traditional sexism” has been replaced by “modern sexism.”
3. Sex refers only to male and female physiology.
4. Gender (or gender role) describes societal attitudes and behaviors expected of and associated with
the two sexes.
5. Gender identity refers to the degree to which an individual sees herself or himself as feminine or masculine
based on society’s definitions of appropriate gender roles.
B. Gender Expectations
1. Gender expectations and scripts are socially constructed and internalized by individuals.
2. Male traits are often thought to be instrumental. They are traits that lead toward the accomplishment of tasks or
goals (i.e., independent, competitive, assertive, achievement oriented).
3. Female traits are often thought to be communal or expressive. They are traits that lead toward the
accomplishment of improved relationships (i.e., warm, sensitive, tender, empathy).
C. Cultural Messages
1. Masculinities (David & Brannon, 1976)
a. "No Sissy Stuff”-men are expected to distance themselves from anything feminine.
b. "Big Wheel"-men are expected to be occupationally successful.
c. "Sturdy Oak"-men are expected to be tough, confident, and self-reliant.
d. "Give’em Hell"-men are expected to defeat, humiliate, and seek adventure.
e. "Liberated male"-originating in the 80s, this new option allows men to be emotionally sensitive and expressive.
2. Femininities
a. "His Helpmate"-women are expected to be attentive, good listeners, and facilitators of their husband's
accomplishments.
b. "Good Mother"-women are expected to put family and children needs before their own.
c. “Professional Woman"-emerging over the past twenty years, women are expected to be independent, ambitious,
and confident.
d. "Superwoman"-recent expectation is that women are to be great mothers and also attain career success.
e. "Satisfied Single” -emerging option for women is to be happy in remaining single.
D. Gender Expectations and Diversity
1. The view of men as instrumental and women as expressive was based primarily on people’s images of white,
middle-class heterosexuals. But there are racial-ethnic variations in gender expectations.
2. Research indicates that racial/ethnic differences in role expectations and behaviors, particularly for males, are
actually not as strong as either stereotypes of the former have suggested.
3. Black men and women express preferences for egalitarian relationships.
4. Similarly complex gender patterns are observed in Latino families.
E. To What Extent Do Individual Women and Men Follow Cultural Expectations
1. Today "typical" men and women overlap in their masculine and feminine qualities.
2. Depending on the situation, males and females may or may not act according to cultural expectations.
3. Differences among women or among men ("within-group variation") are usually greater than the differences
between men and women ("between-group variation").
F. Male Dominance
1. Interpersonally defined as male authority over females -- males dominate
verbally, use familiar forms of address, and touch more.
2. Socially defined as male control and influence over society's institutions.
a. Institutional-men hold higher political offices, hold religious authority, and are more economically advantaged.
b. In 2002, employed women earned 77% of what employed white men earned.
c. The earnings gap between men and women has narrowed some in
recent decades.
d. Men continue to dominate corporate America.
II. Is Anatomy Destiny?
A. Biologically-Based Arguments
1. Biological theories of gender differences were initially offered by primatologists who study human beings as an
evolved animal species. In baboon research, males have been found to be dominant.
2. Scientists argue that humans inherited their dominance through evolution.
3. Instrumental roles performed by larger and more muscular males is more functional to society.
4. Recent research, however, has shown that not all species of monkeys are dominant and aggressive.
5. Research finds girls to be better at verbal skills and boys better at math and visual-spatial tasks.
6. Some research on brain lateralization supports that these differences are genetic.
7. Society and socialization may still play a role as girls who are disadvantaged in math may be that way because
of social expectations and opportunities.
8. Meanwhile, in sociology, biosocial theorists point to evolution, to behavioral endocrinology, and to behavioral
genetics as influences on family-related behavior. The most developed biosocial gender theory is that of demographer
J. Richard Udry.
B. Society-Based Arguments- stratification and division of labor shape gender roles.
1. Foraging and Hoe Societies (hunting and gathering)
a. Women and men equally participate in food production.
b. When women participate in economic production, males are less dominant.
2. Agricultural Societies
a. Although women still contribute significantly to the family's economic enterprise, they do less heavy farm work.
b. As women's production labor becomes less visible, male social control over women increases.
c. After experiencing a fall following European expansion into their territories, Native-American women have begun
to regain their political power.
3. Industrial Societies
a. As economic production shifted away from agriculture to machine production of manufactured goods, women's
status declined because industrialization separated work from home and family life.
b. For middle-and upper-class families, men were seen to have qualities needed to compete in the outside world.
c. Women, with their sensitivity and submissiveness, were seen as important to the maintenance of the home and
family.
d. Most immigrant, black, and working-class women did not have the housewife option, but instead needed their
low-wage factory, domestic, or home-based employment.
4. Postindustrial societies are dominated by information-based and service work, not the manufacture of things.
C. The Interaction of Culture and Biology
1. Strong support exists that gender-linked characteristics result from the interaction of culture learning and
biological hormones. Testosterone also exists in females as well, but in lower levels.
2. Aggressiveness
a. Testosterone- women with stereotypic feminine personality linked with lower levels of testosterone. Women with
more stereotypic male traits have higher levels of testosterone. Males with higher levels of testosterone may be more
likely to divorce and/or experience lower quality spousal interaction.
b. Environment can influence hormone secretion levels. Husbands who batter their wives have increased
secretions of testosterone.
