Examining Family Issues and Controversies

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Examining FamilyIssues and

ControversiesPart I of this book examines several controver-

sial issues that provide the backdrop against

which people experience their own families and

form opinions and beliefs about families in gen-

eral. In this section you will probe questions

such as, Which arrangements get to be called

a “family”? Is the institution of family breaking

down? Should families be completely private?

How do people balance personal interests and

needs with family obligations? Do families need

religion to thrive? The information presented in

response to these questions is designed to pro-

voke personal reflection, critical thought, and

impassioned discussion.

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What is a family?What is a family?

I S S U E 1

2

Hours after the terrorist attack on the Pentagonand New York’s World Trade Center on Sep-

tember 11, 2001, a major network newscaster com-pleted his report by saying, “It’s in times like thesethat all Americans become a family.” Several dayslater, a member of the New York Mets baseball teamsaid, “In New York, everybody’s a family right now.”

In the film Fried Green Tomatoes, EvelynCouch—a character played by actress Kathy Bates—becomes quite fond of an old woman named NinnyThreadgoode, whom she meets while visiting a nurs-ing home. Ninny—played by the late Jessica Tandy—inspires Evelyn to take control of her own life. Evelyndecides she would like Ninny to live in her housewith her and her husband, Ed. But Ed is unwilling tohave a stranger live in their house, and he forcefullyshouts, “She’s not even family!” to which Evelynquickly replies, “Well, she’s family to me!”

In a video exhibit in the U.S. Holocaust Memo-rial Museum in Washington, DC, one Holocaustsurvivor after another offers moving testimony oftheir experiences in German concentration campsduring World War II. The survivors reminisce fre-quently and with great emotion about their campfamilies—those fellow inmates with whom theyformed immensely important and powerful rela-

tionships in the face of what they perceived as cer-tain death. Before imprisonment, the people whowould become these survivors’ “parents,” “children,”“brothers,” and “sisters” were complete strangers;many came from different countries and spoke dif-ferent languages.

In 2000, the Olive Garden Italian restaurantchain began a new television advertising campaignthat featured the tag line “When you’re here, you’refamily.” This image pervades the company’s Web site:“Olive Garden is a family of local restaurants focusedon delighting every guest with a genuine Italian din-ing experience. . . . We offer a comfortable, home-likesetting where guests are welcomed like family.”

It seems that nothing is more obvious and com-monplace than the concept of family. Family issomething that everyone can relate to. We’re allborn into a family of one sort or another and willspend at least part of our lives inside one. Ideasabout what families look like are so clear that ifsomeone asked you to pick out families strollingthrough a large shopping mall, you’d probably haveno trouble doing so.

Yet all these examples illustrate the varied, fluid,and somewhat unexpected ways people use the termfamily and its powerful connotations. In all these

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What makes a family a family? Why are some groups

granted family status and others not? What does a

family do for its members that other groups can’t?

3

Certain holidays, rituals, and other celebrations invite or even require family participation. The

people at this backyard barbecue seem to be close knit and genuinely happy. Do you think

they are a family? What features in this photo are you using as evidence of family relation-

ships? Is more than one family present at the cookout? How can you tell? If no children

were present, would you be less inclined to consider this group of people a family?

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4 P A R T I � Examining Family Issues and Controversies

examples, only the word family was forceful enoughto describe the strength of people’s feelings and senseof connection to others. As a symbolic marker of thedepth of affection and obligation, the vocabulary offamily is unparalleled in the English language. Noother term would do. Notice how much weaker themessage would have been if, say, the newscaster orthe baseball player had referred to the shock and griefof U.S. citizens, or if Evelyn Couch had tried to makeher point by saying, “Well, she’s a real companion tome!” or if the concentration camp survivors referredto fellow inmates who saved their lives as goodfriends. Could Olive Garden inspire feelings of com-fort in potential customers if their advertisementsread, “When you’re here, you’re an important cus-tomer”? Certainly not.

The really curious thing, though, is that in noneof these examples was the word family used to de-scribe the relationships most people usually thinkof as family—husbands and wives, parents andchildren, brothers and sisters, grandparents, aunts,uncles, cousins, and so on. Instead, it was used todescribe real and imagined relationships based onlove, commitment, sacrifice, and obligation.

Obviously, as familiar and recognizable as it is,family is also a remarkably elusive term that defiesagreement or consistent application. Coming upwith a universal definition of the family that every-one everywhere would agree on is a little like tryingto nail pudding to a wall.

Indeed, a nationwide poll conducted by theRoper Organization found wide variation in whatpeople consider a family. Although 98 percent ofthe respondents identified a married couple livingwith their children as a family, 53 percent also iden-tified an unmarried man and woman who’ve livedtogether for a long time as a family; 27 percent felt alesbian couple raising children was a family; and 20percent felt two gay men committed to each otherand living together constituted a family (cited inGelles, 1995).

These statistics and examples point up one ofthe most fundamental and deceptively simple ques-tions facing people who study family: Just exactlywhat is a family? Which groups of people get to becalled a family? Conversely, which groups of peoplecan’t claim to be families? Far from being an ob-

scure issue of linguistic and philosophical debateargued in the hallowed halls of academia, the defi-nition of family has very real and very critical con-sequences for us all. A family may be in line to re-ceive such benefits as housing, health care, and sickleave, not to mention legitimate recognition withinthe community (Popenoe, 1993). People who falloutside the definition of family, however, not onlyare ineligible for such benefits, but their relation-ships may also be considered illegitimate, inappro-priate, or immoral (Hartman, 1994). Ideas aboutwhich family forms are acceptable, normal, desir-able, and praiseworthy determine which forms areconsidered abnormal, problematic, and in need ofrepair or condemnation.

Images of FamilyOur ideas about what families are come to us partlyfrom the people around us. From the time we aresmall, we are exposed to ideas about what familiesought to look like and how they ought to function.Our immediate family is an obvious model, andolder relatives can provide images of past families.We are even exposed to alternative images as we be-come acquainted with the different family structuresof neighbors and friends. But these personal experi-ences are not the only source of information we haveon the definition of family.

