Family Patterns

Family Patterns

1. Marriage

   • Reasons for changing patterns
     • Changing attitudes to marriage- individuals can choose the type of relationship they want (quality)
       • Evaluation- greater freedom of choice=greater risk of instability
     • Secularisation- the decline of influence of religion, means people can choose not to marry
       • Evaluation- majority of first-time marriages take place within a religious context (still has influence)
     • Declining stigma attached to alternative to marriage- cohabitation, remaining single are now accepted e.g. 70% people believed that couples need marriage to have children (1989), 42% (2012)
       • Evaluation- most couple who cohabit do tend to get married, average age of marriage has increased
     • Fear of Divorce- fewer people are likely to rush into marriage, or not marry to at all
       • Evaluation- 1/3 of marriages are remarriages, leading to serial monogamy
     • Changing position of women- Wilkinson states a "gender quake" has happened, young females no longer prioritise marriage/children, instead education/careers
       • Evaluation- put off getting married until career is established, average age of married has increased

2. Cohabitation

   • Unmarried couple in a sexual relationship living together
   • Fastest growing family type- 3.3 million in 2016 (increase of 25.8% 2008-2018)
   • Allan & Crow- difficulty researching cohabiting couples as moving in together is often gradual
   • Chandler- long-term alternative to marriage- no longer feel pressure to get married before starting a family
   • The New Right are concerned about the rise as they claim they're less stable than marriages (less happy/fulfilled, more abusive/stressed
   • Chester- cohabiting is part of the process of getting married (temporary)
     • Coast- 75% of cohabiting couples expect to get married

3. Same-Sex Relationships

   • Stonewall- gay rights, estimates that 5-7% of the population are gay
   • Civil Partnership Act 2004- same-sex couples could obtain legal recognition
     • Tax allowance
     • Employment benefits
     • Protection of domestic abuse
     • recognition from immigration & nationality purposes
     • Inheritance, pensions and property
     • Apply for parental responsibility
   • Adoption & Children Act 2002- same rights to adopt
   • Weston- quasi-marriage (basically married), deciding to cohabit as stable partners
   • Einasdottir- people fear marriage may limit the flexibility, rather than adopting heterosexual norms, they want to be different

4. Divorce

   • Divorce Reform Act (1969)- easier to obtain, irretrievable breakdown meaning no fault is needed to get a divorce
   • Increasing divorce rate
     • Changes in law- equalising/widening the grounds, making divorce cheaper
     • Declining Stigma- Mitchell & Goody: rapid decline in the stigma attached to divorce- more socially accepted and normalised
     • Higher expectations of marriage- if the people grow apart, there's no justification to stay, confluent love
     • Women's increased financial independence- prioritising careers and education, rather than marriage, no longer need to rely on husband for money
     • Rise of feminism- argue that marriage benefits men more, creates conflict, growing dissatisfaction in patriarchal marriage
     • Individualisation- the traditional norms lose their hold over individuals, change from independent to fitting into a mold
   • Perspectives
     • The New Right- undermines marriages & traditions of nuclear family
     • Feminists- women breaking free from the patriarchal family, Bernard- growing dissatisfaction
     • Postmodernist- Giddens: liberating but disruptive as it reflects on their identity
     • Functionlists- Fletcher: threat to marriage as a social institution, result of higher expectations
     • Interactionlists- what divorce means to the individual
     • Personal Life Perspective- cause problems and lack of contact between children & parent, Smart: divorce is normalised & people can adapt
     • Marxists- marriage bourgeois concept, so people are escaping from this

5. Family Structure

   • Single Households- increase in divorce, decline in the number marrying, choosing to live alone
   • Living Apart Together- Duncan & Philips: 1 in 10 do this, choosing to live apart
   • Childbearing- 4/10 are born outside of marriage, women are having children later/ fewer/childless
   • Reasons for changes
     • Decline in stigma- less than 1/3 of 23-54 years old people thinks that marriage should become before parenthood
     • Decline in births- lower fertility rate as women are having children later
     • Rise in the position of women- many women are establishing a career before having children if they do at all
   • Single parent families- 14.9% of all families
   • Step families- 10% of all families, children from past relationships, divorce, lone parents form partnerships
   • Ethnic Difference in Family- immigration, traditions have changed family patterns e.g. South Asian families are largely extended
   • Modernism and Nuclear families
     • Local extended family- members live together
     • Dispersed extended family- live far away but maintained through technology
     • Attenuated Extended Family- single people might move away from their kin