Family Key Terms

• Define 'crisis of masculinity'

  Men losing their traditional roles and authority and are unsure about their identity
• Define segregated roles

  men and women expected to do different jobs in the home
• Define stratified diffusion

  Idea that the way of life of those at the top of the class system will eventually filter down to the bottom
• Define secularisation

  The decline in importance of religion
• Define Kinship

  A sense of duty and feelings to family members
• Define empty shell marriage

  People live together as a married couple but do not love each other
• Define a symmetrical family

  A family where the roles of men and women are similar, domestic and wage earning tasks shared between the parents
• Define monogamy

  marriage to only one partner at a time
• Define the cereal box family

  The 'standard' nuclear family
• Define Cohabitation

  Where a couple live together but are unmarried
• What is stabilisation of adult personalities

  The function of the adult members providing comfort and support for each other (Parsons)
• Define Patriarchy

  A society where men have power and are dominant over women
• Define divorce

  the legal end to a marriage
• Define breadwinner

  The person who earns the family money, typically the man
• Define the Triple shift

  Women have jobs, do housework and are caring for the family (Duncombe & Marsden)
• Define arranged marriage

  Marriage partners selected by parents or a matchmaker
• Define conjugal roles

  The roles played by men and women in the home, their jobs and responsibilities
• Define heterosexual

  sexually attracted to people of the opposite sex
• Family Diversity - The Rapoports

  • Organisational diversity, variations in family structures & conjugal roles 
  • Cultural diversity, different family lifestyles of different ethnic groups 
  • Class diversity, differences in m/c & w/c families & how they are socialised
  • Lifecycle diversity, changes in a stage of someone’s life e.g. newly weds without kids
  • Cohort diversity, born over the same period sometimes with patterns of family life e.g. dual earners