Family & Marriage

Course Code: SOC101

Course Teacher: Farhana Sultana
(Fns)
 Family
• Family: a social and economic unit consisting
minimally of one or more parents and their
children.
• The members always have certain reciprocal
rights and obligations.
• The members usually live in one household
though this is not a defining feature of a
family.
 What is meant by Family?
• Groups of people who are
related by marriage,
blood, or adoption and
who often live together
and share economic
resources are defined as
families.
• The family is the most
universal social
institution, but what
constitutes a “family”
varies across cultures.
 Studying Family
Functionalist View: As per this view, the family
performs six paramount functions:
i. Reproduction: For a society to maintain itself, it
must replace dying members.
ii. Protection: Unlike the young of other animal
species, human infants need constant care and
economic security.
iii. Socialization: Parents and other kin monitor a
child’s behavior and transmit the norms, values and
language of their culture to the child.
 Studying Family (Cont.)
iv. Regulation of sexual behavior: Standards of
sexual behavior are most clearly defined within
the family circle.
v. Affection and companionship: Family members
and relatives are expected to understand us, to
care for us when we need them.
vi. Provision of social status: Every new-born child
inherits a social position because of the family
background and reputation of the parents and
siblings.
 Studying Family (Cont.)
Conflict View:
• Family is viewed as the reflection of the
inequality of wealth and power that is found
within the larger society.
• Family is also accounted for being an
economic unit that contributes to societal
injustice
Family helps to maintain inequality.
 Studying Family (Cont.)
Feminist View:
• Feminist theorists have urged social scientists
and social agencies to rethink the notion that
families in which no adult male is present are
automatically a cause for concern, or even
dysfunctional.
• Feminist theorists contributed to research on
single women, single-parent households, and
lesbian couples.
 Studying Family (Cont.)
Interactionist View:
• Interactionist theorists focus on how
individuals interact within the family and in
other relationships.
 Studying Family (Cont.)
Theoretical Perspective Emphasis
The family as a contributor to social
Functionalist stability roles of family members.
The family as a perpetuator of
Conflict inequality Transmission of poverty or
wealth across generation.
Feminist The family as a perpetuator of gender
roles.
Female headed households.
Interactionist Relationships among family members.
 Family Systems
• Nuclear family: One or both
parents and their children
• Family of orientation: The nuclear
family into which the person is
born or adopted
–When a person marries, a new
nuclear family is formed, called a
family of procreation
• Extended family: Two or more
generations
• Kinship: Network of people who
are related by marriage, birth, or
adoption
 Family Organization
• Family organization is dependent on:
– Marriage Patterns
– Residential Patterns
– Descendant Patterns
– Authority Patterns
 Residential Patterns
• Patrilocality: Couple lives
with or near husband’s
family
• Matrilocality: Couple lives
with or near wife’s family
• Bilocality: Couple decides
which parents to live with
or near
• Neolocality: Couple lives
apart from both sets of
parents
 Descendant Patterns
• Patrilineal descent: Kinship traced through the
father’s family; property passed from father to
son
• Matrilineal descent: Kinship traced through
mother’s family; property passed from mother
to daughter
• Bilateral descent: kinship traced through both
parents; property inherited from either side of
the family
 Authority Patterns
• Patriarchy: father holds
most of the authority
• Matriarchy: mother
holds most of the
authority
• Egalitarian: mother and
father share authority
 What is Marriage?
• A socially approved sexual and
economic union, usually between a
woman and a man.
 Characteristics of Marriage
Marriage:-
• is presumed to be more or less permanent.
(Stephens 1963)
• unites the economic and the social. (Murdock,
1949)
• is universal.
• varies from society to society.
 Functions of Marriage
Marriage:-
• regulates sexual behavior.
• fulfills the economic needs of marriage
partners.
• perpetuates kinship groups.
• provides institution for the care and
enculturation of children.
