Why Can Family Connections Be Described as Symbolic?

The modern concept of family is far more encompassing than in past decades. What do you think constitutes a family? (Photo (a) courtesy Gareth Williams/flickr; photo (b) courtesy Guillaume Paumier/ Wikimedia Commons)

Marriage and family are cardinal structures in well-nigh societies. While the two institutions take historically been closely linked in U.Southward. civilisation, their connection is becoming more circuitous. The relationship between marriage and family is an interesting topic of study to sociologists.

What is marriage? Different people define it in different ways. Not fifty-fifty sociologists are able to hold on a single significant. For our purposes, we'll define spousal relationship equally a legally recognized social contract between two people, traditionally based on a sexual human relationship and implying a permanence of the matrimony. In practicing cultural relativism, we should as well consider variations, such equally whether a legal union is required (recall of "common police force" matrimony and its equivalents), or whether more 2 people can be involved (consider polygamy). Other variations on the definition of marriage might include whether spouses are of opposite sexes or the same sexual activity and how one of the traditional expectations of spousal relationship (to produce children) is understood today.

Sociologists are interested in the human relationship between the institution of marriage and the institution of family because, historically, marriages are what create a family, and families are the most basic social unit of measurement upon which society is built. Both marriage and family create status roles that are sanctioned past lodge.

So what is a family? A husband, a wife, and two children—possibly even a pet—has served as the model for the traditional U.Due south. family for nearly of the twentieth century. But what nearly families that deviate from this model, such as a single-parent household or a homosexual couple without children? Should they be considered families equally well?

The question of what constitutes a family is a prime area of fence in family folklore, as well as in politics and religion. Social conservatives tend to define the family in terms of structure with each family member filling a certain role (like father, mother, or child). Sociologists, on the other hand, tend to define family more in terms of the manner in which members chronicle to 1 another than on a strict configuration of status roles. Here, we'll define family as a socially recognized group (usually joined past blood, marriage, cohabitation, or adoption) that forms an emotional connection and serves equally an economical unit of society. Sociologists identify different types of families based on how i enters into them. A family of orientation refers to the family unit into which a person is built-in. A family of procreation describes 1 that is formed through spousal relationship. These distinctions have cultural significance related to issues of lineage.

Drawing on ii sociological paradigms, the sociological understanding of what constitutes a family unit tin can be explained by symbolic interactionism too every bit functionalism. These two theories signal that families are groups in which participants view themselves as family members and act accordingly. In other words, families are groups in which people come together to class a stiff primary group connexion and maintain emotional ties to one another over a long period of time. Such families may include groups of shut friends or teammates. In addition, the functionalist perspective views families every bit groups that perform vital roles for society—both internally (for the family unit itself) and externally (for society every bit a whole). Families provide for i another'south physical, emotional, and social well-existence. Parents care for and socialize children. Later on in life, adult children often care for elderly parents. While interactionism helps us understand the subjective experience of belonging to a "family," functionalism illuminates the many purposes of families and their roles in the maintenance of a balanced society (Parsons and Bales 1956).

Challenges Families Face up

People in the United states of america as a whole are somewhat divided when it comes to determining what does and what does not institute a family. In a 2010 survey conducted by professors at the Academy of Indiana, nearly all participants (99.8 percent) agreed that a husband, wife, and children plant a family unit. 90-ii percent stated that a husband and a wife without children all the same constitute a family. The numbers drib for less traditional structures: unmarried couples with children (83 percentage), unmarried couples without children (39.six percent), gay male couples with children (64 percentage), and gay male couples without children (33 percent) (Powell et al. 2010). This survey revealed that children tend to be the primal indicator in establishing "family" status: the percentage of individuals who agreed that unmarried couples and gay couples constitute a family nearly doubled when children were added.

The study also revealed that 60 per centum of U.S. respondents agreed that if you lot consider yourself a family, you are a family (a concept that reinforces an interactionist perspective) (Powell 2010). The regime, however, is not so flexible in its definition of "family." The U.South. Census Bureau defines a family every bit "a group of 2 people or more (i of whom is the householder) related by nascency, marriage, or adoption and residing together" (U.S. Census Bureau 2010). While this structured definition can be used equally a means to consistently track family unit-related patterns over several years, information technology excludes individuals such as cohabitating unmarried heterosexual and homosexual couples. Legality aside, sociologists would debate that the full general concept of family unit is more diverse and less structured than in years past. Society has given more leeway to the pattern of a family unit making room for what works for its members (Jayson 2010).

Family is, indeed, a subjective concept, but it is a fairly objective fact that family (whatever 1'southward concept of information technology may be) is very of import to people in the United States. In a 2010 survey by Pew Research Centre in Washington, DC, 76 percent of adults surveyed stated that family is "the most important" element of their life—but i percent said information technology was "not important" (Pew Research Middle 2010). Information technology is also very of import to society. President Ronald Regan notably stated, "The family unit has always been the cornerstone of American society. Our families nurture, preserve, and pass on to each succeeding generation the values we share and cherish, values that are the foundation of our freedoms" (Lee 2009). While the design of the family unit may accept inverse in contempo years, the fundamentals of emotional closeness and back up are even so present. Well-nigh responders to the Pew survey stated that their family today is at least every bit close (45 percent) or closer (40 pct) than the family with which they grew up (Pew Inquiry Center).

Think It Over

According to research, what are people's general thoughts on family in the U.s.a.? How exercise they view nontraditional family structures? How do you think these views might modify in 20 years?

Practice

1. Sociologists tend to define family unit in terms of

1. how a given society sanctions the relationships of people who are connected through blood, marriage, or adoption
2. the connection of bloodlines
3. the status roles that be in a family construction
4. how closely members adhere to social norms

2. Research suggests that people generally feel that their current family unit is _______ than the family they grew upwardly with.

1. less shut
2. more than close
3. at least as shut
4. none of the above

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Source: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/alamo-sociology/chapter/reading-what-is-marriage-what-is-a-family/

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