CHAPTER 11:
THE CHANGING FAMILY
By the end of this chapter students will be able to:
- Define family from a traditional and modern perspective.
- Describe the similarities and differences between the extended and nuclear family.
- Discuss the emerging patterns of family and how they differ from the traditional concept of family.
- Define the concepts of marriage, monogamy, and serial monogamy.
- Discuss family from the three sociological perspectives of functionalism, conflict, and symbolic interactionism.
- Discuss why the feminist perspective on marriage is most aligned with the conflict perspective.
- Explain the underlying reasons for the diversity in intimate relationships and families in the United States.
- Define domestic partnership and how it differs from legally recognized marriage.
- Discuss diversity in intimate relationships and families including singlehood, postponing marriage, domestic partnerships and cohabitation, and dual-earner marriages.
- Compare two-parent and one-parent households.
- Discuss child-related family issues including reproduction, contraception, abortion, infertility, adoption, teen pregnancies, unmarried motherhood, and adoption.
- Address divorce and remarriage including misconceptions about the divorce rate.
- Discuss domestic violence including child abuse, child neglect, and spouse abuse.
- Offer a forecast on changes in the status of family and marriage in the twenty- first century.