 Case Study I
Marriage pattern in Nayar of Southern India
• There were two kinds of marriage:
– talikettu kalyanam (necklet-tying ceremony)
– sambandham (the customary nuptials of a man
and woman)
 Case Study II
Marriage patterns in Bontoc Tribe of the
Philippines
• The people practice trial marriage wherein the
girl at puberty lives in a house called ulog
where probable husbands can come and have
sex with her; if she gets pregnant, they get
married.
 Marriage is universal
This is because:-
• Gender division of Labor
– males and females of every society perform
different economic activities
– marriage becomes a mechanism with which
women and men share the products of their labor
 Marriage is universal (Cont.)
• Prolonged infant dependency
– humans exhibit the longest infant dependency
among primates
– this gives the woman, the main child caregiver,
additional burden and may limit the work that she
does and may need the man to do other work
such as hunting which is not compatible with
child care; this prolonged child dependency may
have lead to the institution of marriage
 Marriage is universal (Cont.)
• Sexual Competition
– unlike most female primates, the human female
may engage in intercourse any time of the year;
this continuous female sexuality may have posed
problems in sexual competitions among males for
females
– in order to solve this sexual competition, marriage
was instituted
 Types of Marriage
• Monogamy: marriage involving one man and one woman at a
time
– Serial monogamy: multiple partners in lifetime but never at the same
time
• Polygamy/Plural Marriage: any marriage with more than two
spouses
– Polygyny: marriage involving a man and several women
– Polyandry: marriage involving a woman and several men
• Group Marriage: more than one man is married to more than
one woman at the same time (this type is rare and doesn’t last
long)
• Same-Sex Marriage
 Monogamy
• Monogamy: an individual has only one spouse
during their lifetime or at any one time (serial
monogamy).
• In the countries which do not permit polygamy,
a person who marries another person while
still being lawfully married to another
commits the crime of bigamy. In all cases, the
second marriage is considered legally null and
void.
Newlywed couples
visit Tamerlane's statues to receive
wedding blessings in Uzbekistan
 Serial Monogamy
• Serial Monogamy: only one legal spouse at a time.
• Divorce and remarriage can thus result in “serial
monogamy”, i.e. multiple marriages but only one
legal spouse at a time.
• A calculated average of 3 marriages per individual.
• creates a new kind of relative, the "ex-". The "ex-wife",
for example, remains an active part of her "ex-
husband's" life, as they may be tied together by
transfers of resources (alimony, child support), or
shared child custody.
 Polygyny
• Polygyny: one man marries
two or more women.
• This is found among
societies with intensive
female labor:
horticulturists, pastoralists.
• This is often found in
societies with wealthy men.
• Large herds are usually
reduced by division among
the women.
Polyandry
• Polyandry: one woman marries
two or more men.
• The custom is found in fewer
than a dozen societies, including
Tibet , Nepal, and northern
India.
• There is only one child bearer,
therefore no division between
the men.
• Polyandry also controls
population growth.
 Polyandry (Cont.)
• Fraternal polyandry is practiced in Tibet,
involving marriage of one woman to two or
more men who are brothers to each other.
 Group Marriage
• Group marriage: a Group marriage pattern:
marriage-like arrangement
between more than two
people.
– Usually consisting of three to
six adults.
– All partners live together,
share finances, children, and
household responsibilities.
 Group Marriage (Cont.)
Examples:
• Among the Kurnai of Australia, “unmarried
men have access to their brothers' wives”.
• Among the Ancient Hawaiians, the
relationship of punalua involved the fact that
“two or more brothers with their wives, or
two or more sisters with their husbands, were
inclined to possess each other in common”.
 Same-sex Marriage
• Same-sex marriage:
marriage between people
of the same sex, either as a
secular civil ceremony or in
a religious setting.
• Also known as ‘gay
marriage’
 Economic aspects of Marriage
• Bride Price/Bride Wealth
• Bride Service
• Exchange of Females
• Gift Exchange
• Dowry
 Bride Price/Bride Wealth
•Bride price is an amount of
money, property or other form
of wealth paid by a groom or
his family to the parents of the
woman he has just married or
is going to marry.
– Livestock and food are among
the most common.