III. Gender and Socialization
A. The Power of Cultural Images
1. Socialization-process by which society influences members to internalize attitudes and expectations.
2. Language-accentuates male and female differences through names, titles, and adjectives.
3. Media-promotes traditional gendered expectations through television programming (especially for children). Men
outnumber women as leads and dominate in commercials.
B. Theories of Socialization
1. Social Learning Theory
a. Children learn gender roles from parents, schools, and media.
b. Subtle parental rewards and punishments may be the key to child behavior patterns.
c. Fathers have stronger expectations for gender than do mothers.
d. Little association found between children's personality and parent's characteristics.
2. Self-Identification Theory
a. As a child becomes aware of behaviors appropriate for their sex through the family, media, and outside world,
they adopt the same behaviors.
b. Children socialize themselves from available cultural materials.
3. Gender schema theory posits that children develop a framework of knowledge about what girls and
boys typically do.
4. Chodorow's Theory of Gender
a. During infancy, children learn to differentiate psychologically and emotionally between themselves and their
primary caregiver-their "primary identification".
b. Because most primary caregivers are women, task of separation is more difficult for boys who may be angry and
disappointed over the emotionally charged detachment from the mother. Gradually they come to value their father's
instrumental traits.
c. Task of separation is easier for girls as expressive behavior is
allowed and fostered.
C. Girls and Boys in the Family
1. Among African-Americans, both sexes are socialized toward independence, employment, and child care.
2. Among middle-class whites, parents rear boys and girls differently.
a. Parents handle infant sons more roughly and respond more to the cries of baby girls.
b. Toddler girls are more likely to be given dolls; boys given equipment and tools. Parents, especially fathers,
discourage children, especially sons, from playing with opposite sex toys.
c. Boys are given more toys that develop spatial ability and construction, physical activity, and independent play.
Girls are given toys that encourage social skills that elicit closer physical proximity.
d. Parents allocate household chores differently- girls do more indoor chores; boys more outdoor chores.
e. Cross-sex play is more common in families with different-sex siblings.
D. Play and Games
1. Girls play more in small groups and their play is relatively cooperative, however, it offers life opportunity for
leadership, decision making, or rule enforcement.
2. Boys play more in large groups that require competition, and complex organization.
3. As children age, peer status for girls is often associated with popularity with the boys, peer status for boys is
often associated with disassociation with girls.
E. Socialization in Schools
1. School Organizations-with men in most positions of school authority and women in most positions of service
(teachers, aides, secretaries), school organization models male dominance.
2. Teachers-overall, teachers pay more attention and give more encouragement to male students, reinforcing the
idea that male and female students are more different than similar.
3. College and university women tend to be marginalized on the fringes of power and involvement.
4. Women and Men in College-college students found to be more stereotyped at the end of their college years
than at the beginning. Male dominance may be associated with fraternity membership.
F. What About Boys?
1. Girls have long been the primary focus of attention in examining the possible bias of educational
institutions. In recent years, attention has turned to boys.
IV. Gender in Adult Lives
A. Gender and Stress
1. Traditional gender roles have resulted in stress for both males and females.
2. Many women report feeling depressed, inadequate, and dissatisfied with life. Suicide attempts, depression,
mental illness, and eating disorders are more common in women.
3. Overemphasis on competition and achievement contribute to anxiety that may negatively influence male life
expectancy. When males ignore anxiety and hide tenderness, they block avenues to intimacy and create isolation that
limits their potential to feel positive about themselves.
B. Gender and Personal Change
1. Sometimes adults reconsider the choices they made earlier in their gender roles.
2. Adult choices may be contingent on opportunities available in the society.
3. Childhood socialization and early goals do not necessarily predict adult life-styles.
C. Options and the Women's Movement
1. The "separate sphere" ideology of gender predominated into the 50s and 60s.
2. The civil rights movement of the 1960s provided a model of activism.
3. Women vary in their attitudes toward the women’s movement.
4. African American women are more critical of gender inequality than white women.
5. Research suggests that “post-feminism” is a myth.
6. Despite considerable progress, both men and women who choose nontraditional roles may still experience
discrimination and negative sanctioning.
D. The Men's Movement
1. The focus of the movement is on the changes men want in their lives and how best to get them.
2. The men's movement may be divided into three fairly distinct camps.
a. Antifeminists-who work to restore the "natural order" they see as disturbed by the women's movement.
b. Profeminists-these men support feminists in their disdain for patriarchy.
c. Masculinists-who work to develop a positive image of masculinity, combining strength with tenderness.
E. Ambivalence, Confusion, and Hope
1. Androgyny is the social and psychological condition by which individuals think, feel, and behave both
instrumentally and expressively.
2. When people develop their talents and are also emotionally expressive, people may be more adaptive in a
complex society that requires assertiveness, self-reliance, and the ability to provide emotional support.
3. People have mixed feelings about new gender roles and how desirable it is to change.
4. Women often express conflict in wanting men to be emotionally expressive but also self-assured and confident.
5. Women experience conflict over female expectations for nurturing others and for pursuing their own goals.
6. Males often experience ambivalence, confusion (and even anger) over male expectations to be successful and
also emotionally expressive.