Many of our ideas about families come from themedia: books, newspapers, magazines, films, and es-pecially, television. For 50 years, television has servedas a high-powered cultural lens on U.S. families(Stacey, 1996b). Between 1946 and 1990, close to 400fictional families appeared on prime-time networkprogramming alone (Moore, 1992). Add commer-cials, daytime soap operas and talk shows, and newsstories into the mix, and you get a sense of howpervasive television images of families have beenthroughout the years. For the most part, these im-ages have tended to be conventional and narrow inscope, fostering a largely inaccurate version of fam-ily reality.

One study of all long-running prime-timefamilies since the 1950s found that on TV the tradi-tional nuclear family predominates. Two-thirds of

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I S S U E 1 � What Is a Family? 5

these shows depicted “conventional” families—families that consist of married couples living to-gether with their children or nuclear families shar-ing a household with one or more members of theirextended families (Moore, 1992). The overwhelm-ing majority of families (88 percent) were middleclass or higher. Ninety-four percent of the showsfeatured white families. Interestingly, at the time ofthis study there were more white TV families withblack members (usually adopted children) thanthere were black families. Only 14 percent of theprograms featured childless couples.

A more recent study found that prime-time, en-tertainment TV still presents a distorted view offamily life: Most adults are men, almost no one isover 50, child care is almost never a problem, and el-der care comes up even less (National Partnershipfor Women and Families, 1998). After analyzing 150episodes of 92 different programs, the researchersdiscovered that adult TV characters are dispropor-tionately male, young, and free of family obligationsas compared to real adults. Not surprisingly, thisstudy found that 45 percent of U.S. adults say no TVfamilies are like theirs, and another 39 percent saythey can find “only a few” families like theirs.

In some ways, however, media images of familieshave changed dramatically over the years. In the1950s and early 1960s, shows like Leave It to Beaver,Ozzie and Harriet, Make Room for Daddy, FatherKnows Best, The Donna Reed Show, and The Dick VanDyke Show provided optimistic, homogeneous im-ages of U.S. families. With some notable excep-tions—such as the childless, working-class Kramdensin The Honeymooners or the urban, interethnicRicardos in I Love Lucy—these early television fami-lies were happy, prosperous, suburban, and white.They consisted of husband-father breadwinners andnurturing wife/mothers whose primary task was tolook good in an apron and keep peace among thechildren. In the 1950s a viewer would have been hardpressed to find on television the sorts of people andfamilies that, in reality, characterized much of U.S.society at the time: the old, the nonwhite, those notin the middle class, or people in nontraditionalhouseholds (Coontz, 1992). Instead, the viewing au-dience was presented with nuclear families withoutserious economic problems or embarrassing histo-

ries. The most pressing problems could be solved in30 minutes with a few sage words from Dad or a plateof Mom’s chocolate chip cookies. No wonder whenpeople today look back on families of the past, theygravitate toward these blissful “good old days” TVimages. To this day, reruns of these old shows remaina popular fixture on nightly cable TV.

The social upheavals of the late 1960s and early1970s motivated networks to create shows that weremore “relevant” and “realistic.” The working-classfamilies on All in the Family and Good Times demon-strated that family life wasn’t always a middle-classhaven. Conflict was a part of their day-to-day exist-ence. Television families began making small but sig-nificant forays into the uncharted territory of socialproblems such as poverty, violence, drugs, and rac-ism. TV families were even becoming a little less tra-ditional in their structure. The Brady Bunch featureda sugar-coated white, middle-class, suburban family,but the Bradys were a blended family that sometimeshad to deal—albeit cheerily—with dilemmas posedby step-siblings and stepparents. The show One Dayat a Time featured a divorced woman raising twochildren alone. Three’s Company consisted of threesingle adults—one man and two women—living inthe same household. Popular shows such as TheMary Tyler Moore Show and Laverne and Shirley fea-tured single women whose emotional nurturingcame primarily from close friends rather than fam-ily. These characters enjoyed freedoms that had pre-viously been taboo for women on television.

During the 1980s and 1990s, a time when conser-vative politics and “family values” became morepopular, the traditional television family reassertedits dominance—most notably through shows such as

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In the 1960s and 1970s television families

began making small but significant forays

into the uncharted territory of social

problems such as poverty, violence, drugs,

and racism. TV families were even becoming a

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little less traditional in their structure.

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The Cosby Show, Family Ties, and Home Improve-ment—even though the number of people living inintact families in the real world continued to decline.Although many popular shows—such as Roseanne,The Simpsons, and Married with Children—were of-fering an unsparing portrayal of the ugly side of fam-ily life, the tone was humorous and the generallypositive emotional interactions that we associatewith family relationships remained. These familiesmay have been flawed, but they were still cohesive, es-pecially in the face of crisis.

In the early 2000s, the television portrayal offamilies has become more diverse. The theme of thedysfunctional yet intact family can still be seen insitcoms such as Malcolm in the Middle, That 70sShow, and Grounded for Life. Other shows—such asQueer as Folk, The Sopranos, Once and Again, TheFighting Fitzgeralds, Frazier, Judging Amy, EverybodyLoves Raymond, and Providence—explore variousextended, blended, single-parent, and even morenontraditional family arrangements.

In recent years, some of the most popular televi-sion shows—most notably Seinfeld, Friends, Ed, Sexand the City, Will and Grace, and Ally McBeal—havedrifted away from examining family groups to focusprimarily on the lives of single people. However,these shows are not “antifamily” by any stretch of theimagination. In fact, many of the anxieties and tra-vails that characters on these shows experience stemfrom a gap between their present singlehood andtheir desire for traditional family life—getting mar-ried, having children, and so on.

Television images of families have obviouslychanged over the years: Women now play a moredominant role than they once did in family shows,gay characters as well as single-parent and minorityfamilies are more common, and both mothers andfathers are more frequently seen outside the home(Cantor, 1991; Douglas & Olsen, 1996). However,television still tends to portray traditional genderroles within families. In television commercials, forinstance, men (compared to women) are less oftenshown doing housework and spending time withchildren. When they are shown with children, menare more likely to be shown outdoors, with boys, andnot with infants. Interestingly, men are rarely showncaring for daughters (G. Kaufman, 1999). Other dis-

crepancies between TV life and real life exist. Onestudy reports that of all the “nonconventional” fami-lies on television, 79 percent feature single-parenthouseholds. But unlike real-life parents, most singleparents on TV had suffered the death of a spouseand not divorce. In only 9 percent of cases was singleparenthood the result of divorce (Moore, 1992).

