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'1 U 11 1 . 0144. 4 of. 441.1 1 4' t x 1. 1 ...1 11 . . . . 4 4 . 4 r . .1. 1.1.1 . 41.... ..1 P11 0. ....44 .o . $1.11!! 1.1 * 1 . 4 ... . . .. 1 1 4 ......l . 1’ 1!:1.1.II..4..1.1- . 4 . . .1 1|. . . 4 1111. 0......11 41..l - l 1 ~ I o ‘ I 4 U I o .4 I 1 1 r 1 . O 1 1 . 4 1 1 4 1 4 o 1 o . o . . . .4 . . 1 1 1111 . . . . . . .. . . 1 .. .4 1 4 . . . . . . 1 . fl 1 . . 1 . ... 1 a . I o 4 . 1 c 4 . d 1 . . . . . I I U . 1 _ '11 l a ‘-Q“‘- - 44‘fiq” Qw-v‘" v.0... .31.....$.116n4433..1.4c..14:11...1..141.1..3.....1..31. ..- 11.4..1..:1......1...s.:451.24.714.41....4. ..1...... ...).1l.1...1...........1.415424...11.14.116.41.41. .... ......r . ...»..-1. .....vv. ...........1 1.3.11... 10:14.11 413.14.111.01) ..1. 9‘ .11 “-0181: LIB”! IY Mic} . “to Univcu. ty .4 MW ABSTRACT CONTEMPORARY ADAPTATIONS OF THE AMERICAN FAMILY IN PROCESS: PRELIMINARY THOUGHTS AND EVIDENCE BY Christopher P. Pilotti A large body of sociological and anthropological literature has viewed the family as an evolving institu- tion which varies in form and function in accordance with variances in social structure, natural environment, and economy. It has been shown that the nuclear family is the family form most adaptive to hunting and gathering and industrializing societies, just as the extended fam- ily is more adaptive to agricultural societies. However, there is a dearth of literature and research which takes the perspective that the family is continually changing // and adapting in established industrialized societies. Where there is a burgeoning of unstable family situations this is analyzed psychologically with an eye toward re- turning them to the status quo. Where alternatives to the isolated nuclear family are being lived, they are viewed, however, tolerantly, as deviant and rarely as healthy, viable adaptations. Pew statistics on divorce are good measures of the degree of stability of the isolated nuclear family or the growth of new alternatives. The most significant are those Christopher P. Pilotti statistics which show that children are becoming a less inhibiting factor in divorce. There is also clear statis- tical evidence that women after divorce are remarrying at a considerable lower rate than men. Whether out of choice or necessity, women are beginning to live out alternatives to the nuclear family at an increasing rate. There is little evidence that the United States is evolving into a new society in which a singular alternative to the isolated nuclear family will become necessary and sufficient. Instead, this society appears to be moving to a more open situation where many alternatives such as the matrifocal family, patrifocal family, and various communal arrangements will be more functional for new alternative life styles that are emerging. CONTEMPORARY ADAPTATIONS OF THE AMERICAN FAMILY IN PROCESS: PRELIMINARY THOUGHTS AND EVIDENCE BY \ N " Christopher P3 Pilotti A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS Department of Sociology 1972 Dedicated to Jerry Gerasimo whose teaching reminded me that the meaning of a single human's subjectivity has yet to be understood. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS At this point I feel little of the humility that others express on this page. The indebtedness to numerous scholars is obvious in the reading. The most significant contributions to the development of the ideas in this paper were discussions with Alice, Beverly; Bob,EEoster, Judy, Keith, Ron, Sandy, and Sherry. I think they each understand some of what I mean. iii Chapter I II III IV TABLE OF CONTENTS Page IntrOdUCtion eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeooeeeeeee 1 Analysis of Prior Research A Relationship of Family Form to Technology, Environment, and Mode of Production ......... 5 B The Structure and Dynamics of the Family Adapted to Industrialization and Urbaniza- tion eeeeeeeoeeeeeoeeeeeeeeeoeeeeeeeeeseeeeee 9 C Family Disorganization 1 Theoretical Bases eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee 14 2 Three Perspectives on Divorce ......... 17 Family Disorganization and the Transition of the Family in the Ul'lited States eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee 23 Evaluation of Contemporary Trends in the Family ........................................ 33 Conclusion .................................... 47 Bibliography .................................. 51 Appendix A .................................... 58 Appendix B .................................... 64 Appendix C eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeseeeeeeee 69 iv «- LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1 Divorce Rate per 1000 Married Women 15 years Of Age and Over eseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee 25 2 Absolute U.S. Marriage Rate per 1000 Population seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee 25 3 Comparison of Birth Rate Fluctuation with the Fluctuation of Mean Number of Children per DiVOrCC Decree eeeeoeoeseeeeeeeeeeeeeseeeo 29 LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1 The Ideal-Typical Nature of Marriage under Rural and Urban Life Conditions .......16 2 Model for Studying Organizational Variables Associated with Divorce ...........67 vi CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION This paper does not concern the decline of the family in the United States, nor does it prOpose or predict its decline. The central concern is to understand the his- torical context of the multitude of realized and evolving alternative family forms seen as adaptations to techno- logical, economic, and existing family conditions proto- typically found in the United States. It is a working assumption of my analysis that eco- nomic organization or subsistence activities are the primary institutional arrangements in a society. Changes at the economic level tend to precede and affect changes in other secondary institutions such as the family, religion, and politics. (Marx, 1959) On the other hand values, norms, ideology, and worldview are not to be considered as mere epiphenomena of more basic structures. In the concluding chapter I propose that the forms of family living evolving in American society cannot be explained or predicted using solely a techno-economic model, but must also be analyzed in terms of cultural, normative, and ideological consider- ations. Although the approach of this paper is heavily weighted toward ecological analysis, dialectics, and structuralism 2 I hope that in part it achieves an integration of these with the normative approach of social psychology and with humanism. Implicit in much of my discussion are assumptions about basic human needs and a priori characteristics of human life. Beyond the needs of physical subsistence and survival, they include the security given by order in collective existence (Berger and Luckman, 1967) and intensity in human relationships, two psychological needs which often are met in the family. Norms are part of the process of history in that they provide the link between the imperatives that a particular environment, population size, and institutional configura- tion place on human activity and the realization of that “lung... Norms are part of history, but norms create history only within the limitations of these impesatives of environment, population, and institutional structure. It is the nature of these imperatives as they vary and affect the family that is the first concern of this paper. Norms do not always explain behavior, especially when the process of history is accelerating, so my attempt is to deal with the conditions that precede norms.1 1 Berger and Luckman (1967) present a conception of the role of language similar to this conception of norms. Just as norms are byproducts of human existential struggles, language is the embodiment or idea of these struggles. All language is in fact a norm. "When the generalized other has been crystallized in consciousness, a symmetrical relationship is established between objective and subjec- tive reality. What is real 'outside' corresponds to what is real 'within.' Objective reality can readily be 'trans- lated' into subjective reality, and vice versa. Language. 