6.1

you know, sociologists have this tendency whenever they're talking about

the things that they do research about to say, like

whatever it is, they're like, Oh, what my research is

is the building block of society.

So if I do economics, sociology, then the economy is

the building block of society.

And if I do religious sociology, then religion is the

building block of society.

And you know eso the family Sociologists are the same

way, right?

They think that their work is the building block of

society, but they actually have a point.

We really do think of the family unit as this

kind of core fundamental component of every society.

Now, I want to highlight, though that the way families

are constructed are different across time and place.

And we're gonna talk about that quite a bit.

But no matter what the nature of the construction is

or who is defined and what kind of way we

do think of the family as being this building block

of society because it is the primary socialization space now

by primary don't mean necessarily most important, but rather first

is within the family that you first learn group norms,

norms about society, how to behave, how to be kind

of a functioning member of society.

The other thing the family does This really formalizes thes

expectations about how we're supposed to interact with one another

who were allowed to talk to who we can have

sexual relations with who were supposed to take care of

right. And all of these ways the family kind of

dictates How are relationships are meant to be with other

people? And then the last thing that the family really

does is it kind of creates this entryway into all

of the other institutions in society, right?

So family is the space that funnels you into a

particular educational space or particular career path we really see,

particularly when we're thinking about family economic structures, family wealth

and family income and the huge impact that that has

on future earning potentials.

So, you know, I mean, although I'm a bit sarcastic

about what the sociologists and they're getting very precious about

what they claim, I think that you really can make

a good point that the family operates as this kind

of foundational core inside every society.

But the key toe understand and appreciate is that because

it is that core inside of society, it really the

definition of who counts as a family member or what

families look like.

What is a typical family?

Those things are very much connected to the legal, religious

and cultural ideologies of each space, right?

And so I'm talking about both in terms of, um,

those ideologies in a particular location.

But then also across time.

And so it's really important that we appreciate that the

family itself who is defined as a family or how

families operate or who's close to whom, Although those seen,

you know, on some level they kind of seem fundamental

to us.

Like obviously I'm a mother, and these are my Children

were family, right?

But there are all kinds of different ways of defining

what those relationships mean doesn't change who burst them right.

But the nature off the relationships and the social expectations

surrounding what it means to be a mother or father

or grandfather.

Those things change over time and place, and and I

wanna talk about that in the context of recognizing that

sometimes you hear, particularly in America, uh, discussion about like

traditional family values or traditional families.

And even in this definition of the nuclear family, you

can see they use the term traditional family as describing

a father and a mother and the Children.

But it's really important to acknowledge that that term of

a nuclear family is really loaded with legal, religious and

cultural ideologies that exist fairly recently in America.

You can see over here that there is no one

type of family structure now.

In the 19 sixties, we saw a brief period that

lasted about almost 40 50 years, maybe where there was

kind of that traditional nuclear family of a mother, Ah,

father who's a breadwinner and then, you know, 2.5 Children

and a dog and a fence.

There was like a small moment.

But if the history of humanity right, you can see

that that's kind of like a little blip.

That family structure, and even in the history of the

United States is a smidgen of our sort of family

history as we have constructed them today.

And if you look at how it has changed since

the 19 seventies, which we'll talk about, you can see

that families are constructed in all kinds of different ways.

Now there's ah ah, plurality of ways to construct and

define what these relationships mother or father or partner all

of those things mean they've really shifted into a plurality

of definitions.

Now I want to take some time and kind of

run through historically.

How that progression has gone in the different ways that

we have to find in this country is very American

specific, this country, those definitions of the family.

So you could just kind of get a sense of

something that feels, perhaps natural to us.

But we can see it's social construction over time.

So if we think about families and kind of that

pre industrial era era right prior to the Industrial Revolution,

families really operated as small businesses.

Everybody in the family, mothers, fathers, Children from the age

that they could help.

They were all helping.

Everyone was involved in the process of economic development.

Another really important thing to understand about the kind of

legal rolls of this era is that women were considered

to be the property of their husbands, and this is

an important component, right that there was a time when

you were as a female as a woman wife literally

under the control of your husband and ideas about spousal

abuser, spousal rape or any kind of notion that that

you should get some determination about your life that ended

once you were married.

Um, the other thing that was kind of unique about

that era was the the extent to which the extended

family really was the core structure.

And so it was a very patriarchal structure of families.

And so, ah, a father and his adult sons and

their families, right would form kind of like a tree,

if you will, right?

And and everyone, we kind of working cooperatively together under

the coordination of that grandfather figure.

And so even adult sons weren't quite free right to

do whatever they wanted up until some point when when

they were the last standing patriarch.

And then the last thing I want to appreciate about

the pre industrial family and we'll talk about this is

the construction of childhood.

So in this era, genuine thinking where that Children were

small, evil little creatures that needed essentially toe have the

sin beat out of them right that they had these

kind of inherent evil impulses that need to be socialized

way. So the life of the child in this era

was really quite harsh, right?