In addition, the formulas of contemporary fam-ily programs remain quite similar to those aired inthe 1950s (Cantor, 1991). The stories often revolvearound teen and preteen mischief or parent–childconflict. The content of the conflict has, of course,changed. The 1950s argument over kissing and wear-ing too much makeup has evolved, in the 2000s, intoan argument over sleeping with a boyfriend or pur-chasing contraceptives. But the dynamics of the situ-ations portrayed remain remarkably similar, andparents and children almost always resolve their dif-ferences by the end of the show. No matter how“nontraditional” the lifestyle, the central virtue offamily togetherness is still depicted as the mainsource of individual happiness and well-being foradults and children alike.

And rarely do television programs reflect thelarger social and political contexts in which mostU.S. residents live. Contemporary programs have ad-dressed the tough problems of everyday life: drugs,poverty, unwanted pregnancy, and so forth. But formost of their history, television families have rarelytackled big problems such as the changing economyor ethnic conflict and political unrest abroad. Rather,these fictional families act out morality plays aboutappropriate and inappropriate beliefs and behaviors.The majority of TV programs teach correct (andideal) social and sexual relationships (Cantor, 1991).

The significance of these trends in televisionprogramming is that they are far more than enter-tainment; they shape our ideas about what a familyis and is not, how its members should relate to oneanother, and how a family should relate to theworld. But television viewers (and readers of othermass media) are hardly passive recipients who ab-sorb every message uncritically. Even young viewersactively watch and make judgments about charac-ters based on their own personal experience. Forexample, 9- to 13-year-old girls in one recent studytended to dismiss as unrealistic families that did not

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look and act like their own. These girls did, how-ever, accept the family-oriented values they saw ontelevision, probably because they were consistentwith those they received at home (Fingerson, 1999).In short, people learn from others in their lives, aswell as from the media, to dismiss and discount al-ternative forms of families and to laugh at or dis-like unconventional characters who challenge ac-cepted notions about family life (Currie, 1997).

The “Official” U.S. Definitionof FamilyWith so much flux and variation in images of family,is it possible or even desirable to come up with asingle definition? In fact, it is necessary if you arefaced with the task, as the U.S. federal government is,of managing certain programs for families and pro-viding certain benefits only to families.

The official definition of family comes from theU.S. Census Bureau, the government agency respon-sible for determining how many families there are inthe United States. In compiling these statistics, thisagency distinguishes between households and fami-lies. Households are defined as all persons or groupsof persons who occupy a dwelling such as a house,apartment, single room, or other space intended tobe living quarters. Households can consist of oneperson who lives alone or several people living to-gether. A family, in contrast, is defined as two ormore persons who are related by blood, marriage, oradoption and who live together as one household(U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2000a).

longer live with their parents are not part of theirparents’ families. And what about other relatives—grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins? Most of uswould consider them to be part of our family as well,even though they don’t live with us. For the mostpart, what social scientists call the nuclear family—the small unit consisting of a married couple with orwithout children or at least one parent and his or herchildren—is what gets all the attention.

How useful is this official definition of family?What does it imply about the nature of people’s rela-tionships and responsibilities within families? To ad-dress these questions, let’s break down the officialdefinition of family and examine its component parts.

“Two or More People”:Family as Social GroupSociologically speaking, families contain not only in-dividuals but relationships: husband–wife, parent–child, sister–brother, and so on. These relationshipsimply connections, bonds, attachments, and obliga-tions among people, which is a key characteristic ofany type of social group.

The groups called families differ from othertypes of social groups, however, such as friendshipgroups, social clubs, church groups, and so on(Beutler, Burr, Bahr, & Herrin, 1989). For one thing,involvement between family members is more in-tense than in other groups. The range of activitiesshared with family members is much broader thancontacts with friends, co-workers, or other people ingroups to which you belong. People do pretty mucheverything with fellow family members: eating,sleeping, playing, punishing, fighting, convalescingfrom illness, having sex, and so on. Such close in-volvement adds a unique emotional element to fam-ily relationships.

Another big difference is that families tend to lastfor a considerably longer period of time than domost other social groups (Klein & White, 1996).We’re born into a family that already exists, and itendures for our lifetime. Even after we becomeadults and start our own families, our parents arestill our parents and our siblings are still our siblingsno matter what we think of them. During the 1997

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The official definition of family comes from

the U.S. Census Bureau . . . two or more

persons who are related by blood, marriage,

or adoption and who live together as one

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household.

Right away you can see this definition limits whomay be considered family. Grown children who no

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NCAA Men’s Basketball Championships, a great dealof media attention focused on the strained relation-ship between Mike Bibby, a star player for the Uni-versity of Arizona Wildcats, and his estranged father,former NBA player and current University of South-ern California coach Henry Bibby. Henry had di-vorced Mike’s mother when Mike was quite youngand played only a minor role in his upbringing.Mike clearly bore some animosity toward his fatherand wanted to downplay the influence his father hadhad on his life. But he could not escape the immu-table fact that Henry is, and will always be, his father.People can certainly have lifelong relationships withclose friends, but families are the only groups thatvirtually require lifetime membership.

The strong prospect for continuing interactiongives families a history and tradition rarely found inother groups. Relationships between parents andtheir children, whether biological or adopted, are noteasily severed. Given how common divorce is now—nearly one of every two marriages that begins thisyear is projected to end in divorce sometime in thefuture (Cherlin, 1992)—this idea of permanence ap-plied to families may seem hopelessly outdated.However, people still assume that those involveddon’t enter such relationships as temporary arrange-ments with a foreseeable, predetermined end.