Bride Service
• Bride service is the
custom of making a
groom work for the
bride’s family in
exchange for the right
to marry her.
 Exchange of Females
• In which the family of the groom trades one of
his sister/female relative for the bride.
• These societies are horticultural and
egalitarian wherein women play very
substantial roles in primary subsistence.
 Gift Exchange
• The custom in which the families of the bride
and groom exchange gifts of equal value.
 Dowry
• Dowry is the practice that
require the transfer of goods
from the bride's family to the
groom to compensate for
acceptance of the
responsibility of her support.
• Dowry is practiced in cultures
where women's roles are less
valued than men.
• Size of dowry is often
determined by the
desirability of daughter.
 Dowry (Cont.)
• Dowry is practiced in
societies where:- D - Donkeys
– the women are considered to
contribute little to primary O - Of the first order
subsistence W - Who can’t stand on their
– there is high degree of social own feet
stratification
R - Rely on their wives’ riches
– a man is not allowed to marry
more than one woman Y - Yet shameless
simultaneously
 Dowry (Cont.)
• The dowry is intended to guarantee future
support for a woman and children even
though she will not do much primary
subsistence work.
• The dowry is intended to attract the best
bridegroom for a daughter in monogamous
societies with a high degree of social
inequality.
 Incest Taboo
• Incest: sexual relations between people who
are very closely related that they are
forbidden by law to marry.
• Taboo: a rule against doing or saying
something in a particular culture or religion.
– Something that is not acceptable to talk about or
do.
 Incest Taboo (Cont.)
• Incest Taboo: a norm that prohibits sexual
relationships and marriage between some
categories of kin.
– The most universal aspect is the prohibition of
sexual relationships between parents and children
of the opposite sex as well as brothers and sisters.
• However, royal or monarch families of the past
were permitted incestuous relationships in
order to maintain their bloodline.
 Theories on Incest Taboo:
• Childhood Familiarity Theory (Edvard
Westermarck)
– persons who have been closely associated with
each other since earliest childhood are not
sexually attracted to each other and therefore
would avoid marriage with each other
– the theory does not explain why incest taboo is
not extended to first cousin marriages among
many of whom grew up together
 Theories on Incest Taboo (Cont.)
• Psychoanalytic Theory (Sigmund Freud)
– Incest taboo is a reaction to against unconscious,
unacceptable desires.
– Suppose that the son is attracted to the mother
which will result in jealousy and hostility toward
the father; for conflict to be avoided, the son
must renounce and repress the feelings.
– this theory does not explain brother-sister incest
taboo
 Theories on Incest Taboo (Cont.)
• Family Disruption Theory (Bronislaw
Malinowski)
– sexual competition among the family members
would create so much rivalry and tension that the
family could not function as an effective unit.
– This does not explain how a brother-sister
relationship be disruptive of parental authority.
 Theories on Incest Taboo (Cont.)
• Biological Degeneration (Morgan 1877/1963)
– the taboo emerged because early Homo noticed
that the abnormal offspring were born from
incestuous union
• people of the same family carry with them the same
harmful recessive genes thus amplifying its harm to
the offspring.
 Theories on Incest Taboo (Cont.)
• Cooperation Theory (Edward Tylor, Leslie
White, Claude Levi Strauss)
– incest taboo was instituted to ensure that
individuals would marry members of other
families to break down suspicion and hostility
between family groups and make cooperation
possible.
 Whom should one marry?
• Endogamy & Exogamy
– Exogamy: marriage to someone outside one’s
own kin group or community.
– Endogamy: marriage to someone within some
group.
• Arranged marriages: joining together of two
kin groups to form new social and economic
ties.
 Whom should one marry? (Cont.)
• Cousin Marriage
– Between cross cousins (children of siblings of the
opposite sex)
– Between parallel cousins (children of siblings of the
same sex)
• Levirate & Sororate
– Levirate - a custom in which a man is obliged to marry
his brother’s widow.
– Sororate - a custom in which a woman is obliged to
marry her deceased sister’s husband.