7. Moving toward gender equality brings potential for ambivalence and confusion-as well as greater personal and
family happiness-in marriage and its alternatives.
CHAPTER 5
LOVING OURSELVES AND OTHERS
LECTURE OUTLINE
I. Personal Ties in an Impersonal Society
A. Overview
1. In an impersonal society that emphasizes the rational side of human beings over feelings and need for human
contact, most people search for personal ties and seek at least one loving relationship.
II. What Is Love?
A. Love is a deep and vital emotion-Arising unconsciously, love is a strong feeling that motivates human behavior.
B. Love satisfies legitimate personal needs-Love fulfills basic human needs for recognition and affection. It satisfies
legitimate needs for emotional support, understanding, companionship, and emotional sharing. It cannot satisfy
illegitimate needs that arise from feelings of self-doubt, unworthiness, or inadequacy.
C. Love involves caring and acceptance-Love involves accepting partners for what they are in an atmosphere
where they can expose feelings, frailties, and strengths while receiving support and encouragement for personal
growth. Although men and women "care" differently, both are equally loving.
D. Do men and women "care" differently? Women tend to view sex as one of the several means of communicating
an already-established emotional closeness, while men tend to view sex as the emotional communication. Women tend
to feel more responsible for love's endurance or success and women tend to be more skilled at culturally acceptable
methods of expressing love-gifts, touching, favors, and so on-than are men.
E. Love involves intimacy and the commitment to sharing-Intimacy includes sharing oneself with a partner
psychically and sexually. It also involves committing oneself despite some personal sacrifices.
F. According to Sternberg’s triangular theory of love, the three dimensions of intimacy, passion, and commitment
generate consummate love, with commitment being the factor that is most predictive of happiness in relationships.
G. John Alan Lee classified six love styles, or distinctive characteristics or personalities that loving or lovelike
relationships can take: eros, storge, pragma, agape, ludus, and mania.
1. Eros-Passion; Characterized by intense emotional attachment and sexual desire.
2. Storge-Friendship; Characterized by affection, familiarity, respect, and companionship that grows over time.
3. Pragma-Practical; Characterized by a rational assessment of a partner's assets and liabilities.
4. Agape-Altruism; Characterized by an unselfish concern for loved one regardless of personal sacrifice.
5. Ludus-Recreation; Characterized by flirtation and the fun of many sex partners.
6. Mania-Obsession; Characterized by sexual passion and emotional intensity that results in an obsession.
Partners fluctuate between euphoria and depression. (In real life most people incorporate different aspects of several
styles in their relationships.)
III. Two Things Love Isn't
A. Martyring-Involves giving more in a relationship than one receives in return. It damages a relationship because
martyrs fail to express legitimate needs, thus preventing openness and intimacy.
B. Manipulating-Involves controlling the feelings, attitudes, and behavior of another in underhanded ways. It
damages a relationship because partners are exploited and the manipulator often experiences guilt that they try to
relieve by minimizing their loved one's complaints.
Symbiotic Relationship/Codependent Realtionship-An emotionally unhealthy relationship between a martyr and a
manipulator that is often mistaken for love. It is a relationship based on mutual dependency for individual self-worth.
Partners fail to accept themselves or their partners realistically.
IV. Self-Worth as a Prerequisite to Loving
Self-worth, or self-esteem, is part of a person’s self-concept; it involves feelings that people have about their own
value.
A. Self-love vs. narcissism- High feelings of self-worth enhance a person's capacity to understand, appreciate, and
love others. Narcissism or selfishness results from low self-esteem and involves preoccupation with one's needs without
regard for others.
B. Self-esteem and personal relationships-High self-esteem enhances a person's ability to make friends, express
themselves, tolerate criticism, and be more responsive to praise.
C. Emotional interdependence-High self-esteem enhances a person's ability to make interdependent commitments
in which partners have a strong individual and couple identity. Interdependent relationships have been described as M-
frame relationships (John Crosby). They are preferable to relationships in which there is high couple identity with
little individual self-esteem (A-frame) or to relationships in which there is high individual identity but no couple identity
(H-frame)
V. Love as a Discovery
A. Love is a process of discovery, an activity; not a singular event.
B. The wheel of love (Ira Reiss)-Love is a circular process capable of continuing indefinitely in long-term love
relationships. It is also capable of reversing, or in passing relationships, turning only a few times. Beginning with
rapport, it turns to self-revelation, which then leads to mutual dependency, and lastly, personality need fulfillment.
C. Keeping love-Love is a continuous process. To stay in love and increase marital satisfaction, continuous mutual
self-disclosure is critical. Love involves much more than a feeling.
CHAPTER 6
OUR SEXUAL SELVES
LECTURE OUTLINE
I. Sexual Development and Orientation
A. Children’s Sexual Development
1. Knowledge about children’s sexual development and the emergence of sexual orientation is sketchy and not
agreed upon by experts.
2. We do know that humans’ development into sexually expressive beings begins in childhood.
3. Children are maturing physically earlier than in the past.
B. Sexual Orientation
1. As we develop into sexually expressive individuals, we manifest a sexual orientation.
2. Sexual orientation refers to whether a person prefers a partner of the same sex or the opposite sex
a. Heterosexuals are attracted to opposite-sex partners.
b. Homosexuals are attracted to same-sex partners.
c. Bisexuals are attracted to persons of either sex.