3 Disorganization, an important subarea of the sociology of the family, will be treated in a separate section of this paper. My presentation of the significance of family disorganization1 for the evolution of the family attempts to develop the following propositions: 1. Family disorganization may involve only normative deviance unre- lated to any structural changes. 2. It is not a sign of the decline of the family in American society. 3. Some 'forms of family disorganization may be indicators of evol- ving adaptations or alternatives which are not pathologies, but are natural healthy responses to changing conditions within the ecosystem.2 . Two sociologists, Parsons (1955, p. 4) and Hobart (1965, p. 2), who have made previous examinations of the American family, point out the type of significance that any kind of structural sociology should give to social disorgan- isations ...major structural changes in social systems always involve strain and'disorganization, so the question of evaluating symptoms of disor- of course, is the principal vehicle of this ongoing trans- lating process in both directions." (p. 133) 1 I will be limiting my treatment of family disorganiza- tion to divorce and divorce-related phenomena. 2 The historical view of family disorganization as evo- lutionary adaptation does not deny the horror and misery it may bring on a personal level, just as the de-evolu- tionary consequences of technological progress do not deny the personal success and happiness that in some cases have accompanied it. 4 ganization of which we can regard the high divorce rates as one, involves the question of how much is a general trend to disorgani- “:zation as such, how much is what may be called the 'disorganization of transition.’ So long as an institution provides functions prerequisite to the survival of any human social eysystem we must think not in terms of the dis- appearance of the institution but of the evolu- tion of functional alternatives. The first chapter is a review of the literature on the family. It may be the most significant contribution of this paper for the accurate and thorough evidence it gives of the qualitative and quantitative paucity of the sociological literature on the family. By failing to study the modern (post-industrial) nuclear family from an evolutionary perspective, this literature fails to grasp important changes in the family. It has confused the ahistorical family that may be universal to human existence (Murdock 1949; Spiro 1954; Zelditch 1964341698) with the historically situated isolated nuclear family that arose due to industrialization and increased mobility. CHAPTER II ANALYSIS OF PRIOR RESEARCH A. Relationship of Family Form to Technology, Environment, and Mode of Production The most conclusive evidence of a relationship be- tween family form and level of technology and mode of production is found in the research of Nimkoff and Middle- ton (1960) using comparative data from 549 societies out of Murdock's "World Ethnographic Sample" (1957). They concluded that "family type is influenced by type of sub- sistence through the food supply, demand for family labor, physical mobility, and property." (p. 225) Their two ideal types, the hunting and gathering and agricultural societies, demonstrate the optimal effect extreme variation of these factors has on family form. The family form most prevalent in societies whose subsistence activities are mainly hunting and gathering is the nuclear type because in these societies there is usually a limited food supply, minimal demand for large quantities of family labor, considerable physical mobility, and an undeve10ped institution of pro- perty. In agricultural societies, where ”the food supply, the demand for family labor, and property are more highly developed,” (p. 225) and physical stability more requi- site than in hunting and gathering societies, extended 5 familism tends to prevail. Societies of different (fish- ing, horticulture) or mixed (fishing and hunting) types tend as a whole to vary between the nuclear and extended family types. Using a very small sample, Nimkoff and Middleton tried to demonstrate that these same four variables could be utilized to explain the prevalence of the conjugal or isolated nuclear family in modern industrial society. The modern industrial society, with its small independent family, is then like the simpler hunting and gathering society and, in part, apparently for some of the same reasons, namely limited need for family labor and physical mobility. The hunter is mobile be- cause he pursues the game: the industrial worker, the job." (p. 225) Also, in modern industrial society the food supply tends toward abundance. At first glance the existence of the nuclear family in industrial societies in association with a highly developed institution of property owner- ship appears not to be the same as the situation of hunting and gathering societies where the nuclear family is found in association with an absence of property ownership. It seems apprOpriate in this case to revise the preperty typology so that it includes three distinct categories: little or no property ownership, communal or family owner- ship, and individual prOperty ownership. Where the last type exists in highly developed industrial societies, the nuclear family is able to prevail because individualized, marketable property ownership does not require the stability 7 of community or family. Liquidity of resources makes physical mobility a more probable alternative. It is significant that in American society extended familism is most prevalent in the upper class where the factor of wealth and prOperty inheritance (family preperty) is more common than in other classes. The tendency to associate the conjugal family with industrialization, urbanization, and the growth of indivi- dualized prOperty ownership is not new to sociological theory. In his General Economic History (1950, p. 111), Max Weber made one of the first analytic contributions to this notion: With the dissolution of the manors and of the remains of earlier agrarian communism through consolidation, separation, etc., private pro- perty in land has been completely established. In the meantime, in the course of the cen- turies, the organization of society has changed,...the household community shrinking until now the father with his wife and children functions as the unit of property relations. More recent research (Garigue 1956; Johnson 1960; Wagley 1960) on non-American industrializing and urbanizing societies has generated evidence which fails to support the proposition that the nuclear-type will be the pre- vailing family form in all urban-industrial societies. Still other research by Greenfield (1961) gives support to the preposition that the nuclear family does exist in non-industrialized, non-hunting and gathering societies. The major support Greenfield finds for this prOposition is from the island of Barbados which has a single cash crop 8 sugar economy. Greenfield demonstrates conclusively that "the ideal nuclear group found in Barbados is very similar to the nuclear family found in the United States..." (p. 319) Greenfield offers an alternative hypothesis to account for the existence of the nuclear family both in northern EurOpe and the United States, and Barbados. He States that there is a tendency for the nuclear family to prevail in societies with a wage labor economy and a scale of renumerations which allows workers to earn "only enough for the support of a nuclear group." (p. 321) However this hypothesis pr0poses nommore than a functional inte- gration of the nuclear family form with these economic contingencies. Causal explanations are neglected or rele- gated to ad hoc status. For instance, Greenfield shows that the nuclear family existed in northern Europe prior to industrialization and the evolution of the wage labor economy. Does that mean that the nuclear family provided an impetus for industrialization and caused a particular scale of renumerations? Or is the scale of renumerations an independent variable which articulated with the nuclear family, but, had