Unlike most other social groups, the family is alsoconsidered a social institution within the larger soci-ety. To be a member of a family group means morethan simply being connected to other individuals. Italso means having certain legal and culturally recog-nizable rights and responsibilities, which are spelledout in the formal laws of the state and the informalnorms of custom and tradition. Parents, for instance,have legal obligations to provide basic necessities—food, shelter, clothing, nurturance—for their chil-dren. If they fail to meet these obligations, they mayface legal charges of negligence or abuse.

Along with spelling out obligations, the institu-tion of family makes some assumptions about au-thority—about who has the legitimate right to con-trol or influence the lives of others (Hunter, 1991). Inother societies, such authority may be granted tosomeone outside the nuclear family, such as thefather’s brother or the community at large. In U.S.society, parents have the legal right to control their

children. However, in cases of multiple parents (birthparents, adoptive parents, stepparents, foster parents,and so on) the lines of authority may be murky.Courts must sometimes determine who has legiti-mate authority over children, as in custody caseswhere biological parents have attempted to regaincustody of children who had been previously put upfor adoption.

“Living Together”:Family as HouseholdAnother implication of the official U.S. definition offamily is that the family group share a common resi-dence. Indeed, for many social scientists commonresidence is the defining characteristic of family (forexample, Murdock, 1949). This reflects the view thatindividuals who make up a family constitute a singleidentifiable entity located in a common space.

The belief that members of a nuclear familyought to live together is common but not universal.Among the Kipsigis of Kenya, for instance, themother and children live in one house while the fa-ther lives in another (Stephens, 1963). Once theystop breastfeeding, Thonga children of southern Af-rica go to live with their grandmothers. They remainthere for several years and are then returned to theirparents. On the traditional Israeli kibbutz, or com-mune, children are raised not in the home of theirbiological parents but in an “infants’ house,” where atrained nurse cares for them (Nanda, 1994). WealthyEuropean families may send their children away toboarding schools where they spend most of theirchildhood.

In U.S. society, there are situations in whichmembers of nuclear families do not occupy a com-mon household. Consider, for instance, the “com-muter marriage.” A commuter marriage is one inwhich spouses spend at least several nights a week inseparate residences yet are still married and intendto remain so (Gertsel & Gross, 1984). Marriages inwhich spouses live apart much of the time have al-ways existed. Careers such as the military, the mer-chant marine, professional sports, and entertain-ment often require spouses to travel for long periods.Today, however, commuter marriages are likely to re-

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sult from both husband and wife having careers thatinvolve commitments to different locations. Al-though the difficulties of such arrangements aresubstantial, no one would deny that the people in-volved in them are families.

It’s also true that common household residencedoes not, in and of itself, determine whether a unit isa family. Perhaps you are currently living with aroommate. Not only do you share an address, butyou are likely to share domestic chores and house-hold expenses as well. You may even feel very close toeach other, sharing personal experiences, helping outin times of need, and so on. Yet most peoplewouldn’t consider roommates family. Your commonresidence is assumed to be the result of economicconvenience rather than emotional commitment.

the borough had sought an injunction to prevent thestudents from using or occupying the home. Thestudents shared the kitchen as well as householdchores, grocery shopping, and yard work. Theymaintained a common checking account to pay forfood and other household bills. They all intended tolive there as long as they were enrolled at a nearbycollege (they were sophomores at the time). Thecourt ruled that these facts reflected a plan by thestudents to live together for three years under condi-tions that met the requirement of a “stable and per-manent living unit” (Thoresen, 1991).

The growth of “nonfamily households” over thepast several decades has been dramatic (elderlypeople living with friends, roommates sharing anapartment, cohabiting couples, young single people,and so on). In 1960, 15 percent of all householdswere nonfamily; today the figure has more thandoubled, rising to over 32 percent (U.S. Bureau ofthe Census, 2001d).

“Related by Marriage”:Family as Legal EntityMarriage is the legal cornerstone of the official defi-nition of family. Most people take for granted thatmonogamy, the marriage of one man and onewoman, is the fundamental building block of family.Reproduction remains more socially acceptablewhen it occurs inside a marriage than outside. Somepeople may have several spouses over their lifetime,but in the United States they are allowed only one ata time (a phenomenon known as serial monogamy).And some families do exist without a marriedcouple. But monogamous marriage continues to bethe only adult intimate relationship that is legallyrecognized, culturally approved, and endorsed by theU.S. Internal Revenue Service. It is still the one rela-tionship in which sexual activity is not only accept-able but expected.

Monogamous marriage, like the family in gen-eral, is an institution, a patterned way of life that in-cludes a set of commonly known roles, statuses, andexpectations. Although the expectations of husbandsand wives are always changing, and will differ fromone couple to the next, the expectations people have

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In 1960, 15 percent of all households were

nonfamily; today the figure has more than

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doubled, rising to over 32 percent.

It’s often unclear exactly why some householdarrangements are considered family and others not.Several years ago, for instance, a Cleveland womanwas convicted and sentenced to five days in jail forfailing to comply with the city’s local residential zon-ing laws. Her crime? She resided in a “nonfamily”household in a neighborhood zoned for “families.”The ordinance defined family as “a number of indi-viduals related to the nominal head of the householdor to the spouse of the nominal head of the house-hold living as a single housekeeping unit in a singledwelling” (Minow, 1993). The woman lived with herson and two grandsons, but because the two boyswere first cousins rather than brothers, the arrange-ment was not considered a family.

Yet around the same time, the New Jersey Su-preme Court ruled that a group of ten male collegestudents living in a home in a residential district inthe borough of Glassboro could be considered afamily. Under a zoning ordinance that limited resi-dence in this area to stable and permanent “tradi-tional family units” or their “functional equivalent,”

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for spouses are far more culturally understood thanfor any other type of relationship, such as a “signifi-cant other” or “girlfriend.” Furthermore, no other in-timate relationship has achieved such status or isprivileged as highly as marriage. Despite public con-cern with its disintegration, monogamous marriageremains the cultural standard against which all othertypes of intimate relationships are judged.

Even though marriage is undeniably important,not all states agree as to who can and can’t marry.Today, some states (such as Pennsylvania) still recog-nize common-law marriage. These marriages areagreements by which couples who have not had theirrelationships validated religiously or civilly are con-sidered legally married if they’ve lived together longenough. Some states allow first cousins to marry,others don’t; the minimum legal age for marriagevaries from state to state, as does recognition of suchcontracts across state lines (F. Johnson, 1996).