3. We tend to think of sexual orientation as a dichotomy, as either gay or straight, when it may actually be more like
a continuum.
4. A person’s sexual orientation does not necessarily predict his or her sexual behavior.
5. It is not clear whether sexual orientation is genetic in origin; the origins of both heterosexual and gay identities
remain a puzzle. Nevertheless, people make choices regarding many aspects of sexual expression.
II. Theoretical Perspectives on Human Sexuality
A. There are various theoretical perspectives concerning marriage and families; the same is true for human
sexuality. From the structure functional perspective, sex is a focus of norms; from a biosocial perspective, we consider
that humans are designed for the purpose of transmitting their genes to the next generation.
B. The Exchange Perspective: Rewards, Costs, and Equality in Sexual Relationships.
In the interpersonal exchange model of sexual satisfaction, satisfaction is seen to depend on the costs and rewards of
a sexual relationship.
C. The Interactionist Perspective: Negotiating Cultural Messages
1. The interaction perspective emphasizes the interpersonal negotiation of relationships in the context of sexual
scripts.
2. In the sexual context, the interactionist theoretical perspective on human sexuality holds that women and men
are influenced by the sexual scripts that they learn from society.
3. Sex has different cultural meanings and plays a different role in different social settings.
D. Changing Cultural Scripts
1. Early American: Patriarchal Sex
a. Patriarchal sexuality is characterized by many beliefs, values, attitudes, and behaviors developed to protect the
male line of descent.
b. Although it has been significantly challenged, the patriarchal sexual script persists to some extent in our society
and corresponds with traditional gender expectations.
2. The Twentieth Century: The Emergence of Expressive Sexuality
Expressive sexuality sees sexuality as basic to the humanness of both women and men; there is no one-sided sense of
ownership
3. The 1960s Sexual Revolution: Sex for Pleasure
a. People’s attitudes and behaviors regarding sex changed during the 1960s, becoming radically more permissive.
b. Not only did attitudes become more liberal and information more solidly grounded, but behaviors changed as
well.
c. Today, sexual activity often begins in the teen years.
d. The most significant change in sexuality since the 1960s, among heterosexuals at least, has been in marital sex.
4. The 1980s and 1990s: Challenges to Heterosexism
a. During the decades of the 1980s and 1990s, the liberation of the 60s encompassed lesbian and gay male
sexuality.
b. Political activism has resulted in gays’ greater visibility.
c. Recently, the public’s attitudes toward homosexuality have become more favorable.
d. We are currently experiencing a challenge to heterosexism.
e. Constructing Gay Male and Lesbian Identities Amid Homophobia
According to one model (Troiden), the process of identity construction among gay males and lesbians occurs in four
stages: sensitization, identity confusion, identity assumption, and commitment to homosexuality as a way of life.
f. Comparing Gay Male and Lesbian Sexual Behaviors
Sociologists Blumstein and Schwartz compared four types of couples: heterosexual marrieds, cohabiting heterosexuals,
gay male, and lesbian couples.
5. The Twenty-First Century: Risk, Caution–and Intimacy
a. While pleasure seeking was the icon of sixties sexuality, caution in the face of risk characterizes contemporary
times.
III. Negotiating (Hetero)sexual Expression
A. Many women and men today have internalized divergent sexual messages.
Cultural messages, both about gender and about sexual expression, are negotiated.
B. Four Standards of Nonmarital Sex
1. Abstinence
a. Regardless of circumstance, nonmarital sex is wrong for men and women.
b. Celibacy is a positive choice in the absence of an emotionally meaningful relationship.
2. Permissiveness with Affection
a. Permits nonmarital sex for men and women when they have a fairly stable emotional relationship.
b. Most widespread sexual norm among young college and post-college singles today.
3. Permissiveness Without Affection
a. Recreational or casual sex without relationship stability received much attention in the 1960s.
b. Today there is evidence that only a small number of men and even fewer women support this position.
4. The Double Standard
a. According to the double standard, women's sexual behavior must be more conservative than
men's.
b. Throughout the 1980s, researchers found the double standard to be declining and reported expectations to be
similar for men and women.
c. Men and women may have different expectations, with men exposed to cultural conditioning that encourages
them to separate sex from intimacy, while among women, sexual expression more often symbolizes connection with a
partner and communicates intimacy.
CLASS:
2. Encourage your students to grapple with the issue of what is acceptable and unacceptable in the realm of
sexuality. You can begin with a list of different types of heterosexuality, from the “normal” to the “unusual.” As the
students vocalize what they find unacceptable, try to distill what criteria they are using to make these assessments:
relativistic cultural norms, psychological damage to another person, physical pain for another person, etc.
C. Race/Ethnicity and Sexual Expression
1. Much research has been done on youth of varying racial/ethnic
backgrounds, usually in the context of prevention of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
2. Being “respectable” is important to both black adult and teen women.
3. Gay/lesbian sexuality, like heterosexual behavior, has been explored among African Americans mostly
in the context of problems.
4. The problem in discussing racial/ethnic variation in sexual expression is that it is difficult to find a
research base that isn’t influenced by various myths, stereotypes, etc., or is simply insufficient.