it taken a different form would have caused the evolution of extended familism? Greenfield‘s discussion of causality is hardly adequate or complete: Were the occupational system so organized as to pay one individual enough to support a larger group or enable him to provide em- ployment for such a unit, extended families might arise to engulf or submerge the nuclear group. Perhaps, if extended families had 9 existed in England when the complex took its form, the renumeration scale of modern industrial society would be very different (p. 322) What is significantly conclusive about recent research concerning the link between industrialization and urban- ization, and the nuclear family is that there is no necessary and sufficient causal relationship among them, but that changing conditions such as the independent evolution of a new scale of renumerations might contri- bute to the emergence of new family forms.1 B. The Structure and Dynamics of the Family Adapted to Industrialization and urbanization Classical sociology of this century and last dealt with how the family adapted to or integrated with the rapid industrialization and urbanization of western Europe and the United States. It was generally observed that the isolation of the family which accompanied industrialization, urbanization, and greater differentiation was necessary as these processes required "a readiness to move, to move where there are needs for workers and where there are Opportunities for better jobs.”_ (Sussman and Burchinal 1965: 358) Weber's discussion of the diminishing size of the family, especially in its relationship to prOperty, has already been cited. 1 The implications for the family of changes in our own economy will be elaborated on in the final chapter. 10 Sociologists of the Chicago school, most notably Park (1952) and Mowrer (1964), were concerned with the organi- zation and disorganization of society and the family as they were adapting to the imperatives of urbanization. A great stress was placed on the individuation or anomie necessarily arising in urban society and how not only individuals but also nuclear families became isolated from primary contact with a larger community. This isolation of the family was understood once again as being economi- cally functional,but it was also observed to have a disorganizing effect on the family. It generally can be concluded that classical sociology and the Chicago school were concerned with the family from a macroscopic perspective, linking it with broad economic, technological, and urbanizing changes. In his article ”urbanism as a Way of Life (1938, p. 21), Louis Wirth continued to view the family from this perspective: ...... the low and declining urban repro- duction rates suggest that the city is not conducive to the traditional type of family life, including the rearing of children and the maintenance of the home as the locus of a whole round of vital activities. The trans- fer of industrial, educational, and recrea- tional activities to specialized institutions outside the home has deprived the family of some of its most characteristic historical functions... The family as a unit of social life is emancipated from the larger kinship group characteristic of the country, and the individual members pursue their own diverging interests in their vocational, educational. religious, recreational, and political life. 11 In the last twenty-five years sociology has been giving more stress to the internal workings of the family. (Burgess, Locke, and Thomes 1965; Miller and Swanson 1958; Parsons 1959; Parsons and Bales 1955) Even where the relationship of the family to the larger insti- tutional network is considered, it has been done ahistor- ically. It is treated less as an evolving set of rela- tionships, more as something that "is", something that has stopped becoming. It is a prototypical case of static as Opposed to dynamic analysis. The activities of the family have become reified.1 These ahistorical approaches to the family have been concerned with grasping and labelling one mainstream family type. It has been called the isolated nuclear 2 family (Parsons and Bales 1955), the colleague family (Miller and Swanson 1958), the conjugal family (Linton 1959), 1 "Reification is the apprehension of human phenomena as if they were things, that is, in non-human or possibly suprahuman terms...Reification implies that man is capable of forgetting his own authorship of the human world, and further, that the dialectic between man, the producer, and his products is lost to consciousness. The reified world is, by definition, a dehumanized world. It is experienced by man as a strange facticity, an opus alienum over which he has no control rather than the 0 us ro rium of his own productive activity." (Berger ang EucEman I967: 89 2 The term ”isolated nuclear family" will be used through- out the remainder of this paper because it emphasizes a structural consideration important to some later proposi- tions that I will discuss regarding recent evolutionary tendencies of the family. 12 and the companionship family (Burgess, Locke, and Thomes 1965). Although there is some variation in what is des- cribed in each of these cases, the same essential char- acteristic are found in all of them. As summarized below, in most instances these characteristics have been derived directly or indirectly from Parson's analyses. 1. It is internally a unit of economic consumption, but not production. It is tied to the production system by the occupational role which "is both a role in the occupational system and in the family; it is a'boundary' role' between them." (Parsons and Bales 1955: 13) 2. It is isolated residentially and economically from the larger kinship group and larger community due to "indus- trialization which requires a work force that is rela- tively mobile and efficient. As the American nuclear family has become less tied residentially and economically to other nuclear families it has become a better source of supply of the kinds of workers required in an industrial society.” (Rodman 1965: 81) 3. The complementarity of the husband and wife statuses tends to be accentuated. Isolation ”focuses the instru- mental responsibility for a family very sharply on its one adult, male member, and prevents 'its diffusion through the ramifications of an extended kinship system... In a complementary way, the affective responsibility is focused on one adult woman." (Parsons and Bales 1955: 23) 4. ”The primary basis of economic support and of many 13 other elements of social status lies typically in the husbands occupational status--his job." (Parsons 1959: 248-249) S. The result of this residential and economic isolation is that "the family of procreation, and in particular the marriage pair, are in a 'structurally unsupported' situation.” (Parsons and Bales 1955: 20) There'isaan absence of external supports "weakening the Opposition to traditional disapproved means of resolving difficulties such as divorce."1 (Hobart 1965: 3) 6. The nuclear family compensates for its institutional isolation and the isolating effect it has on its individual members by providing security and permanence of rela- tionships. .....Given extensive and rapid Spatial and vertical mobility, almost all relationships tend to be shifting sand, lacking in dependa- bility and security, providing no basis on which to build a life. The very impermanence of these manifold relationships heightens the need for some relationships which are dependable; which can be invariably counted on; which will not be weakened or destroyed by the incessant moving about of peOple. (Hobart 1965: 5) Despite the ahistorical nature of their examination of the family, Parsons and other functionalists describe an institution whose historically specific origins are 1 The relationship of the isolation of the nuclear family to its disorganization will be elaborated on in the next section reviewing the literature on family disorganization, and in Chapter III. 14 clear. In the two chapters of this paper to follow an attempt will be made to discuss these characteristics once more in the context of the historical conditions that they