Despite these variations, it’s hard to imagine asociety that is not structured around the assumptionthat the vast majority of adults will live in a monoga-mous marriage. Yet many cultures around the worldallow an individual to have several spouses at thesame time (an arrangement known as polygamy).Some anthropologists have estimated that about 75percent of the world’s societies accept some type ofpolygamy (usually polygyny—the marriage of oneman to multiple wives), although few memberswithin those societies actually have the resources toafford more than one spouse (Murdock, 1957;Nanda, 1994). In some parts of northern India, awoman sometimes has more than one husband(marriage of one woman to multiple husbands isknown as polyandry). The husbands are alwaysbrothers. The practice stems from economic pres-sures. This area’s terrain is rugged—steep forests andmountains leave only about a quarter of the landsuitable for farming. With so little land to support alarger population, having all sons in one familymarry the same woman ensures the control of child-birth and keeps the family wealth under one roof(Fan, 1996). It’s estimated that roughly 10 out of 100families in this region still practice polyandry.

Even in the United States, certain groups practicepolygyny. Between 30,000 and 50,000 members of adissident Mormon sect in Utah live in polygynous

households (McCarthy, 2001). Although these mar-riages are technically illegal—Utah outlawed it as acondition of statehood in 1896—few polygynists areever prosecuted. In fact, 2001 marked the first time in50 years that a person was convicted on polygynycharges. However, this case shouldn’t be taken as anindicator that Utah is cracking down on polygyny. Itinvolved a man—with five wives and twenty-fivechildren—who decided to discuss his polygynousmarriage openly on national talk shows, violating anunspoken rule that such arrangements would be qui-etly tolerated if the participants didn’t speak publiclyabout them.

“Related by Blood or Adoption”:Family as Kinship GroupNo matter what form it takes, marriage is importantin all societies because it serves as the legally sanc-tioned setting for reproduction. Although not allsexual activity in marriage leads to the birth ofchildren and not all children are born to marriedcouples, sexual reproduction in families is the coremechanism of kinship—who is related to whomacross generations (Schneider, 1980).

Even adoption is based symbolically on the bio-logical model of kinship. Once adopted, children aretreated and raised just as if they had been producedbiologically by the adoptive parents. In fact, laws insome states keep adoption records sealed and refuseadoptees access to information about their birth par-ents and their biological relatives. Such laws were es-tablished to protect biological parents’ rights to pri-vacy, but they also demonstrate that birth ties may beno more powerful or enduring than the kinship tiesestablished by adoption. Thus adoption presents nochallenge to the image of family assembled around abiological core of parent(s) and children (Weston,1991).

At birth everyone inherits two separate blood-lines, raising the question of which bloodline—themother’s or the father’s—is to be more importantfor an individual’s heredity. These designations arevital because they determine not only names but alsoauthority, ownership of property, and inheritance.However, kinship has as much to do with social

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norms as with genetic facts. Definitions of kinshipvary from culture to culture.

In some societies, kin are connected by father–child links (a system called patrilineal descent). Insuch societies, a woman typically takes her husband’sname. Children downplay or ignore their connec-tions with members of their mother’s family, show-ing allegiance and loyalty to kin on the father’s sideof the family. So, for instance, a mother’s sister—whom we’d call an “aunt”—has no culturally recog-nized role in the family.

In other societies, the family group is made up ofpeople connected by mother–child links (matrilinealdescent). Here a child’s status and heritage are tracedthrough his or her mother’s lineage, and the father’skin are not considered part of the family. For in-stance, the Hopi, a Pueblo group in the U.S. South-west, are a matrilineal community. The relationshipa Hopi child maintains with his or her father’s rela-tives may be affectionate, but it involves little directcooperation or recognized authority.

could be immense. But at some point we all stopcounting distant kin—for instance, fourth cousins—as family.

Blood Families andChosen FamiliesThe official, broad definition of family is not asstraightforward or helpful as you might expect. Ineveryday usage, family is a significantly more elasticterm than implied by the U.S. Bureau of the Censusdefinition: two or more people, living together, whoare related by marriage, blood, or adoption.

Moreover, it seems that today, compared withthe 1950s and 1960s, who people consider “family” isincreasingly a matter of choice rather than legal ob-ligation or biological connection. Families can nowconsist of people who are tied to one another not bylaw, birth, or blood but by commitments, love, andability to confide in one another (Settles, 1987).These relationships form a safety net of significantconnections to choose from in case of need. Hence,people today are likely to use the word family to de-scribe a group of individuals who have achieved asignificant degree of emotional closeness and shar-ing, even if they’re not related by blood, marriage, oradoption. In a national survey, 75 percent of respon-dents, when asked to define family, chose, “a groupof people who love and care for each other”(Scanzoni & Marsiglio, 1991).

An approach to defining family that relies moreon feelings and less on formal structure appeals tomany family scholars. Compare the following defini-tion from the American Home Economics Associa-tion (AHEA) to the Census Bureau definition we ex-amined earlier:

AHEA defines the family unit as two or morepersons who share resources, share responsibil-ity for decisions, share values and goals, andhave commitment to one another over time.The family is that climate that one “comeshome to” and it is this network of sharing andcommitments that most accurately describesthe family unit, regardless of blood, legal ties,adoption or marriage. (quoted in Christensen,1990, p. 36)

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Who people consider “family” is increasingly a

matter of choice rather than legal obligation

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or biological connection.

Finally, in some societies (such as the UnitedStates) children trace their descent and define theirfamily relationships through both parents’ blood-lines (bilateral descent). Although U.S. women typi-cally take their husbands’ names when they marryand children take their fathers’ names, descent andinheritance are linked to both parents. We may dis-tinguish between our paternal and maternal grand-parents and even favor one set over the other, butboth are equally recognized as kin. Neither side ofthe family is expected to exert special influence andpower over the children.

