Assignment: The Social Institution of Marriage and The Family Essay

For this conversation, make sure to watch the video of Stephanie Coontz, “Love and Marriage in Historical Context.” Coontz is is probably the best known sociologist and historian when it comes to the social institution of marriage and the family. For your post, provide a response/reaction to the issues raised in the video program, and integrate some of what you learned from reading Chapter 14 in our e-textbook. 

Chapter 14 Outline: Marriage and Family

14.1 What is Marriage? What is Family?

• Marriage: legalized social contract between two people, usually associated with sexual relationship and implying long-term relationship

• Family: a socially recognized group—blood, marriage, cohabitation, adoption—that forms an emotional connection and serves as economic unit within society; marriage and family is arguably the most important social institution

• Family of orientation: family into which a person is born or is raised

• Family of procreation: family that is formed through marriage (and children)

A. Challenges Families Face

• The definition of family has broadened in recent decades to include non-traditional family forms, including LGBT families

• Emergence of gay marriage as legal institution has not been accepted as broadly on cultural level; social conservatives tend to be anti-gay marriage

B. Marriage Patterns

• Cohabitation: unmarried couple living together

• Polygamy: marriage to more than one person at a time; polygyny=one man with multiple wives; polyandry (rare)=one woman with multiple husbands

• Bigamy: act of entering into a marriage while still married to another person; this is illegal (felony) in most of the U.S.

C. Residency and Lines of Descent

• Bilateral descent: tracing kinship through both maternal and paternal ancestors; about 60% of societies use this

• Kinship: refers to traceable ancestry, based on blood, marriage or adoption

• Unilateral descent: tracing kinship through one parent only; three types:

• patrilineal=father’s line only (China and India)

• matrilineal=mother’s line only (Crow and Cherokee, Native American)

• ambilineal=either father’s or mother’s, depending on situation (Southeast Asia)

• Patrilocal residence: wife lives with or near husband’s family of orientation

• Matrilocal residence: husband lives with or near wife’s family of orientation

D. Stages of Family Life

• Family life cycle: set of predictable stages and patterns families experience (see Table 14.1 on page 312)

• Family life course: like the family life cycle approach, this approach to understanding common family life experiences; however, instead of presuming that these experiences follow a set of consecutive stages, this analysis accounts for the more diverse family forms and experiences that are more common today

14.2 Variations in Family Life

• Nuclear family: most common form is married parents with children, although divorce has led to single parent nuclear families (two generations); this family form is the dominant form within modern, industrialized societies

A. Single Parents

• Extended family: includes grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, in addition to parents and children (three generations); this family form was (and is) the dominant form within agricultural societies

• 27% of children live with single parent, with 85-90% of those living with mother; practice of grandparents playing parenting role is increasing

B. Cohabitation

• Numbers are increasing rapidly; about 7.5 million in U.S. are cohabitating

• Reasons for cohabitation: 1) save on living costs; 2) trial marriage; 3) decreasing social stigma; 4) children of divorce so lack confidence in marriage

C. Same-Sex Couples

• About 600,000 same-sex couples in U.S.; increasing numbers due to higher social acceptance of LGBT community and willingness to report

• Same-sex parenting as good as opposite-sex parenting

D. Staying Single; increasing numbers of adults choosing to remain single

E. Theoretical Perspectives on Marriage and Family

• Functionalism: Functions of the social institution of marriage and family: 1) regulates sexual behavior by providing socially legitimate outlet for adults; 2) reproduction: having kids, which ensures continuation of society; 3) raising of children, with parents serving as primary agent of socialization; 4) family represents primary economic unit of society

• Conflict theory: power correlated with person who controls revenue (salary, income); unpaid labor within home tends to be devalued so uneven division of labor regarding household chores is often source of tension

• Symbolic interactionism: focus on the symbols and meanings that we use, and that have changed over time, with respect to marriage and family, e.g., broader definition of what “family” constitutes; what it means to be a “good husband/wife” or “good father/mother” is up for interpretation and negotiation

14.3 Challenges Families Face

A. Divorce and Remarriage

• Divorce rates increased in 1960s and 1970s, peaked in 1980; more recently, rates have dropped to 1970 levels

• Factors: financial stress, children, young age at marriage
• Later age at first marriage and higher education associated with lower divorce

• Children of Divorce and Remarriage: in low-conflict homes, children have more negative effects from divorce; only in high-conflict homes, do children benefit from divorce; stepfamilies often contribute to more interpersonal conflict; older children tend to navigate divorce better than younger kids