have been evolving in. In this way it will be possible to speculate on the future forms the family will be taking and on the significance of present trends of family life styles. C. Family Disorganization 1. Theoretical Bases Although divorce is a social problem directly approach- able through the sociology of the family, it in fact has lore substantial underpinnings in the areas of urban and economic sociology. Most of the literature that links divorce with a theory of society relies on theories of urbanization, disorganization, and individuation or anomie in urbanized society. These theories are a product of the thinking of the early Chicago school, most notably Park, Burgess, and Mowrer.1 Industrialization brought with it increased division of labor. Because of the breakdown of the tie between what was produced and what was directly consumed in the home, 1 In Famil Disor anization Mowrer interpreted high dia vorce and desertIon rates was the result of urbanization which Opens new Opportunities to women, creates a sense of restlessness, weakens primary group controls, and upholds exaggerated versions of romantic love." This is as inter- preted by Maurice Stein, The Ecli se of Communit (New York, Evanston and London: Harper & Row, Publ shers, 1960), p. 42. 15 and to realize more efficient controls, work (the job) became separated from life in the home. Thus, the tradi- tional economic function of the family was declining. As discussed in the previous section, one result of industrialization has been the increase in mobility of the individualsand the family. No Ibnger does the nuclear family of the middle class and upwardly mobile remain geographically stable and tied to an extended family and community of enduring primary group relations. For the individual and the nuclear family marriage unit, there is increased anonymity accompanying a weakening of social controls holding marriages together through external pressures. The decline of primary group contacts and controls has been facilitated by urbanization, the twin of industriali- zation. Mowrer (1964, p. 495) wrote that the 2.5:1 ratio he found in 1932 between the divorce rates in Chicago and nearby rural areas "may be the consequence of a decline in primary-group contacts and controls under urban conditions.” Farber (1964, p. 251), in his summarial structural func- tional analysis of the changes in the American family, emphasized both urbanization through presenting the rural- urban family differentials proposed by Burgess and Wallen (see Figure l) and industrialization through presenting Parson's structural theory of the family. According to Parsons(l959, p. 263), the modern American OCCUpational system "and its structural correlates in the society places .Hmd .mmoe .ommflaemz one psoEowmmcm .cfiaamz Home use mmomssm .3 pmospm Bosh ossafimm mm commemon owmapemfi pa Op poppomoe ooho>wm psoEooao>op mpHHm :sompoo sworn CH umosopcw Spa: .msomeoo mm woodwoosaam concHHgo mcoflumaon Hmcomsoo Hmficowsoo mo momefieo ocp co mmopom ommwsnms on mopamascoe need we afismcoficmosoo cam o>oq .HOLpCOO one GOHmH>soasm Hmpcosma no ocHHoop cue: ommappme oeouob maficmsofipmaos Hmfloom no 006050 CH Someone 15 .mome Laos» MCHmOOCO CH oHoooo mcso% ho Someone oHosoo on» no women mpwamcomeoo mo cofipomMmfipmm one huwafibflpmosoo co condo mEmoc Spas mammp Hmsomnma co nonwuoo mcoflpmwfiaoo mcowpwocoo oqu cmopb oabsaommacafi kHOSHpmaoe ommweemz mafia mHHEmm or» no meohmob use .mpmmmm OHEocooo .mhoxeos Heapsouoa mm posam> coepafigo COHOSpHpmcH am no hHHEmM ecu CamchmE on ommfleeme mo muooamm flawed and OHEosooo or» soon mammcoem ommweems poems o>oq ommco (soomco Ooaspm moms: mawcmsoap amass Hmeeow maco so ommesmms osomob meson econommao no spoon pom soecafico mo commemoemom Acofioooaom come no mosmpcmpm Houseman rum: mocmceooom ca oaosoo mp gov mocoamo so comcmepm ommfiesmz weapon pom mucwwp Hmooeafiooh pocfimop haamfisom ho mopmpm m maapmsfinm mCOfipwczoo mafia Hmhsm *swaam3 cam mmompsm ho .ppOosfiooHA “show 302 Loosen hp commends ommfismms mo oococmEpom .N Como -Haco so osom .0 mafia mhmswpm .m o>oa no oaom .d moowpomna aficmBESOo cam zoapompopqfiaflmae now Hmaaamsuosm .M compooaom Hmuwomz .N msowpmmfiaoo mo mcoprchoD .H ommfieemz go pooom< coownomoc mm .mQOHpHpcoo omfig some: use amass Locos owmwpemz mo esopmz HmoaoxanamopH ooE Hmomawwm 17 severe limitations on the kind of kinship structure which is compatible with such a system." For instance, a closely knit extended family would prevent occupational mobility and achievement motivation, prerequisites to our present economic system. Both industrialization and urbanization have been linked to disorganizing forces within the American famimy structure. Unfortunately, as will be shown in the dis- cussion below, more recent sociological students of divorce have neglected the discussions of family disorganization filtered throughout urban and economic sociological theory. They have treated divorce as a seriously expanding social problem without relating this expansion to speci- fic structural changes in the nuclear family grounded in industrialization and urbanization. 2. Three Perspectives on Divorce In the last fifteen or twenty years, three kinds of analytic reference points have develOped from sociological grapplings with divorce in America. As will be shown, each strategy has either neglected the theoretical groundings discussed above, or has failed to select significant structural explanations of divorce for study or consider- ation. One perspective has grown out of a quest for social psychological variables associated with instability in marriage. For instance, Goode (1969, p. 444) considered 18 divorce to be "one kind of mechanism for dealing with pressures and problems inevitably caused by marriage." Thus, marital instability reflects psychological problems in the partners; increases in the divorce rate may be understood most adequately through changes in isolated mental states, not in social structure. Blood discusses the higher rate of divorce among lower status families in terms of lesser skills in communication and decision making, and an absence of self-discipline. He does bring one structural correlate-~less organizational participa- tion-into his explanation. (Blood 1962: 231) The associations between divorce and higher intelli- gence (Terman and Oden 1959) and between divorce and child- hood mental instability (Robins and O'Neal 1958: 347) have also been explored. Family disruption is seen as a pro- duct of individual circumstances, without consideration of the external controls of social organization. In addition no link is made between the search for psychological cor- relates of divorce and broader theory. A second perspective has attempted to relate divorce to particular socio-economic variables such as race (Lind 1964; Schmitt 1969), inter-racial marriage (0rdy 1966), religion (Cannon and Gingles 1956; Thomas 1964), religious inter-faith marriage (Landis 1949), nationality (Day 1964), occupation and income (Goode 1951; Roth and Peck 1951; Williamson 1952), and educational status (Urdy 1966). Again what is lacking in these studies 19 is any attempt to relate specific variables to an emerging theory of industrial or post-industrial society. Also, where divorce is shown to be associated with socio—econom- ic variables, the more particular structural or social organizational factors associated with these social and economic positions are rarely tested or even mentioned. For example, although the lower propensity for divorce among Catholics at least in part may be explained by religious attitudes, differential marital instability according to class (occupation and income) less easily is explained by mere examination of attitude and ideolbgy. For example, Goode (1964, p. 88) attempted to explain the greater prevalence of divorce among the lower strata through use of psychological variables. Among these lower strata he suggests there is a greater possibility that couples will displace their irritation from economic sources onto other areas of marital life... a higher proportion of women Obtain sexual satisfaction in marriage toward the upper strata, a higher prOportion of men enjoy their work, and a higher propor- tion of couples make high marital adjustment scorees, so that they have less wish to escape from marriage. 