IV. Sexuality Throughout Marriage
A. How Do We Know What We Do? A Look at Sex Surveys
1. In serious social science, researchers strive for representative samples.
2. The pioneer research surveys on sex in the United States were the Kinsey reports on male and female sexuality.
3. Conclusions based on survey research on sensitive matters such as sexuality must always be qualified by an
awareness of their limitations.
B. How Often?
1. Social scientists are interested in sexual frequency because they like to examine trends over time and to relate
these to other aspects of intimate relationships. American couples average about once a week.
2. Fewer Good Weeks
Coitus/Sex is less frequent (and there are fewer "good weeks”) with increasing age and with increasing number of
years married.
C. Young Spouses
Young spouses engage in sex/coitus more frequently than older and longer married partners.
D. Spouses in Middle Age
After the first year of marriage, couples can expect sexual frequency to decline.
E. Older Partners
A sexual frequency pattern is established in the first year of marriage. From then on life situations and events tend
to reduce the frequency pattern, while almost nothing increases it.
F. What About Boredom?
1. One factor related to declines in some sexual behaviors is habituation-decreased interest that results
from the increased accessibility of a sexual partner and the predictability in sexual behavior with that partner over time.
2. Remarried respondents report somewhat higher rates of sex frequency compared with people in first
marriages who were the same age.
G. Sexual Satisfaction in Marriage and Other Partnerships
Despite declining sexual frequency, sexual satisfaction remains high in marriages over the life course.
V. Sex as a Pleasure Bond
A. Sexual Pleasure and Self-Esteem
1. Research shows a correlation between sexual satisfaction and self-esteem.
2. Self-esteem is an important element in sexual development beginning in early childhood.
3. High individual self-esteem helps couples to mutually self-disclose sexual feelings.
4. High self-esteem allows individuals the freedom to receive pleasure.
5. High self-esteem allows people to acknowledge and accept their own tastes and preferences.
6. High self-esteem provides the freedom to search for new pleasures.
7. High self-esteem helps partners to ask one another to help satisfy one's preferences.
8. High self-esteem helps partners to engage in "pleasuring".
B. Sexual Pleasure and Gender
1. To transcend gender stereotypes and scripts helps to make sex a pleasure bond.
2. To transcend restrictive gender-role stereotypes, partners must be equal and must communicate in bonding
rather than alienating ways.
C. Communication and Cooperation
1. To create a pleasure bond, couples must be willing to clearly communicate their own sexual needs and learn to
respond to their partner's needs and preferences.
2. For honest sexual relationships, conflicts must be constantly negotiated.
3. Open communication and cooperation is important in sharing sexual anxieties and doubts.
D. Some Principles for Sexual Sharing
1. Partners should avoid passing judgment on each other's sexual fantasies, needs, desires, or requests.
2. Partners should exchange all verbal and nonverbal sexual messages in the spirit of a common cause.
3. Partners should maintain a holistic view of sex, in that they see sex as an extension of their whole marital
relationship rather than just a purely physical exchange.
E. Making Time for Intimacy
1. It is important for couples to plan to be alone and intimate.
2. Sexual communication erodes when people give low priority in their lives to sex and intimacy.
3. Open communication about sex is important for couples of all ages but is especially important for couples
moving from premarital sex to conjugal sex.
VI. Sexual Expression, HIV/AIDS, and Other Sexually Transmitted Diseases
A. HIV/AIDS has now been known for almost twenty-five years. AIDS is a viral disease that destroys the immune
system. The HIV virus is transmitted through the exchange of infected bodily fluids.
B. AIDS is lethal: A total of nearly 500,000 deaths have occurred due to AIDS through 2000. Not including AIDS,
more than 65 million Americans currently live with sexually transmitted diseases.
C. Who Has HIV/AIDS?
1. Currently, more than 850,000 Americans are estimated to be HIV-positive, with an estimated 40,000 new
infections occurring each year. Today, almost 400,000 people are living with AIDS.
2. Primary risk groups in the United States are men who have sex with men: about 47 percent of cumulative
AIDS cases through 2002. Intravenous drug users account for 27 percent of cases, and 7 percent are identified in
men who have combined risks. Heterosexual transmission is the origin of 15 percent of AIDS cases.
3. HIV/AIDS has affected young and middle-aged adults the most.
4. Females constitute 18 percent of AIDS cases cumulatively.
5. Racial and ethnic minorities have been disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS.
D. HIV/AIDS and Heterosexuality
Heterosexuals may be responding to the AIDS threat by waiting longer to have sexual contact with
acquaintances, or opting for periods of celibacy.
E. HIV/AIDS and Gay Men
1. There has been a decline in the rate of HIV infection among
homosexuals.
2. The decline of deaths, due to new medications, has meant for many, AIDS has become a chronic
disease rather than a death sentence.
F. HIV/AIDS Means New Family Crises
1. Some families will face crises and loss because of AIDS
2. Some married heterosexual have lost partners to the disease or are helping infected partners fight health
battles.
3. The burdens of AIDS are not all emotional, nor do they involve only physical care of victims; some are financial.
G. HIV/AIDS and Children
1. Most children with AIDS contracted the disease from their mothers during pregnancy, at birth, or
through breast milk.
2. Children with AIDS have a unique array of treatment requirements and are often in the hospital.
VII. Platform and Pulpit
A. Political and religious conflict over sexuality characterized the 1980s and 1990s. One of the most striking
changes in the political climate over the past several decades has been the emergence of a loose coalition of religious
fundamentalists and political conservatives who believe that the U.S. government and American social institutions must
be made to operate according to what they see as Christian principles.
