Family And Intimate Relationships

Zerk ShabanAli Pirzada

Saad MansoorSayyed Afraz Hassan

Shaleem John

BS(CS)

2014-2018

Overview• Global View of The Family

• Sociology Perspectives

• Marriage and Family

• Divorce

• Diverse Lifestyles

Global View of the Family Zerk Shaban

FamilyWhat is a Family?A family is a group of people living together as a unit. A group of people sharing common ancestry.

• Types of Family• Nuclear Family

Family in which Parents and unmarried children live together.

• Extended FamilyA joint family living together including other relatives.

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• MonogamyIt is a form of family in which one man and one woman are married only to each other.

• PolygamySome cultures allow to have several husbands or wives simultaneously.

ResearchAnthropologist George Murdock (1949,1957) sampled 565 societies and found that in more than 80 percent, some type of polygamy was preferred form.

• PolyandryIt is a form of family in which a woman may have more than one husband at the same time.

Kinship Patterns: To whom are we Related?

• In every culture, children encounter relative to whom they are expected to show an emotional attachment. The state of being related to others is called kinship. Kinship is culturally learned, however, and is not totally determined by biological or marital ties. For example, adoption creates a kinship tie that is legally acknowledged and socially accepted.

• Kin groups include aunts, uncles, cousins, in-laws and so forth.

Polygany

It is a form of family in which a man can have more than one wife at a time.

Sociological Perspectives Ali Pirzada

Functionalist Perspectives

The family performs following functions.

• 1. Reproduction: For a society to maintain itself, it must replace its dying members. In this sense, the family contributes to human survival through its function of reproduction.

• 2. Protection: In all cultures, the family assumes the ultimate responsibility for the protection and upbringing of children.

• 3. Socialization: Parents monitor a child’s behavior and transmit the norms, values, and language of their culture to the child.

• 4. Affection and companionship: Ideally, the family provides members with warm and intimate relationships, helping them to feel satisfied and secure. We expect our relatives to understand us, to care for us, and to be there for us when we need them.

Conflict Perspective

Conflict theorists view the family not as a contributor to social stability, but as a reflection of the inequality in wealth and power that is found within the larger society.

• While the egalitarian family has become a more common pattern in the U.S i.e. they consider both husband and wife equal in family.

Interactionist Perspective

• The interactionist view considers the intimate, face-to-face relationships that occur in the family. Interactionists focus on the micro level of family and other intimate relationships. They are interested in how individuals interact with one another.

• Interactionists are particularly interested in the ways in which parents relate to each other and to their children.

Feminist Perspective

• Feminist sociologist’s tae interest in family as a social institution. At the University of Georgia, such studies show that among. African Americans, single mothers draw heavily on kinfolk for material resources, parenting advice, and social support.

• Feminist emphasis the family as a perpetuator of gender roles i.e.

Female-headed household.

Marriage and Family Saad Mansoor

Marriage

What is Marriage?Marriage is the approved social pattern whereby two or more persons established a family.

• Courtship and mate selection

• In the past, most of the couples met their partners through friends, or their neighborhood or work place.

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• Aspects of mate selection

• Many societies have explicit or unstated rules that define potential mates as acceptable or unacceptable.

• Endogamy

• Exogamy

• Homogamy

The Love Relationship

• Nowadays the young generation of most of the societies has changed; there general perspective of thinking. If we look in the past marriages were arranged by the parents but now in most of the societies, young generation selects there life partner by their own. But in some of the cultures it is taken as immoral due to their religious aspects.

Variations in family life and intimate relationships

• Social class differences

• Racial and ethnic differences

• Parenthood and grandparenthood

• Adoption

• Dual-income families

• Single-parent families

• Step families

Divorce Sayyed Afraz Hassan

Divorce

What is Divorce?Any formal separation of husband and wife according to established custom.

• Explanation: Divorce is compared to an epidemic in any society it infiltrates. Currently, it is spreading at an alarming rate. Frequently, offspring are most affected. Various researches on the relationship of divorce and its social effects in children are compared and contrasted by this study.

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• Introduction: Divorce is extremely common in today. In fact, one out of every two marriages ends in divorce. Numerous children are raised in single-parent homes.

• Children of divorcees have carried with them divorce related problems.

Problems for Children

What problems do Children face?

Children who have experienced high anxiety life events, such as divorce, develop problems during adolescence. When problems such as depression develop during adolescence, these problems persist into adulthood.

Surveys

• In many countries, divorce began to increase in the late 1960s but then leveled off; since the late 1980s, it has declined by 30 percent.

• Three researches were scrutinized namely: Parental Study 1993, Institute's Parents and Children after Marriage Breakdown 1992 and Loyola University New Orleans 2006 studies.

Diverse Lifestyles Shaleem John

Cohabitation

What is Cohabitation?Cohabitation is a practice in which male-female couples choose to live together without marrying.

• The number of unmarried couples has been rising steadily; in 2010 it was 6.7 million.

• In Europe, cohabitation is so common that the general sentiment seems to be “Love, yes; marriage, maybe.”

Remaining Single

• Men and women in some societies are likely to remain single throughout their lives. There are many reasons why a person may choose not to marry.

What is the Main Reason?

Marriage Without Children

• More and more couples today, however, choose not to have children and regard themselves as child- free. They do not believe that having children is necessary.

Why?Economic considerations for having children has become quite expensive. According to a government estimate made for 2012, the average middle-class family would be able to spend $229,320 to feed, clothe, and shelter a child from birth to age 18.

Lesbian and Gay Relationships

• As we know, when same-gender people are attracted to each other then we use the term gay and lesbian for them.

• Gay and lesbian couples face discrimination on both a personal and a legal level. Their inability to marry denies them many rights that married couples take for granted.

• Though gay couples consider themselves families just like the straight couples who live down the street, they are often treated as if they are not.

Review• Family

• Types of Family

• Sociological Perspectives

• Marriage

• Divorce

• Diverse Lifestyles

Time for Questions?