5 The dispute is not with the descriptive validity of these social psychological approaches, but with the fail- ure to consider and test for more particular social organ- izational factors directly tied to the process of indus- trialization and urbanization. what people think or what people say they think reveals their normative selves. But 20 normative expression exists in a dialectical relationship with what people do. The values peOple express are attempts to make sense of what they do or have to do. Social organization is the patterning of this doing. Class is a structural variable in that it represents general differentials by occupation and income. But class is not real ordea it is abstracted order. Findings relat- ing divorce to class have little significance until less abstact social organizational factors which reflect the order of doing are considered. That these factors may have some correlation with occupation and income is inci- dental. Occupation and income are not concrete behaviors which make the development of stable marriage problematic.1 The third perspective has attempted to show how marital instability varies along the rural-urban continuum, relat- ing findings to urban and economic sociological theory. (Cannon 1947; Cannon and Gingles 1956; Mowrer 1964) Og- burn and Nimkoff (1955, p. 247) have written, "The changes in the divorce rate can then be traced to momentous tech- nological changes, changes in the means of production.” Once again, the reliabilfty and validity are sound, but there are limitations to their explanatory power. First the lower divorce rate among rural people is Often explained in terms of attitude rather than organi- zational correlates. "Rural people in these Western I’ These social organizational variables are discussed in the research proposal found in Appendix B. 21 countries have somewhat more conservative attitudes toward divorce, than do urban dwellers." (Goode 1964: 95) The rural-urban continuum has a social psychological dimension, but urbanization is primarily a change in social organiza— tion, and secondarily a change in attitudes. To explain increasing divorce rates in urban areas or in urbanizing societies, the specific structural variables associated with greater and less prevalence of divorce must be searched for. Secondly, a simple rural-urban continuum no longer may be a useful typology for analysis of American society. The differences between rural and urban life are not so sharp as they were fifteen years ago. The whole society has been urbanized as a result of the influences of mass culture, technological standardization, and mass transpor- tation. "The rural-urban continuum today covers a much shorter range than it did a generation ago." (Mowrer 1964: 505)1 Many contemporary residential options such as high-rise apartment buildings, garden apartments, and the suburban neighborhood no longer clearly fit the simple rural-urban dichotomy. Differential divorce rates might better be tested strictly according to social organiza- tional variables, and where these variables clearly are associated with a particular kind of population type, 1 In fact it is not the range that has changed so much‘ as the standard deviation. Modes of existence are more - standardized to the urban prototype. :.f':.;~‘-a:r 22 eg. rural farm, then this should be made explicit. But the central concern of research on family disorganization first must be to isolate structural variables associated with divorce- CHAPTER III FAMILY DISORGANIZATION AND THE TRANSITION OF THE FAMILY IN THE UNITED STATES As long as divorce and separation are socially recog- nized possible terminations of marriage, then variation in the divorce and separation rates over time must logi- cally be considered as potential indicators of some kind of historical transformation of the family. However these transformations of the familywmay not have structural significance, and the institution may remain unchanged. As Zelditch (1964, p. 477) has Pointed out: A high divorce rate does not necessarily mean that a marriage system is unstable. One must distinguish clearly three kinds of instability: (a) instability of the personal relationship between husband and wife; (b) instability of the jural bond of marriage; (c) instability of the marriage system (Schneider 1953). Divorce reflects only the instability of the jural bond...The jural bond itself may be frequently broken, particularly where the fundamental social relationships of that society are not disrupted in a process without any tendency for the system itself. Most research on divorce (see Chapter II) is concerned with discovering (and in some cases explaining) the in— stability of the personal relationship or the instability of the jural bond, but not with discovering signs of in- stability of the marriage system or family institution 23 24 itself. As a result, most divorce data do not necessarily shed much light on the real state of marriage and the family in the United States today. For example, Blood (1962) attributes the higher rate of divorce among lower status families to their absence Of self-discipline and inability to communicate. What Blood fails to recognize is that a need for a more stable family structure may be reflected in absence of self-discipline, the inability to communicate, and ultimately in a higher divorce rate. An alternative hypothesis to Blood's explanation is that basic structural characteristics of the nuclear family in industrial society, such as its isolation are reflected in the characteristics of psychological instability associated with divorce. At the same time other phenomena such as the proliferation of communal living arrangements reflect an antithetical tendency to alleviate the struc- tural factors causing the instability. The family insti- tution as a whole may be evolving new structures. To fail to entertain the possibility ignores the realities of a history which transforms itself, which in the case of the family, it is safe to expect did not end with the evolu- tion of the isolated nuclear type. A As the purposes of the paper include the discovery and explanation of significant new institutional forms of the family, most current data on divorce are not pertinent to this paper. For instnace, statistics show that the abso- lute divorce rate in the United States was increasingly 25 1 but this indicates progressively from 1963 through 1967, only jural instability. For one thing despite this divorce rate increase, the marriage rate was increasing steadily from 1963 through 1970.2 This would lead us to conclude that the increased divorce rate is not absolute indication that the marriage and family institution is undergoing any total systemic transformation. However the marriage rate has been levelling off, with the rate of increase 1 TABLE 1 Divorce Rate per 1000 Married Women 15 Years of Age and Over 1962 1253 1964 1965 1966 1967 9.4 9.6 10.0 10.6 10.9 11.2 Source: National Center for Health Statistics. Vital Statistics of the United States 1967, VOl. 3, HarrIage and DIvorce, table 2-1. 2» According to the Monthl Vital Statistics Re ort (larch 4, 1970, p. 2), "the upward trend In marrIage began in 1959 but gained momentum after 1962 when the marriage rate started to climb. During 1963-67 annual increases in the marriage rate averaged 2.7 percent. Between 1967 and 1968 the rate moved up about 6 percent...Increases since 1968 have been lower." TABLE 2 Absolute U.S. Marriage Rates per 1000 Population 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 l965_1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 8.5 8.5 8.5 8.8 ’00 9.2 ’0‘ 9.7 10.3 10.6 10.7 Source: (1966—1970)-Nationa1 Center for Health Statistics, Mongply Vital Statistics Report, V01. 18, No. 3 and No. . - -—Car er an ck 1970: 16. 