B. Politics and Research
There is a need for increased research about human sexual behavior, using national samples, but this is a politically
volatile issue.
C. Politics and Sex Education
Political considerations also affect whether or not -and what kind of-sex education will occur in U.S. schools, colleges,
universities, and other settings.
VIII. Sexual Responsibility
A. Making choices and feeling comfortable with them requires recognizing and respecting one's own values instead
of being influenced by others.
B. Each individual adult must determine the sexual standard they value, given a wide range of choices.
C. People must take responsibility for the consequences of their behavior, including the issues of pregnancy,
becoming diseased, communicating disease to partners, and additional issues related to decision-making
CHAPTER 7
CHOOSING A MARRIAGE PARTNER
LECTURE OUTLINE
I. Love and Marriage
A. That marriage should involve romance is a uniquely modern and a Western idea.
B. Arranged marriage involves parents selecting marriage partners.
C. Functions of arranged marriages
1. affirms and strengthens parents’ power over their children
2. helps keep the family traditions and value systems intact
3. helps consolidate and extend family property
4. enhances the value of the kinship group
5. helps young people avoid the uncertainties of searching for a mate
D. Courtship in a free-choice society
1. The United States is an example of what cross-cultural researchers call a free-choice culture.
2. Cross-national marriages are becoming more common.
E. “Love” Marriages
1. Courtly (or romantic) love flourished during European Middle Ages.
2. Urban economics, with young people moving to cities for work, gives way to selecting one’s own mate.
3. The absence of arranged marriages gives way to love as the motivation for relationships.
II. The Marriage Market
People enter the marriage market with resources that become the basis for a bargaining process.
A. Exchange Theory
1. Whether or not relationships form or continue depends on the rewards and costs they provide partners.
2. In theory, bargains made between persons will only last until a better deal comes along.
3. Weaknesses of the Theory
a. Rational decision making of rewards and costs is unknown.
b. Rewards and costs differ with each individual.
4. The Marriage Gradient
This is the tendency for women to marry “up” with regard to various
demographic factors.
B. The Traditional Exchange
1. The basic marital exchange is traditionally related to gender roles.
2. Traditional female bargaining assets of physical attractiveness and childbearing capacity are given less value as
women age.
3. In traditional exchanges, males have a relative bargaining advantage because they can easily assess what a
female has to offer while females cannot always be sure of a male's occupational abilities.
C. Bargaining in a Changing Society
1. Exchange between partners will no longer depend on practical or economic resources but will include
expressive, affective, sexual, and companionship resources.
2. Egalitarian marriages would be expected to have symmetrical exchanges.
D. Bargaining in a Changing Society: The Pessimistic View
1. Many of the bargaining chips women traditionally have brought to the basic exchange including children,
domestic services, and sexual accessibility have been devalued.
2. A wife's primary resource in the marital exchange is the promise of lifelong affection and encouragement.
E. Sex Ratios and Bargaining for a Spouse
1. The ratio of men to women in our society (sex ratio) is tipped in favor of males.
2. Some social scientists have pointed out that as gender roles become more alike, exchange between
partners may increasingly include “expressive, affective, sexual, and companionship resources” for both partners.
III. Homogamy: Narrowing the Pool of Eligibles
A. As Americans begin looking for prospective marriage partners they define for themselves a personal "pool of
eligibles”: a group of individuals who by virtue of their background or birth are considered most likely to make
compatible marriage partners.
1. Homogamy: To choose partners who are a lot like themselves.
a. This is the preferred pattern of Americans.
b. Americans tend to marry persons of similar race, age, education, religious background, and social class.
2. Endogamy: To many within one's own social group.
3. Exogamy: To marry outside one's social group.
4. Heterogamy: To marry someone of dissimilar age, race, educational level, religion, or social class.
Age and educational heterogamy is more pronounced among African-Americans than among whites.
B. Reasons for Homogamy
1. Geographic Availability or Propinquity
a. Geographic closeness is a basic reason people tend to meet others much like themselves.
b. Geographic closeness helps account for social class homogamy as same SES persons socialize together and
send children to same schools.
2. Social Pressure
a. Cultural values encourage persons to marry others socially similar to themselves and discourage marrying
anyone too different.
b. Sometimes social pressure results from a group's concern for preserving its ethnic or cultural identity.
3. Feeling at Home
a. Similarities between persons in similar social groups may make communication between them easy and
comfortable.
b. Social class differences often create different attitudes, mannerisms, and vocabulary.
4. Striking a Fair Exchange
a. People tend to marry others whose social class, education, physical attractiveness, and self-esteem are similar
to their own- their social currency.
b. The goal in the marriage market is to strike a fair exchange.
C. Examples of Heterogamy: Interreligious, Interclass, and Interracial Marriages
1. Interreligious marriages
a. A substantial number of marriages are between spouses with different religious preferences.
b. Marriages are less homogamous if we consider couples’ religion before the wedding.
c. Religious homogamy may create a more integrated social network of relatives, friends, and religious advisers.
d. Overall, religious homogeneity improves chances for marital success.
e. As interreligious marriages become more frequent and socially accepted, any negative effects that they have on
marital quality are likely to diminish.