B. Violence and Abuse

• Domestic Violence: intimate partner violence: violence between spouses or partners within cohabitating or sexual relationships (includes same-sex partners)

• Child Abuse: in 2010, 5.9 million children affected; infants most likely age group of children affected; shaken baby syndrome=group of medical symptoms such as brain swelling and retinal hemorrhage resulting from forcefully shaking or causing impact to an infant’s head

Important information for writing discussion questions and participation

Welcome to class

Hello class and welcome to the class and I will be your instructor for this course. This is a -week course and requires a lot of time commitment, organization, and a high level of dedication. Please use the class syllabus to guide you through all the assignments required for the course. I have also attached the classroom policies to this announcement to know your expectations for this course. Please review this document carefully and ask me any questions if you do. You could email me at any time or send me a message via the “message” icon in halo if you need to contact me. I check my email regularly, so you should get a response within 24 hours. If you have not heard from me within 24 hours and need to contact me urgently, please send a follow up text to

I strongly encourage that you do not wait until the very last minute to complete your assignments. Your assignments in weeks 4 and 5 require early planning as you would need to present a teaching plan and interview a community health provider. I advise you look at the requirements for these assignments at the beginning of the course and plan accordingly. I have posted the YouTube link that explains all the class assignments in detail. It is required that you watch this 32-minute video as the assignments from week 3 through 5 require that you follow the instructions to the letter to succeed. Failure to complete these assignments according to instructions might lead to a zero. After watching the video, please schedule a one-on-one with me to discuss your topic for your project by the second week of class. Use this link to schedule a 15-minute session. Please, call me at the time of your appointment on my number. Please note that I will NOT call you.

Please, be advised I do NOT accept any assignments by email. If you are having technical issues with uploading an assignment, contact the technical department and inform me of the issue. If you have any issues that would prevent you from getting your assignments to me by the deadline, please inform me to request a possible extension. Note that working fulltime or overtime is no excuse for late assignments. There is a 5%-point deduction for every day your assignment is late. This only applies to approved extensions. Late assignments will not be accepted.

If you think you would be needing accommodations due to any reasons, please contact the appropriate department to request accommodations.

Plagiarism is highly prohibited. Please ensure you are citing your sources correctly using APA 7th edition. All assignments including discussion posts should be formatted in APA with the appropriate spacing, font, margin, and indents. Any papers not well formatted would be returned back to you, hence, I advise you review APA formatting style. I have attached a sample paper in APA format and will also post sample discussion responses in subsequent announcements.

Your initial discussion post should be a minimum of 200 words and response posts should be a minimum of 150 words. Be advised that I grade based on quality and not necessarily the number of words you post. A minimum of TWO references should be used for your initial post. For your response post, you do not need references as personal experiences would count as response posts. If you however cite anything from the literature for your response post, it is required that you cite your reference. You should include a minimum of THREE references for papers in this course. Please note that references should be no more than 5 years old except recommended as a resource for the class. Furthermore, for each discussion board question, you need ONE initial substantive response and TWO substantive responses to either your classmates or your instructor for a total of THREE responses. There are TWO discussion questions each week, hence, you need a total minimum of SIX discussion posts for each week. I usually post a discussion question each week. You could also respond to these as it would count towards your required SIX discussion posts for the week.

I understand this is a lot of information to cover in 5 weeks, however, the Bible says in Philippians 4:13 that we can do all things through Christ that strengthens us. Even in times like this, we are encouraged by God’s word that we have that ability in us to succeed with His strength. I pray that each and every one of you receives strength for this course and life generally as we navigate through this pandemic that is shaking our world today. Relax and enjoy the course!

Hi Class,

Please read through the following information on writing a Discussion question response and participation posts.

Contact me if you have any questions.

Important information on Writing a Discussion Question

• Your response needs to be a minimum of 150 words (not including your list of references)
• There needs to be at least TWO references with ONE being a peer reviewed professional journal article.
• Include in-text citations in your response
• Do not include quotes—instead summarize and paraphrase the information
• Follow APA-7th edition
• Points will be deducted if the above is not followed

Participation –replies to your classmates or instructor

• A minimum of 6 responses per week, on at least 3 days of the week.
• Each response needs at least ONE reference with citations—best if it is a peer reviewed journal article
• Each response needs to be at least 75 words in length (does not include your list of references)
• Responses need to be substantive by bringing information to the discussion or further enhance the discussion. Responses of “I agree” or “great post” does not count for the word count.
• Follow APA 7th edition
• Points will be deducted if the above is not followed

• Remember to use and follow APA-7th edition for all weekly assignments, discussion questions, and participation points.
• Here are some helpful links
• The is a great resource