26 declining since 1968, reaching zero very recently.1 At the same time the divorce rate increase has been acceler- ating. In 1970 it showed a 9 percent increase, while the marriage rate was increasing only 1 percent.2 These statistics suggest that there is something happening, but in themselves the data do not allow us to see what it is. It needs to be discovered whether there is institution building that is a reaction to the breaking down of a defunct marriage and family system. We must see the life styles and life support systems of these people. Are they involved in the creation of new stable institutions that are more adaptive to contemporary con- ditions that are empirically specifiable? One significant indicator of how much fluctuations in the divorce rate reflect institutional restructuring may be the remarriage rate of the divorced. If the divorced are an increasing segment of the population, at least a part of which is involved in building and restructuring new family institutions, then we should expect that the rate at which they are remarrying would be decreasing. Evidence is to the contrary however. From 1960 to 1967 the number remarrying per 1000 population of divorced women increased from 122.1 to 129.8, while for men it D For March, 1971 the marriage rate was the same as March, 1970, 7.8 per 1000 population. Source: National Center for Health Statistics, Monthly Vital Statistics Report, VOl. 20, W0. 3. 2 Source: National Center for Vital Statistics, Monthly Vital Statistics Re ort, Vol. 18, NO. 3, "Births, Marr ages, DIvorces, and Deaths for 1970,” March 4, 1971, pp. 2-3. 27 increased from 164.2 to 206.8.1 These increases may be misleading. First, in the case of both men and women, while the remarriage rate is increasing, there are large numbers who do not remarry and this base is increasing. Secondly, the relatively slight increase for women (6.4%) as compared to that for men (25.9%) may be linked to the economic and social liberation of women involving a re- structuring of how they relate to the family. The sub- stantial increase in remarriage of divorced men may be interpreted as one side of the paradox-that marriage has become the last source of structured, dependable, perpe- tuating, intense relationships. The relatively slight increase for women may be interpreted as the other side- that the mainstream family life of today is too suffocating where it does not exist in the context of a close-knit community or extended family which could provide other enduring, lifetime relationships, diffusing the intensity away from one relationship. (And it is the women, educated, locked in the home, upon whom most suffering of this kind has been thrust by this institution.zi 3‘ Source: National Center for Health Statistics, Vital Sfatigtics of the united StatesI 1960, V01. 3, Marriage and D vorce, ab e l ; V ta S at st cs of the uni e ates, , Vol. 3, Marriage and DIvorce, EESIe I-7. 2 Philip Slater (1970, p. 68) has commented, ”There are societies in which the domestic role works, but in these societies the housewife is not isolated. She is either part of a large extended family household in which domes- tic activities are a communal effort, or participates in a tightly knit village community, or both. The idea of imprisoning each woman alone in a small, self-contained, and architectually isolating dwelling is ammodern invention, 28 Table III (see page 29) provides other data which are unexpected on the basis of the remarriage data. Because women traditionally and legally gain custody of the chil- dren in divorce cases, we would expect that divorced women with children would have more need to remarry, and thus would have a higher incidence Of remarriage than men. Therefore, because their remarriage rate has in- creased so little compared to that of men, we would expect that the number of children involved in divorce cases would at most have increased only slightly. As the table shows, however, the number of children per divorce decree was increasing every year from 1960 through 1967, except in 1960 and 1965. It had been increasing at an even higher rate from 1953 through 1959. What makes these statistics even more significant is that the birth rate declined every year from 1960 through 1967. Column VI shows the rate of change of the number of children in- volved per decree corrected for the birth rate decline-- indicating that there was a real increase every year and of greater magnitude in each casem than the uncorrected figures of column V indicate. As a whole these data tell us that divorce is becoming an Option for more marriages at an accelerating rate- dependent upon an advanced technology. In Moslem societies, for example, the wife may be a prisoner but she is at least not in solitary confinement. In our society the housewife may move about freely, but since she has no- where to go and is not a part of anything anyway her prison needs no walls." 29 TABLE 3 Comparison of Birth Rate Fluctuation with the Fluctuation of the Mean Number of Children per Divorce Decree I II III IV V VI no. of Year Birth Rate Eflildren Rife V'Ills Rate1 of divorce 2 Change Change decree 1953 25.1 .85 1954 25.3 +.8% .90 +5.9% +5.1% 1955 25.0 -1.2% .92 +2.2% +3.4% 1956 25.2 +.8% .95 +3.3% +2.5% 1957 25.3 +.4% .99 +4.2% +3.8% 1958 24.5 -3.2% 1.08 +9.1% +12.3% 1959 24.0 -2.0% 1.18 +9.3% +11.3% 1960 23.7 -1.3% 1.18 0.0% +1.3% 1961 23.3 -1.7% 1.25 +5.9% +7.6% 1962 22.4 -3.9% 1.29 +3.2% +7.1% 1963 21.7 -3.1% 1.31 01.6% +4.7; 1964 21.0 -3.2% 1.36 e3.8% +7.0% 1965 19.4 -7.6% 1.32 -2.9% +4.7% 1966 18.4 —S.2% 1.34 +1.5% +6.7% 1967 17.8 -3.3% 1.34 0.0% +3.3% L. Per population of 1000. Source: Vital Statistics of united StatesI 1968, Vol. 1, Natalit , tab e - . E: Source: Vital Statistics of the Uhited States 1967, V01. 3, Marriage and DIvorce, tEBIe 2-9. 3 This figure represents the real percent change in the number of children involved per divorce decree by correcting for birth rate changes over the same time period. 30 with the presence of children becoming less of an inhib- iting factor. More women either are becoming heads of their own households (matrifocal familyl), or are living with their children in new, non-marital, institutional arrangements. An example of the latter is found in East Lansing, Michigan where a group of women with their children, but without the children's fathers, have been living communally in one household. The normal living arrangement in the United States today is the single household of one nuclear family. How- ever, the proliferation of communes, and the potential that the communal movement is more than a fad, but is an adap- tation to the problems of the isolated nuclear family, leads us to expect that within marriage itself the single, isolated household would show some signs of being on the decline. Yet, from 1940 to 1965 there was a continual decline in the percent of married couples without their own household. (Carter and Glick 1970: 149) On the other hand, the last six years have been the main thrust of the communal movement and the accelerating divorce rate. Thus, although the present statistical data are insufficient and inconclusive, data that are as yet una- vailable should show an increase in the percent of married couples living communally in one form or another if the above assessments of communal living are accurate. I More discussion of the broadening significance of the matrifocal family is found in Chapter IV. 31 If some forms of household sharing are associated with systemic restructuring, then we might expect that these communal arrangements would be associated with institutional stability. Carter and Glick (1970, p. 394) found, however, that "although only 2 percent of all couples 'double up' to provide care for others, doubling appears to be associated with a much larger prOportion than 2 percent of the unstable marriages." But jural instability of marriage is not necessarily what we are looking for. It is the instability of marriage and the family in its present forms that make the new forms signi- ficant. Carter and Glick's sample does not include a large proportion of the newly founded, alternative-seeking communes, but it would not be surprising to find above normal marital instability in these too. 