There was harsh discipline, There were harsh expectations, and any

notions of like a magical childhood did not exist at

all during that era.

And it really didn't even exist during the Industrial Revolution,

which we tend to think of us being the next

kind of broad strokes changes in family structures In the

Industrial Revolution, you kind of see the split where husbands

were more likely to work outside of the home and

wives were more likely to stay at home.

When you begin to see this shift in the expectations

of gendered relationships, right where we develop this kind of

cult of domesticity, where women the definition of womanhood, becomes

how well you can keep the house and raised the

Children right.

Where is the sort of definition of masculinity becomes, how

much money you can make out in the house, and

this is really a big shift.

It's a big split in that sense of going from

the family is kind of a small hole and entity

of an economic unit to this shift of separate spheres

where men are out here handling and stuff outside, and

women have this whole cult of domesticity where your true

nature as a female, uh, comes from your ability to

care for it and take care of the home.

That's really where we invent that social construction off women

as being better at child rearing or better at home

care or more inclined to be caretakers as opposed to

economic producers.

You see, next big shift after World War Two and

the construction of the American family.

And a lot of that has to do with the

mobility that came after World War Two.

You know, veterans were coming home from the war, and

we instituted all of these economic resource is in order

to give people clubs and we created the suburbs and

you started having people move as sort of nuclear family

units, right?

And so instead of that kind of, um, long arching

vine from the grandfather down to the adult sons down

to the Children instead of that vine, you start to

have these distinct nuclear units, and that really has some

interesting impacts on our understanding of how the whole family

ships because as thes nuclear families grow and become increasingly

more popular.

We also see this kind of shift in the understanding

of the relationship of ah woman to her husband and

of parents to the Children.

So we begin to see Children as much more needing,

nurturing right.

This is where we really begin to invent the idea

of a childhood, a childhood that should be full of

joy and care and love and support.

Onda. We also begin to invent this idea off courtship,

right or dating, because prior to that marriage was really,

um, arranged situation.

It was done for political or economic purposes.

And that's not really until that post World War two

era that we identify this notion of dating or going

on dates with people prior to becoming engaged, right?

So previously it was really very much like you meet

this person and then you shall marry them.

And then we invent this notion of teenagers and young

adults dating and still this emphasis on the nuclear family.

Absolutely. This is that little blip and humanity where the

nuclear family becomes particularly important.

We also see a shift in those gender relationships.

Not that women start working or getting you know rights?

Uh, some did, but not entirely.

But instead, we sort of go from that notion of

co venture right where the woman is owned by her

husband, this much more, um, broad brushstroke of benevolent sexism,

right where the definition of the man is in his

ability to protect his women and Children.

Right? And so it's not quite the same legal power

as actually owning your wife.

Um, but it does have that same set of interactions

and relationships wherein the husband is the kind of dominant

figure, and the definition of his masculinity is in the

protection of her femininity.

Right. So you still see that that maintained.

But that little blip of the nuclear family that really

only last 40 50 years out of the whole history

of humanity, right?

I mean, it's important to recognize the whole history of

humanity. Organized family is different than that little blip.

And what we see today is a much more diverse

way of putting families together, right?

And so this is a result of the greater recognition

of women in terms of their lives and being decision

makers. Um, being able to actually be single if they

would like.

It wasn't that sort of imperative to get married.

Um, having a voice and work and finances, etcetera.

You also see, in the night starting the 19 seventies

less violence towards the LGBT community.

Now I want to be clear here.

I'm not saying no violence because obviously there was and

still is, um, prejudices against this community and the formation

of families.

But you see less of it, right?

It really wasn't possible in the 19 fifties to have,

uh, gay marriage or even a gay partnership that was

very out and open, um, and have Children, et cetera,

et cetera.

In the seventies, you begin to see that in pockets

of the country, and it expanded in the eighties and

nineties. And obviously, with the legalization of marriage and the

extension of family legal protections, you start to see this

notion that we're gonna have, uh, people in heterosexual marriages

and people in homosexual marriages and families that will come

out of all of those kinds of components.

We also develop this sense of cohabitation just in general,

right? This idea that people might live together prior to

being married if they so choose it, might have Children

prior to being married or, frankly, just habitat for the

entirety of their lives.

We also see this huge emphasis on childhood.

Right? Childhood becomes this magical time with bounce houses and

caring about Children and wanting everything to be special with

the elf on the shelf and all of that stuff.

In addition to that sort of development of that idea

of childhood, we also extended out, so the notion that

it used to be really need to be married by

21 or 22.

Now we really extend that out, understanding that young people

are delaying marriage longer and longer and longer.

And all of this is just to highlight the ways

that the notion of a family have been constructed throughout

the history of the United States, Um, and and to

really appreciate the the extent to which our sense of

family might feel, quote unquote normal to us.

But it is really a social construct with clear shifts

in structure

6.1

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