2. Interclass, or, class heterogamous marriages
a. Class heterogamous marriages experience more stress than do class homogamous marriages, with the spouse
who married down (hypogamy) experiencing more stress than the one who married up (hypergamy).
b. Stress related to class heterogamy seems to occur only when status-striving is important to the individual.
3. Interracial/Interethnic Marriages
a. In 1967, U.S. Supreme Court declared that interracial marriages must be considered legally valid in all states.
b. Currently, only 5 percent of marriages are interracial and/or interethnic.
c. The status exchange hypothesis states that an individual might trade his or her socially defined superior
race/ethnic status for the economically or educationally superior status of a partner in a less privileged race/ethnic
group.
D. Heterogamy and Marital Stability
1. In general, marriages that are homogamous in age, education, religion, and race are more stable.
2. There is conflicting evidence on whether interracial marriages are more or less stable than interracial unions.
E. Heterogamy and Human Values
1. Persons committed to an open society find intermarriage a symbol of personal choice and do not want to
discourage it as an option,
2. Data from heterogamy suggest that it is common values and life-styles that contribute to stability.
3. Some problems of interracial or other heterogamous marriages are often the result of social disapproval and
lack of social support from either race.
IV. Courtship in a Free-Choice Society
A. Developing the Relationship
1. At First Meeting: Physical Attractiveness and Rapport
a. Beginning in early childhood, our evaluations of others are influenced by personal appearance. This is true for
males and females.
b. Physical attractiveness is especially important in the early stages of a relationship.
c. The Internet is a new outlet for the development of relationships, but experts advise caution.
2. As the Relationship Progresses
a. The wheel theory of love explains the role of rapport in the development of a relationship.
b. Winch’s theory of complimentary needs has received some support.
3. Assortive Mating–A Filtering Process
a. Individuals gradually filter out those among their pool of eligibles, who, they think, would not make the best
spouse that they could find.
b. Some social scientists have proposed that people go through a three-stage filtering sequence, called stimulus-
values-roles.
c. Some couples have event-driven relationships, while others’ are relationship-driven.
B. Attachment Theory
1. Attachment theory posits that during infancy and childhood, individuals develop a general style of attaching to
others.
2. Sociologists wonder to what extent society’s courtship process encourages conflict and ambivalence about
commitment-making.
C. Getting to Know Someone and Gaining Commitment
1. The courtship pattern that has evolved has two apparent purposes: 1) for romantic partners to try to get to know
one another better, and 2) to gain each other’s progressive commitment to marriage.
2. Dating and “Getting Together”
a. After a period of unpopularity in the late 1960s and 1970s, dating appears to have become popular again since
the 1980s.
b. Dating consists of an exclusive relationship between two persons through a formal series of appointed meetings.
c. Getting together is a courtship process in which, unlike dating, groups of women and men congregate at a party
or share an activity.
3. Margaret Mead’s Criticisms of Dating as Courtship
a. Mead severely criticized U.S. dating patterns
b. In dating, people do not genuinely try to get to know one another but rather strive to be "most popular."
c. Dating encourages men and women to define their relationship as "situational" rather than ongoing.
d. Mead’s criticisms of dating led her to propose what she called the two-stage marriage.
D. Cohabitation and Marriage
1. In response to her critical view of traditional dating, Mead proposed a two-stage marriage.
a. Individual marriage-Here couples experience serious commitment, however, during this time they agree not to
have children.
b. Parental marriage-if a couple decided they wanted to continue the relationship and share the responsibility of
children, this second stage would follow.
2. During the 1990s, the proportion of cohabitors who eventually married their partners declined.
3. With little exception, research over the past fifteen years consistently shows that marriages preceded by
cohabiting are more likely to end in separation or divorce than marriages in which the couple did not live together
previously.
1. Research suggests that violence occurs in 20 to 40 percent of dating relationships.
a. Dating violence is typically accompanied by verbal or psychological abuse.
b. Researchers have found it discouraging that about half of dating relationships continue after the violence rather
than being broken off.
2. Date rape has emerged as a real concern on college campuses.
a. Closely related to date rape is sexual coercion.
b. One reason that date- or acquaintance-rape victims may be tempted to blame themselves has to do with rape
myths.
F. Breaking up
1. Psychologist Lawrence Kurdek has applied exchange theory to whether couple relationships continue.
2. Break-ups before marriage are generally less stressful than divorce.
3. Sociologist David Knox offers five guidelines for ending a relationship:
a. Be sure that ending the relationship is what one wants to do.
b. Don’t change your mind.
c. Plan the breakup discussion in person.
d. Explain the reasons for breaking up
e. Seek out new relationships.
V. Mate Selection and Marital Stability
A. Age at Marriage and Marital Stability
1. Statistics show that marriages are more likely to be stable when partners are in their 20s or older.
2. Age itself is probably not the key variable in determining the likelihood of a marriage succeeding.
B. The Intergenerational Transmission of Divorce Risk
1. A divorced parental family transmits to its children a heightened risk of getting divorced.
2. Mate selection plays a part in the intergenerational transmission of divorce risk.
C. Minimizing Mate Selection Risk
A first step in minimizing mate selection risk is to let go of misconceptions we might have both about love itself and
choosing a partner.