'The evolution of new stable institutional family forms is in a dialectical relationship with what precedes it--institutional instability and irrelevancy, a symptom of which might be jural marital instability. We should expect to find in- stability where there are people seeking new forms of stability. In conclusion, because most statistics on divorce detect only jural marital instability, and because most research attempting to explain divorce sees it merely as a consequence of normative inadequacies, there is a dearth of data linking marital estrangement with institutional stability and change. My prOposal in Appendix B for the 32 revitalization of this research area suggests that in fact there may be structural variables linked to divorce. The evolution of new family forms may be adaptations that readjust these variables in order to create new, stabilizing family institutions. CHAPTER IV EVALUATION OF CONTEMPORARY TRENDS IN THE FAMILY The purpose of this final chapter is to evaluate the status of the dominant types of family structure in the United States in the context of their historical setting and in light of the functions they should be serving.1 Growing out of this evaluation will be an attempt to draw some tentative conclusions regarding the future both of these types and also of other emerging forms. 1 I do not purport that my discussion is an exercise either in value-free or advocacy sociology. The word "should” is used in the context of an historical dialectic model: given what is, the following will be emerging in one form or another, to one degree or another, sooner or later. History, however, is not created all by itself- men create this history. Once the impersonal process regarding a particular institution such as the family is articulated, then the implication is that individual human beings will be changing their consciousness, and will be making decisions and acting on the basis of these changes. Once the unconscious process of history becomes conscious, the question of how to think and act then may become political. Judgements are made. Those with ”enlightened consciousness" are glorified; those with "false consciousness" are condemned and guillotined. I am writing as if I am a disengaged social philosOpher, but I recognize that the issues I raise are political. However, a very large part of me is apolitical and I am often repulsed by positions that advocate turning happy, contented, unenlightened lives into miserable enlightened ones. Often, then, the implications of what I write leave me at odds with myself. I realize that the histori— cal process may demand this personal misery it brings, and that those who are sacrificed along the way are compensated by those who are given a new birth. More Optimistically I hope that the struggles of individuals can give subjective meaningfulness to their own lives, not just to others. 33 34 I will use as a starting point the three familial types that Winch and Blumberg (1971) consider to exist in the United States today: 1. a nuclear family embedded in a network of extended kin. 2. an isolated nuclear family. 3. a mother-child (matrifocal) nuclear family. With the continued increase in the mobility of indivi- duals and their nuclear families, the decline of the tra- ditional extended family is continuing and should be expected to continue in the future. The data accumulated by Litwak (1960) which led him to prOpose the existence Of a modified extended family type in the United States today, gives conclusive evidence that nuclear families still tend to have relationships of some sort with extended kin. However, the fact that this modified form "differs from the classical extended family in that there is no single authoritarian head, there is no geographical pro- pinquity, there is no occupational dependence" (p. 178) means that it is not wholly reconcilable with the require- ments of traditional extended familism. Winch and Blum- berg (p. 123) have spoken relevantly to this issue: Actually, the revisionists never did join issues with Wirth, Zimmerman, Parsons, or Linton, who seemed to be asserting or imply- ing that the family-generally the urban middle-class family of the United States- was less enmeshed in a network of the extended family than was the familial form from which it was evolving, be that a rural(perhaps peasant) family or, in the case of Zimmerman, the tribal family of Homeric Greece. What the revisionists actually refuted was something the former authors never asserted...that the 35 urban nuclear family was absolutely isolated (from kinsmen. It would seem like a reasonable hypothesis to expect that a form of the family approximate to the traditional extended type could arise within some of the semi-isolated communes. At this time there is no conclusive evidence one way or the other, but the common observation regarding the high turnover of personnel within these communes, and also the inability to isolate themselves completely from the dominant cultural imperatives of social and geographical mobility, raise considerable doubt as to whether these communes are develOping the stability characteristic of traditional extended familism. Further- more, the absence of extensive blood kinship among the first few generations means that these grOUps could be labelled extended families only in terms of ethos or ideology, with minimal stress on the traditional concern of blood relationship. Thus the traditional extended family form is not significant in the United States today. In their microsociological treatment of the isolated nuclear family, Berger and Kellner (1970) give a detailed analysis of the ”segregated subworld" of this form of family and marriage dominant in our society today. Pas- sing over the processes by which industrialization and urbanization led to the evolution of an isolated nuclear family, they stress the important functions this type of family has for men and women living in established indus- trialized and urbanized societies. They observe that 36 there is a high concentration of intense relationships and subjective involvement with the isolated nuclear family in industrialized societies in contrast with the non-industrialized condition where ”there were few separ- ating barriers between the world of the individual family and the wider community" and where "the same social life pulsated through the house, the street, and the communi- ty.” (p. 56) As a result of this isolation and concen- tration of intensity: the marriage partners are now embarked on the often difficult task of constructing for themselves the little world in which they will live...Success or failure hinges on the present idiosyncracies of only two indivi- duals...A relationship that consists of only two individuals called upon to sustain by their own efforts an ongoing social world will have to make up in intensity for the nu- merical poverty of the arrangement. (p. 57) Intensity and involvement cannot be diffused. The observations of Berger and Kellher are not new or unique, but they do articulate the paradox intrinsic to the isolated nuclear family-~especially to the marital bond-that was mentioned briefly in Chapter III: that while the isolated nuclear family is the last refuge for enduring intense relationships-a vestigial primary group, by the very fact of its concentrated intenseness as the only source of enduring intersubjective knowledge, it also is subject to overload and severe strain. The data on divorce certainly indicate that there is strain of some 37 sort that is contributing to jural instability, and less conclusively to institutional instability. Berger and Kellner point out that "it has been a commonplace of family sociology that marriage serves as a protection against anomie for the individual.” (p. 50) Both theoretical analysis and available empirical data lead us to question whether the isolated nuclear type of family is serving this function of protector better than other family forms that are evolving, or whether there is any family form that can be more than a temporary refuge for individuals today. (see Appendix A) In their discussion of the significance of divorce to the modern family, Berger and Kellner recggnize this para- dox that as the need for the family as a psychological refuge increases, its capacity to meet this need