In bilateral descent societies, the potential for kinrelationships can be quite extensive. If you were tomap out a family chart of kin on both sides of yourfamily, the size and complexity of your family tree

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Notice that the AHEA definition emphasizesemotional ties, commitment, and cooperation, notformally recognized relationships. One prominentsociologist defines family as “a unit comprising twoor more persons who live together for an extendedperiod of time, and who share in one or more of thefollowing: work (for wages and house), sex, care andfeeding of children, and intellectual, spiritual, andrecreational activities (D’Antonio, 1983, p. 92). An-other author argues that the concept of family shouldapply to “people who have shared history, who haveloved each other . . . lived through major parts of eachother’s lives together, [and] who share professionalinterests, economic needs, political views or sexualpreference” (Lindsey, 1981, pp. 179–188).

book All Our Kin, anthropologist Carol Stack (1974)describes “family” relationships in a midwesternblack neighborhood called “the Flats.” The people inthis community used many kinship terms to cel-ebrate relationships based on caring, loving, andclose friendship. These “kin” felt the sort of obliga-tions, responsibilities, and loyalties typically asso-ciated with blood relations. Consider the familymeanings that one resident bestowed on the peoplein her life:

Billy, a young black woman in the Flats, wasraised by her mother and her mother’s “oldman.” She has three children of her own by dif-ferent fathers. Billy says, “Most people kin to meare in this neighborhood, right here in the Flats,but I got people in the South, in Chicago, and inOhio, too. I couldn’t tell most of their namesand most of them aren’t really kinfolk to me.Starting down the street from here, take my fa-ther, he ain’t my daddy, he’s no father to me. Iain’t got but one daddy and that’s Jason. Theone who raised me. My kids’ daddies, that’ssomething else, all their daddies’ people reallytake to them—they always doing things andmaking a fuss about them. We help each otherout and that’s what kinfolks are all about.(Stack, 1974, p. 4)

Stack found that the community’s informal sys-tem of parental rights and duties determines who iseligible to be a member of a child’s “family.” This sys-tem often doesn’t coincide with the official law of thestate concerning parenthood. For instance, a girl whogives birth as a teenager may not raise and nurturethe child. Although she may live in the same house asthe baby, an “othermother”—her mother, aunt, oldersister, cousin, or family friend—may do the actualchild rearing. Young mothers and their first-borndaughters are often raised as sisters. This sort of ac-quired parenthood lasts throughout the child’s life-time. The child learns to distinguish his or her“mother” and “father” (the biological parents) fromhis or her “mama” and “daddy” (the people whoraised him or her). Most of the time—Stack esti-mates about 80 percent—the mother and the“mama” are the same person. But in those othercases, the “mama” can be a grandmother, an aunt, or

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In practice, family is rarely limited to

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formally recognized kin relations.

Structural changes in society and changes incontemporary lifestyles compel many people to seekfrom other groups the kinds of satisfactions that aretypically sought from kin (Marciano, 1988). We allknow of situations in which fictive kin—peopleother than legal or biological relatives—play thefamily’s role in providing for the emotional andother needs of its members. Sometimes roommatesplay this role. As life expectancy increases, some el-derly people whose children are unable or unwillingto take care of them are also turning to longtimefriends for companionship, emotional support, andpractical assistance. Or perhaps you have a closefamily friend whom you’ve referred to for years as“Uncle So-and-So” or “Aunt So-and-So” eventhough he or she isn’t a sibling of either parent. Insome situations, which people you choose to identifyas family is left to your discretion. The family statusof in-laws and step-relatives, for instance, is often leftto the judgment of individual families. The powerfulemotional connections people can form with these“chosen relatives” show that, in practice, family israrely limited to formally recognized kin relations.

Fictive kin have historically played an importantrole in some African-American communities. In her

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someone else, when relatives conclude that themother is not emotionally ready to nurture the childand fulfill her parental duties. The “mama’s” relativesand their husbands and wives also become a part ofthe child’s extended family.

In sum, Stack found that the people she studiedclearly operate within two different family systems:the folk system of their community and the legalsystem of the courts and welfare offices. People arerecognized as family not because they have biologi-cal ties but because they assume the recognized re-sponsibilities of kin—they “help each other out.”Given the pressures of the economy in these com-munities, this expanded definition of family andthe respect afforded to “othermothers” served acritical role in people’s lives, providing much-needed support.

The Controversy overGay FamiliesOne of the most contentious debates concerninghow elastic the definition of family ought to be iswhether gay and lesbian couples should be grantedthe right to marry and thereby create culturally andlegally “legitimate” families. Traditional hetero-sexual marriages have long benefited from legal andsocial recognition. Marriage partners can take partin a spouse’s health insurance plan and pensionprogram, share the rights of inheritance and com-munity property, claim a spouse’s rent-controlledapartment, receive Social Security and veterans’benefits, including medical and educational ser-vices, file joint tax returns, determine the spouse’smedical and burial arrangements, and receive crimevictims’ recovery benefits (Hunter, 1991; Sherman,1992). In addition, spouses cannot be forced totestify in court against a partner and are grantedvisitation rights when the partner or his or her chil-dren are in an intensive care unit or prison (re-ported in Ingraham, 1999). These legal, social, andeconomic advantages encourage the stability andinterdependence of the traditional family unit. Suchbenefits have historically been denied to cohabitingheterosexual couples, long-term platonic room-mates, and homosexual couples—all of whom may

nevertheless have the same degree of economic andemotional interdependence found in heterosexualmarriages.

Historically, gay and lesbian couples either hadto live with their legally unrecognized status or findways other than marriage to establish such recogni-tion. One rather creative method of approximating alegal relationship was adoption. In one case, a 22-year-old New York man petitioned to adopt his 26-year-old male partner. The parties testified that “theywish[ed] to establish a legally cognizable relation-ship in order to facilitate inheritance, the handling oftheir insurance policies and pension plans, and theacquisition of suitable housing” (quoted in Ander-son, 1988, p. 360). They contended that they wanteda “more permanent legal bond” that would providetheir relationship with some security. The court ap-proved the petition. This arrangement automaticallycreated certain legal rights and duties for both part-ners (Anderson, 1988).

