What needs emphasis today is the political significance of the family.
A people whose marriages and families are weak can have no solid
institutions.
--Michael Novak
Why do we hear so much about the family nowadays? The stories seem
to be either negative (i.e., stories of family violence and failures to
properly care for their young and old, the breakdown
thesis), reformative (e.g., the Christian
Coalition's Contract for the American Family), or where have the "good
old days" gone (i.e., federal statistics showing rising divorce rates,
how three in ten births are illegitimate, or the disappearance of the Ward
and June Cleaver family model) in tone. Perhaps all of the attention owes
to shared assumptions that relationships between family members is
prototype for all other social relations, that the family unit is the fundamental
building block for all societies, and that the family is society's shock-absorber of
social change. One cannot, for instance, expect a person to do more for
a stranger or an acquaintance than what he/she would do for a family member.
And, as Michael Novak observes above, if the family breaks down not all
of the remaining institutions can put "society" back together
again.
WHAT IS
"FAMILY"?
It is worth noting that the word family originally meant a
band of slaves. Even after the word came to apply to people affiliated
by blood and marriage, for many centuries the notion of family referred
to authority relations rather than love ones. The sentimentalization of
family life and female nurturing was historically and functionally linked
to the emergence of competitive individualism and formal egalitarianism
for men.
--Stephanie Coontz, The Way We Never Were, pp.
43-44
Preparations for the 1980 White House Conference on the Family collapsed when representatives of the political left insisted that the
word "families" should be used instead of "family" to acknowledge the vast
diversity of American family types. Webster's Dictionary offers
twenty-two definitions. The Census Bureau defines a family as "two
or more persons related by birth, marriage or adoption who reside in the
same household"--a definition selected by only 22 percent of a random
sample of 1,200 adults in a 1990 survey conducted by Massachusetts Mutual
Insurance Company.
Is family ultimately based on blood--hence an adopted son is a lesser son, and
a stepfamily is a lesser family? In 1993, a
Florida teenager who had, upon her birth, been sent home with the wrong family,
did not want to go to her biological parents when the mistake had been
uncovered. In the legal case that resulted, her lawyer began with the
question "What constitutes a family?" and claimed that "[biology]
alone--without more--does not constitute or sustain a family."
Should the word be defined in terms of:
those who live under the same roof, which basically means any household
qualifies? A New Jersey court ruled that male college students sharing
a renewable four-month lease fits the definition.
the functions it performs? George Peter Murdock argues that the
family is "a social group characterized by common residence, economic
cooperation, and reproduction. ... [it] includes adults of both sexes,
at least two of whom maintain a socially approved sexual relationship,
and one or more children."
legal recognitions of the relationships?
What difference does it make how "family" is defined? As will
be developed, there are political, economic, legal, and religious
interests bound up with the definition. Sociologically, being identified
as a "family member" implies differences in the social rights and
obligations toward
others who are identified (both by the broader society and by the members,
themselves) as "family" as opposed to being a stranger,
colleague, neighbor, roommate, friend or one so distantly related (e.g.,
fifth cousin twice removed) as to not really "count" as family.
(Of course, where a culture draws this line between family and not-family is
highly variable; one is no more distantly related from any other person on earth
than a fifty-second cousin or so. Pet owners and their pet owning friends
may view Fido as "family"--and Fidos have been known to inherit the
bulk of their deceased owners' estates.)
THE PERSONAL BENEFITS OF
FAMILY LIFE
Despite controversies over what the "family" is, there
is considerable evidence about what the consequences of family life are
for individuals. For instance:
Between 1973 and 1981, Yankelovich found that about three-fourths
of Americans interviewed claiming that family life was their most important
value.
Studies of the various life spheres Americans report as being sources
of a "great deal of satisfaction" consistently show family life
being the most important.
In Lewis Terman's famous longitudinal study of gifted California children
(n=1,521), begun in 1921 with follow-ups every 5 or 10 years, it was found that those
whose parents divorced faced a 33 percent greater risk of an earlier death (average age at
death=76 years) than those whose parents remained married until the children reached
age 21 (average age at death=80). According to Dr. Howard Friedman, who did the
analyses, there was no such mortality effect for children whose parents had died
(cited in
Daniel Goleman. 1995. "75 Years Later, Study Is Still Tracking Geniuses." New York
Times [March 7]).
Families Worldwide (This Salt Lake
City-based organization is "an international nonprofit organization
dedicated to strengthening relationships at home"). Rich,
albeit conservative, site with many research
articles and links.
Why do we hear so much about the family nowadays? The stories seem
to be either negative (i.e., stories of family violence and failures to
properly care for their young and old, the breakdown
thesis), reformative (e.g., the Christian
Coalition's Contract for the American Family), or where have the "good
old days" gone (i.e., federal statistics showing rising divorce rates,
how three in ten births are illegitimate, or the disappearance of the Ward
and June Cleaver family model) in tone. Perhaps all of the attention owes
to shared assumptions that relationships between family members is
prototype for all other social relations, that the family unit is the fundamental
building block for all societies, and that the family is society's shock-absorber of
social change. One cannot, for instance, expect a person to do more for
a stranger or an acquaintance than what he/she would do for a family member.
And, as Michael Novak observes above, if the family breaks down not all
of the remaining institutions can put "society" back together
again.
