What is really going on with teen pregnancy rates? What are some of the causes of the divorce rate and is it really true that 50% of marriages end in divorce? Click on this map to access pregnancy stats. Compare this map with the Marriage and Family slide.
What is really going on with teen pregnancy rates? What are some of the causes of the divorce rate and is it really true that 50% of marriages end in divorce? Click on this map to access pregnancy stats. Compare this map with the Marriage and Family slide deck that details high and low divorce rates. Then answer the following questions: What explanations can you find for the high teen pregnancy rates in Texas, Mississippi, Georgia and North Carolina? Why do you think the teen pregnancy rate is lower in the Northeast and some parts of the Midwest and North?You may also find the articles in the additional readings file to be helpful. Chapter 16 Summary The practices of marriage and family differ around the world. Although every human group organizes its members in families, how families are organized varies greatly from culture to culture. Broadly defined, a family consists of two or more people who consider themselves related by blood, marriage, or adoption. A household, in contrast, consists of people who occupy the same housing unit. Every human group establishes norms to govern who can marry whom. Although these norms vary from culture to culture, all societies use family and marriage to establish patterns of mate selection, descent, inheritance, and authority. Most societies encourage endogamy, the practice of marrying someone within one’s own group. In contrast, norms of exogamy specify that people must marry outside their group. Western culture uses a bilateral system of descent which means children are considered as related to both their mother’s and father’s side of the family. In a patrilineal system, the descent is traced only on the father’s side, and in a matrilineal system, the descent is traced only on the mother’s side. In a society that practices these patterns of descent, the pattern of inheritance would be similar. A social system in which men dominate women is referred to as patriarchy. Although matriarchy would be a society dominated by women, there is no historical record of the existence of a true matriarchy. Family patterns in America are becoming more egalitarian, or equal, although many of today’s customs still reflect a patriarchal origin. According to the functionalist perspective, the family is universal because it serves six essential functions: economic production, socialization of children, care of the sick and aged, recreation, sexual control, and reproduction. Conflict theorists focus on the inequalities within the institution of the family and marriage, particularly as they relate to the subservience of women. Symbolic interactionists examine how the contrasting experiences and perspectives of men and women are played out in marriage. The major elements of the family life cycle are love and courtship, marriage, childbirth, child-rearing, and the family in later life. Romantic love—people being sexually attracted to one another and idealizing each other—plays a significant role in courtship in Western culture. In Western culture, love is regarded as the only proper basis for marriage. Many Eastern cultures still practice arranged marriages, usually negotiated by the parents of the bride and groom. Choices of who marries whom in the US follow highly predictable social channels of age, education, social class, race, and religion. In either case, a group’s marriage practices match its values and patterns of social stratification. Social class plays a significant role in childbirth and child-rearing patterns in the US, as well as how couples adjust to the arrival of children. Women who graduate from college and have higher incomes are less likely to give birth than those who do not go to college and who occupy lower paying jobs. Research also shows that first babies arrive sooner for working-class married couples than middle class couples. The early arrival of babies in the working class marriage often strains the marital relationship. When rearing children, working-class parents are more likely to stress conformity through physical punishment. Middle class parents are more likely to encourage their children’s development of curiosity, self-expression, and self-control. In doing so, they rely on the withdrawal of privileges or affection as the primary means of conditioning.
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