CHAPTER 8
MARRIAGE, A PRIVATE AND PUBLIC RELATIONSHIP
LECTURE OUTLINE
I. The Marriage Premise: Permanence and Sexual Exclusivity
A. The state, or community, has a stake in who gets married. For many social scientists and policy makers, the
family as a social institution rests on the marriage premise of permanence and sexual exclusivity.
B. Expectations of Permanence
1. Marriage, more than any other relationship, holds hope for permanence.
2. The marriage contract is a legal contract between people that cannot be broken without permission of society or
the state.
3. People enter marriage expecting – hoping – that mutual affection and commitment will be lasting.
4. Marital relationships can be permanently satisfying only if spouses give up the romantic myth of the effortless,
conflict free, and "happy" relationship.
5. Some policymakers have proposed ways to promote marital permanence.
6. Covenant Marriage
a. This a new type of marriage wherein the couple agrees to a contract that will not allow them to get an easy
divorce.
b. Two contracts are offered to couples.
1. Conventional marriage-same as today with “no-fault” divorce provisions.
2. Covenant marriage contract-requires couples to get premarital counseling and may only divorce after a two year
cooling off period.
7. State and Federal Marriage Initiatives
a. States have long been invested in marriage.
b. More recently, states have promoted marriage education.
c. State marriage initiatives began after 1996 when the Temporary
Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) or “welfare reform” program was begun.
8. Subcultures with Norms Contrary to Sexual Exclusivity
Three subcultural exceptions are swinging, polyamory, and polygamy.
C. Expectations of Sexual Exclusivity
1. Marriage typically involves expectations of sexual exclusivity in which spouses promise to have sexual relations
only with each other.
2. Cohabiting couples generally expect each other to be sexually faithful.
II. Marriage and Kinship
A. The variety of recognized kin relationships requires a variety of appropriate concepts to help us to perceive and
think about these relationships. Blood relatives are referred to as consanguineous (con san gweny ous); conjugal
relationships are acquired through marriage. Among white, middle-class Americans, the husband-wife relationship is
the dominant dyad. Another important distinction is between the family of orientation (the family one grows up in) and
the family of procreation (the one formed by marrying and having children).
B. Although the situation is changing, the extended family has been the basic family unit in the majority of non-
European countries.
III. Social Change: From Marriage as Institution to Pluralistic Families
A. Social scientist William Doherty has documented the historical change from marriage as a social institution
to marriage as “psychological.”
Institutional families can be characterized by responsibility, their principal value.
B. The Psychological Marriage
1. The chief value of the psychological marriage is satisfaction.
2. There are different relationships within the psychological family: the parallel relationship pattern
among spouses is common in the working class, compared to the interactional relationship pattern of middle-class
marriages.
C. The Pluralistic Family
The pluralistic family has no one structure or form. Families may now take many forms.
IV. Same-Sex Couples and Legal Marriage
A. Many gay male and lesbian couples live together in long-term, committed relationships. Gay and lesbian
couples may establish families with children by becoming parents through adoption, foster care, planned sexual
intercourse, or artificial insemination.
B. In 2000, the Netherlands became the first country to allow same-sex partners to marry under the same
legal code as any couple. In the United States, the 1974 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Singer v. Hara defined
marriage as a union between one man and one woman; The Defense of Marriage Act.
1. Since May, 2004, gay and lesbian couples have been allowed to marry legally in one state,
Massachusetts, however, whether they will be allowed to marry there legally after 2006 remains to be seen. The one
requirement is that they must be residents of the state.
V. Marital Satisfaction and Choices Throughout Life
A. Preparation for Marriage
1. Given today’s high divorce rate, there has been increasing concern that
individuals be better prepared for a marital relationship.
2. Premarital counseling is designed to evaluate the relationship with the possibility of deciding against
marriage and to sensitize partners to potential problems.
B. Today, we view early marriage as a time of role making rather than role taking.
1. Although the early stages of marriage are not a distinct period, social scientists and others continue to
talk and write about them as such.
2. We do know something about the structural advantages of early marriage, and it is likely that these
contribute to high levels of satisfaction.
C. A marriage relationship fulfils both practical and intimacy needs.
Keeping one’s marriage vital requires that partners consciously and continuously strive to maintain intimacy.
D. Although a large majority of Americans publicly disapprove of extramarital sex, in practice, the picture is
somewhat different.
The 1990s saw the emergence of a new brand of marital infidelity: cyberadultery.
E. Two theoretical perspectives shed light on why a spouse might choose to have an affair.
1. From the point of view of evolutionary psychology (a biosocial perspective), men are genetically more
likely to be unfaithful because of an evolutionary predisposition to fertilize as many female eggs as possible.
2. From the point of view of exchange theory, people use their resources to bargain and secure
advantages in relationships and as individuals; people try to maximize their rewards or pleasures. Sociologists have
applied these principles to extramarital sex.
F. Some extramarital affairs are brief; others are more enduring.
G. Extramarital sex can have positive effects, but affairs victimize the uninvolved partner without giving him or
her prior warning.
H. Jealousy is strong emotional pain, anger, fear, and uncertainty arising when a valued relationship is
threatened or perceived to be threatened.
I. Whether trust can be reestablished following an affair depends on several factors. Data on extramarital
affairs suggest that, although lifelong fidelity