The Meaning of Marriage and the Family Key Terms

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Chapter 1

• The Meaning of Marriage and the FamilyKey Terms

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• Affiliated kin Unrelated individuals who feel
  and are treated as if they were relatives.
• FamilyFamily may be defined as one or more
  adults related by blood, marriage, or affiliation
  who cooperate economically, who may share a
  common dwelling, and who may rear children.

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• HouseholdA household consists of one or more
  peopleeveryone living in a housing unit makes up
  a household.
• ClanA group of related families, is regarded as
  the fundamental family unit.

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• Nuclear familyA family consisting of mother,
  father, and children.
• Traditional familyA mostly middle-class version
  of the nuclear family in which womens primary
  roles are wife and mother and mens primary roles
  are husband and breadwinner.

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• MarriageA legally recognized union between two
  people, generally a man and a woman, in which
  they are united sexually, cooperate economically,
  and may give birth to, adopt, or rear children.

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• Monogamy The practice of having only one spouse
  at one time.
• PolygamyThe practice of having more than one
  wife or husband.

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• Modified Polygamy or Serial MonogamyA practice
  in which one person may have several spouses over
  his or her lifetime although no more than one at
  any given time.

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• PolygynyHaving two or more wives.
• PolyandryHaving two or more husbands.

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• SocializationShaping individual behavior to
  conform to cultural or social norms.

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• Family of procreationThe common term for the
  family we form through marriage and
  childbearing.
• Family of cohabitation The family we form
  through living or cohabiting with another person,
  whether we are married or unmarried.

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• Family of orientationThe family in which we grow
  up, the family that orients us to the world. The
  family of orientation may change over time if the
  marital status of our parents changes.
• Extended family Consists not only of the
  cohabiting couple and their children but also of
  other relatives, especially in-laws,
  grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins.

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• Kinship systemsThe social organization of the
  family. It is based on the reciprocal rights and
  obligations of the different family members, such
  as those between parents and children,
  grandparents and grandchildren, and
  mothers-in-law and sons-in-law.
• Conjugal relationshipFamily relationships
  created through marriage. (The word conjugal is
  derived from the Latin conjungere, meaningto
  join together.)

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• Consanguineous relationship Relationships
  created through biological (blood) tiesthat is,
  through birth.
• Spirit marriageA marriage arranged by two
  families whose son and daughter died unmarried.

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• Conservatives To conservatives, cultural values
  have shifted away from individual self-sacrifice
  toward self fulfillment. This shift in values is
  seen as an important factor in changes in family
  life that occurred in the last three or four
  decades of the twentieth century. Conservatives
  recommend social policies to reverse or reduce
  the extent of such changes.

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• LiberalsLiberals tend to believe that the
  changes in family patterns are just thatchanges,
  not signs of familial decline. The liberal
  position also portrays these changing family
  patterns as products of and adaptations to wider
  social and economic changes rather than a shift
  in cultural values.

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• Centrists Share aspects of both conservative and
  liberal positions. Like conservatives, they
  believe some familial changes have had negative
  consequences. Like liberals they identify wider
  social changes as major determinants of the
  changes in family life, but they assert greater
  emphasis than liberals do on the importance of
  cultural values.