In 1999, the Canadian Supreme Court took ahuge step toward legally recognizing homosexualunions when it struck down a heterosexual definitionof the word spouse. The court ruled that Canada’sFamily Law Act was unconstitutional because it lim-ited to married or common-law heterosexual couplesthe right to claim alimony. The result of this rulingmay be far-reaching, because laws governing adop-tion, marriage, pensions, and taxes also contain hun-dreds of references to spouses (“Canada overturnsdefinition,” 1999).

The steps toward legally recognizing homosexualunions have usually been less dramatic. In 1999,France created a new form of legal partnershipcalled a “civil solidarity pact,” which grants homo-sexual couples—as well as heterosexual cohabitingcouples—some of the benefits and responsibilities ofmarriage. Under this law, couples are responsible forfinancially supporting each other. They can file jointincome tax returns and are eligible for the otherpartner’s work benefits (Daley, 2000).

In 2000, Vermont became the first state to ap-prove “civil unions,” legally recognized relationshipsthat give gay couples all the benefits of marriage.Couples officially register their relationships and inso doing formally declare that they have “an inti-mate, committed relationship of mutual caring,” that

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they live together, and that they agree to be respon-sible for each other’s basic living expenses.

Similar laws have been enacted at the local levelin cities such as San Francisco and West Hollywood,California; Ithaca, New York; Minneapolis, Minne-sota; Washington, DC; Seattle, Washington; andMadison, Wisconsin. These laws usually extend to thedomestic partners of city workers full spousal rightssuch as health insurance, life insurance, pension ben-efits, employee discounts, and health club member-ship. In addition, thousands of employers—includ-ing over 100 Fortune 500 companies—now grant thepartners of homosexual employees some of the samebenefits traditionally granted to spouses (“Employersoffer gays more benefits,” 2000).

The Push to LegalizeGay MarriageAlthough domestic partnership laws and policies goa long way in legally recognizing gay and lesbian re-lationships, many people feel such changes are inad-equate. Many elements of society still discriminateagainst homosexual relationships. For instance, in1991 and again in 2000, the governing body of thePresbyterian Church ruled that same-sex union cer-emonies could be performed in the denomination’schurches by ordained pastors—but only so long asthe ceremonies were not considered marriages(Sherman, 1992; Stammer, 2000). The Vermont lawstopped short of calling same-sex unions marriages.In fact, it defines a marriage as an arrangement be-tween a man and a woman. To many, domestic part-nerships are still “not quite” marriages and thereforenot quite families. Consequently, homosexual part-nerships remain culturally and legally second-class.

Advocates of gay marriage argue that allowinggay and lesbian individuals to legally marry wouldresult in a more secure, stable, and protective rela-tionship. Without legal status, such relationships cansometimes be difficult to preserve. For instance, in1999, Samer Yahya, an Italian man attending collegein Hartford, Connecticut, was attempting to returnfrom a month-long visit with relatives in Rome. Henever made it on the flight. Immigration agents de-termined that he had a flawed visa. He was strip-

searched and shackled to a bench overnight at theairport. The U.S. embassy in Rome denied him anew visa, saying that although he was a legitimatestudent, it was likely that he would stay in the coun-try illegally after graduation because of a long-termrelationship with a U.S. man. But this relationshipwas not a legal marriage, and so it gave Mr. Yahya noprotection against deportation. Had they been a het-erosexual married couple, Mr. Yahya would have au-tomatically gained residency rights as the spouse ofa U.S. citizen. U.S. immigration law considers for-eign nationals whose work or student visas have ex-pired to be “illegal immigrants,” even though theyand their partners may share mortgages, businesses,homes, and even children. Immigration lawyers esti-mate that tens of thousands of relationships havebeen broken apart by this law (Jacobs, 1999).

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Advocates of gay marriage argue that

allowing gay and lesbian individuals to legally

marry would result in a more secure, stable,

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and protective relationship.

In addition to citing these sorts of practicalproblems, some advocates of gay marriage argue thatlegalizing it would lead to greater public acceptanceof homosexual people in general. Having the right tolegally marry and start families would combat theall-too-common belief that gay relationships aresolely about sexual activity and would force hetero-sexuals to acknowledge that gay couples can be seri-ously committed to each other and can take on tra-ditional family responsibilities. Far from being arepudiation of family, then, the desire to legallymarry acknowledges the ideal of family.

Opposition to LegalizingGay MarriageOpposition to gay marriage nevertheless remainsstrong. According to a recent poll, nearly 50 percentof U.S. Americans oppose homosexual marriages(Lester, 2000). Gay and lesbian partners are typically

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thought of as individuals, not as family members, re-flecting a pervasive belief that homosexuality andfamily are mutually exclusive concepts (reported inAllen & Demo, 1995). Indeed, claiming a gay or les-bian identity has typically been considered a rejec-tion of family (reported in Weston, 1991).

To many people, the power and significance ofmarriage as an institution rest on its uniqueness—the belief that it is not one lifestyle among manybut the fundamental intimate arrangement in soci-ety. The U.S. Supreme Court once declared thatmarriage is “noble” and “intimate to the degree ofbeing sacred” (Stoddard, 1992, p. 17). Its concern isthat when relationships that aren’t marriages startbeing treated as if they are, marriage loses its powerand significance. One U.S. congressman called ho-mosexual relationships “the most vicious attack ontraditional family values that our society has seenin the history of our republic” (quoted in Hunter,1991, p. 189).

Currently, no state legally recognizes same-sexmarriage. To date, 30 states have enacted laws explic-itly defining as valid only marriages between a manand a woman. In 1996, President Clinton signed theDefense of Marriage Act, which formally reaffirmedthe federal government’s definition of marriage asthe union of one man and one woman, authorizedall states to refuse to accept same-sex marriages fromother states (if they ever became legal at the statelevel), and denied federal pension, health, and otherbenefits to same-sex couples. In 2001, the Alliancefor Marriage, an organization of legal experts, schol-ars, and religious leaders proposed a federal amend-ment to the U.S. Constitution that would wipe outlegal protections and benefits for same-sex couples.

