The family is a respectable social unit in a society or a community. It forms the basic components of a community that leads to a state or country. Marriage enhances the continuity of people through the birth of new individuals and expansion of a community population. Through marriages, different people can meet and interact. It brings about social links and affiliations that extend different relations in a wide geographical setting. Therefore, family and marriage are the core pillars of sociality.
What association has been made between family, composition, dynamics, and role in society and larger economic structural/systemic change?
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The family is a social setting that brings different gender together to form a social unit. Marriages lead to family either nuclear or extended family. Marriage was there before and still exists today. There are various modifications, changes, and differences of the current marriage and the old century marriages. It is made up of father, mother, and child or children (Finkel, 2014). The family of today and those of early centuries have a varying factor in comparison to new modifications of the current digitalized era.
There are a variety of different dynamics affecting families today and resulting in different variations. There is present of weaknesses in marriage bond today. There is the availability of reported cases of higher divorces in the current world of families. High cases of divorces show that moral decay is at a high level and also lack of commitments between the two main parties in marriage; Husband and wife (Finkel, 2014). As a result, the clear analysis of marriages today shows that there has been high evolution regarding people autonomy, especially female gender. Today women do not have to get married, and the community has no opinion over it. In the past women always focused to be married to get an appropriate opinion and view of one community beliefs and cultures ( Hussung, 2015 ). It is a personal decision but not a community requirement.
Marriage strengthens the societal body. It is also viewed as a way of community or society growth and expansion. It promotes the well-being of the involved individuals through creating lasting bond and companionship. It is a form of partnership that brings different sex together hence creating a connection of different identities. Love bonds marriage is hence bringing peace to the society (Finkel, 2014). Tough economic conditions affect marriage. Due to this impact, the poor are not able to sustain a marriage. Marriage is related to Classic theory of the hierarchy of needs, and hence marriage needs are in order of their importance and privileges as per marriage partners. Tough economic conditions act as blocks for marriage partners to invest their time and resources in their partnership.
What negative relationship does Stephanie Coontz see between contemporary American families and other socio-economic institutions?
The current decade of the world is unique and hence comparing the 1900 marriages and today’s will be a big mistake. High divorces and unmarried women do not match the situations of the marriages and families in the past. There is a big drastic change in the current world. There are many working mothers than housewives and kids seem to enjoy the happiness of their mothers much. Currently, giving out one baby or babies for adoption is never a consideration, and people prefer taking care of their kids no matter the challenges. Today’s marriage is conflicted, and parents are not much attentive. Parenting and marriage have become a tough task as many people concentrate on earning an income for the family. There is the new trend of a father spending much time with families rather than mothers in some family settings. The number of children in a given family has decreased while the attention per child has increased. The institutions available in the world have little evolution and hence less change while the family situations have greater changes especially in America. Academic institutions are also out of date ( Coontz, 1999). Therefore, the social institutions in America need to modify their policies to fit the current millennial families.
The current families and marriages have evolved in comparison to the old families. Nations have to accept that the digital era and new modifications have a great impact on families and marriage life. The social institutions have to implement changes in favor of today's families’ updates.
References
Coontz, S. (1999). The American Family. Retrieved from http://stephaniecoontz.com/articles/article10.htm
Finkel, E. (2014). Opinion | The All-or-Nothing Marriage. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/15/opinion/sunday/the-all-or-nothing-marriage.html?_r=1
Hussung, T. (2015). The Evolution of American Family Structure. Retrieved from https://online.csp.edu/blog/family-science/the-evolution-of-american-family-structure