It’s important to note that opposition to gay mar-riage comes not only from people who disapprove ofhomosexuality and perceive it as a threat to tradi-tional definitions of family but also from a smallnumber of gays and lesbians. These opponents arguethat legalizing gay marriage would be a civil rightsvictory but would render gays and lesbians evenmore invisible to the larger society and underminethe movement to establish a separate and unique gayculture and identity (Ettelbrick, 1992; F. Johnson,1996). Furthermore, some fear that homosexualmarried couples would be expected to behave just

like heterosexual married couples, amounting to anacceptance of a heterosexual standard for what a suc-cessful intimate relationship should look like (Lewin,1996). This sort of arrangement would subsequentlydiminish the notion that valid and committed rela-tionships can exist outside traditional marriage. Infact, some gay opponents of homosexual marriageargue that the absence of marriage as a dominant,regulating institution in their intimate lives actuallygives them the space to define their families in richerways, to include friends, neighbors, and community(F. Johnson, 1996). Some gay and lesbian activiststake the argument further, contending that having no“marriage” or even “family” should constitute a pointof pride for homosexual people (Stacey, 2001). In-deed, some gay people look down on homosexualparents for having failed to “escape” the family andfor trying to gain acceptance in mainstream societyby approximating the “traditional” family (Lynch,1982).

In sum, more is at stake in this debate than theemotional rewards of formalizing shared commit-ment in a loving relationship and the practical re-wards of legal recognition of gay and lesbian mar-riage. This issue is fundamentally about whatarrangements we believe deserve the label “family.”These beliefs can ultimately shape the law, publicpolicy, and the contours of our everyday lives.

The Symbolism of FamilyJudging from the strong emotions evoked by debatesover the definition of family, it’s clear that family isimportant not just for what it looks like but for whatit symbolizes. Many people fervently believe that asthe family goes, so goes the country. It stands forwhat people, as a culture, hold dear. Hence,

the task of defining what the American family is[is] integral to the very task of defining Americaitself. . . . Obviously more is at stake than a dic-tionary definition of “the family.” The debateactually takes form as a political judgmentabout the fate of one particular conception of thefamily and family life [emphases in original].(Hunter, 1991, pp. 177, 180)

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In U.S. society the idea of family has become apowerful symbol of decency. Disneyland andDisneyworld, for instance, are considered “family”theme parks because they supposedly emphasize thewholesomeness of the recreational activities theyprovide. You’ll find no bars, strip clubs, or gamblinghalls there. Likewise, every video rental store has a“family movie” section. But the films you’ll find inthis section aren’t necessarily about families. Instead,the label “family” presumably identifies films thatare devoid of graphic sex and violence, whosethemes children and adults can enjoy together.

Politicians looking for a convenient way to whipup public sentiment often rail against policies andpractices considered “antifamily” (read “indecent”and “immoral”), signal their support for “family val-ues,” and espouse the view that the U.S. family is be-ing attacked and threatened by dangerous forces ofchange. Today political candidates try to situatethemselves as more “profamily” than their rivals.Having a smiling spouse and children displayedprominently in photos and television coverage ispractically a prerequisite for getting elected.

Such positions reflect a belief, held by many, thatan expanded definition of family demeans thefamily’s symbolic importance. From this perspective,“family” is a sacred label that should be applied onlyto the most traditional type of family: married par-ents and their children. To those who ascribe to thisposition, family is the very foundation of society andtherefore shouldn’t be taken lightly. People shouldnot have the right to define themselves as familyhowever they see fit. Those who seek to expand thedefinition of family to apply to all sorts of relation-ships are believed to be emptying it of its symbolicmeaning and power (Gellott, 1985).

But to many others, the rhetoric of family valuesis little more than a thin cover for a particular politi-cal agenda. According to these skeptics, those whodeplore the greater visibility of cohabiting and ho-mosexual couples, the increasing numbers of singleand working mothers, and the high rates of divorceare making a rather explicit judgment about the sortsof human relationships people ought to define as“appropriate.” Many believe that the shape and con-figuration of a family are less important than the

emotional bonds and the feelings of mutual obliga-tion that can exist between people. It doesn’t matterso much whether a child has two biological parentsor lives in some other arrangement as long as thatchild has someone to take care of him or her. Itdoesn’t matter so much whether a couple is marriedas long as they, too, have a committed and caringrelationship.

The point here is that there is no agreementamong the media, society, and academia about whatfamilies are, what they should be, or what the impli-cations of recent social changes will be. These dis-agreements aren’t always politically motivated. Theycan arise simply and earnestly from people’s differ-ent perspectives, values, beliefs, and desires.

Something to Think About

One of the issues that most deeply divides U.S. societytoday is the definition of the term family and the valu-ing of particular family forms over others. You’ve seenthat there’s more to family than meets the eye. Somecultures have ideas very different from ours about whatsorts of family arrangements are normal and natural.And in this society, most people’s lives depart in someway from the traditional nuclear family depicted in theofficial definition and in popular images of family. Thisdiversity raises some interesting questions:

1. On prime-time television today, what family formpredominates? Have you noticed significant socialclass or racial variation in TV families? How are“nontraditional” family arrangements handled (forexample, single-parent households, divorce, gayfamilies, interracial marriage)? What sorts of issuesdo TV families deal with? How do they solve prob-lems? Make decisions? Deal with crises?

2. How do media images of family affect people’s ownfamily experiences? Do the media (television, inparticular) create images of family that viewersthen use to form their own attitudes about family,or do they simply reflect the reality of family life aspeople experience it?

3. Should the societal recognition of family be limitedto blood and legal relations, or should people be

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able to choose whomever they want to be theirfamily? What is society’s interest in controllingwhich arrangements people call family?

4. In the near future, do you think the concept offamily will expand to acknowledge the validity of

many diverse relationships and living arrange-ments, or will it contract, reinforcing the legitimacyand desirability of the “traditional” family? Explain.

5. Which definition of family do you think ought toprovide the basis for official family policy? Explain.

For More On . . . See . . .

Family as household “Coping Strategies of Dual-Earner Couples” inChapter 7

Family as kinship “Adoption and the Primacy of Genetic Parenthood” inChapter 8

Gay families “Sexuality” in Chapter 5

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Examining Family Issues and Controversies

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