adequate- ly decreases. Unfortunately this recognition is in the context of static analysis. They write, Typically individuals in our society do not divorce because marriage has become unimportant to them, but because it has become so impor- tant that they have no tolerance for the less than completely successful marital arrange- ment...This is more fully understood when one has grasped the crucial need for the sort of world that only marriage can produce in our society, a world without which the individual is powerfully threatened with anomie... (p. 69) To assert that ”only marriage" (which I interpret to mean only the isolated nuclear family) can fulfill the functions it serves is a failure to recognize that there is insti- tutional change and that this change is adaptation to 38 preceding change or to malfunction and strain. Functional analysis must comment on how well needs are being met, and on the real possibilities of new institutional forms evolving that would be as adequate or more adequate than the present ones. Winch and Blumberg's third familial type, the matri- focal nuclear family, might be considered one of these adaptations. The usual treatment by family sociology of the matrifocal family (for example Glazer and Moynihan 1963) sees it as a specific subcultural adaptation (ie. abberation) to dominant cultural and economic exigencies, and does not consider the possibility for its becoming an adaptation within the mainstream culture. Typically the analysis asserts that uneducated and untrained black men are less able to fulfill the economic role essential to the nuclear family in our society; families in this situation survive better economically without the male (maleless they can be helpless agents of the state), and as a consequence the matrifocal family has evolved as a speci- fic adaptation to specific subcultural conditions. The view changes when considering the relationship of general systemic family disorganization in our society to the present and potential evolution of the matrifocal family. The concern is not only with how certain laws, assumptions underlying the laws, and general economic changes have contributed to the develOpment of disorgan- ized, regressive family forms in particular subcultures, 39 but also with how they may be facilitating the growth of a matrifocal type of family that in some contexts is a progressive adaptation to the general problems of the isolated nuclear type. There is considerable evidence for rejection of this as a sound hypothesis. For one thing, given the evidence that it is the woman in the domestic role who lives under the most strain and in the most isolation in the nuclear family, the alternative of the matrifocal family does not necessarily alleviate this situation. Secondly, the ten- dency of divorced women still to remarry (although at a lower rate than men-—see Chapter III) means that this alternative is not yet overwelming the population Of di- vorced women with children. Thirdly, the tendency for women to remarry less than men and at a much less increas- ing rate may in part be explained by the unavailability of potential husbands for divorced women-—especially those with children. Fourth, there is no evidence that children are socialized as adequately in a maleless family. On the other hand, the data on divorce do give in- direct evidence that the matrifocal family is becoming more significant. Many economic and social changes continue to make this family type more feasible in our society. The increasing Opportunity for employment of women, the growth of day-care centers, and the favor given to incomplete nuclear families by welfare laws are all conditions that make matrifocality an Option that is becoming more readily realizable. The fact that the 40 matrifocal family unit may itself be isolated could be alleviated through communal arrangements and through a continued lifting of the consciousness of this status group with common problems.1 I do not foresee that the matrifocal family will be- come the dominant family type.2 However, I do see that it is becoming more significant and it will become even more significant as it becomes more feasible and as more women consider their status intolerable, a consciousness which 1“ The comments by Philip Slater (1970, p. 67) on the isolation of women in the home make it apparent how well communal arrangements (including or excluding males) could alleviate many problems existing for women existing in the nuclear family: "One has only to see a village community in which women work and socialize in groups with children playing nearby, also in groups, supervised by the older ones, or by some of the mothers on a hap- hazardly shared basis, to realize what is awkward about the domestic role in America. Because the American mother is isolated, she Can engage in only one of these three activities at a time--with effort, two. Even taken together they hardly constitute a satisfying occupation for a civilized woman.” 2 In his soundly rejected book, Ma is e and Morals , (1929. DP. 178-180) Bertrand RusseIl made some bold pre- dictions regarding the diminishing role in the family of the male in western Europe and the United States: ”The position of the family in modern times has been weakened even in its last stronghold by the action of the State... Nowadays the family is reduced to the father and mother and their younger children, but even young children, by the decree of the State, spend most of their time at school and learn what the State thinks good for them, not what their parents desire. The State provides medical and dental care and feeds the child if the parents are destitute. The functions of the father are thus reduced to a minimum, since most of them have been taken over by the State...Among those who depend upon earned money, the father is still economically useful, but so far as wage earners are concerned, this utility is being continually diminished by the humanitarian sentiment of the community, which insists that the child should receive a certain minimum of care even if he has no father to pay for it.” 41 will become more prevalent in proportion to the oppor- tunity for change. The family types that potentially provide the most alleviation of the difficulties of the isolated nuclear family are the various new forms of communal living that have arisen over the past decade. One issue that is immediately relevant to all types of communality is the economic scale of renumerations (see Chapter II) that prevails in our society today. Leaving aside questions of causality, the scale of renumerations that has been existing is based on the assumption that a job need only support nuclear families of a limited size. It follows then that if people are to live communally without a large agricultural or horticultural support system, then at least one of a number of possible conditions must be met. For one thing, the scale of renumerations itself could change allowing more people to be supported per unit of time on the job. The scale of renumerations has already been changing indirectly. Until recently, anyway, non-kin living communally could receive federal food assistance (food stamps) as a household. Wages, though, are still paid on the assumption that they should be supporting only the averagedsize family at most. The most progres- sive change that could occur would be the realization of a guaranteed income for every adult person, no matter what his relationship to any family or household may or may not be. This income could be scaled according to the number 42 of non-adults it would support. The existence of a guar- anteed income would allows the maximization of all the potentials of communalism where the activities of work would no longer need to be separate from the primary group within which people live.1 Where the scale of renumerations is not changed, then urban communalism can and does exist within our economic system as long as some of the adult populations within the household remains employed outside. In this situation, even where traditional role patterns remain rigid, the isolation of those ”at home” decreases. This kind of living pattern and economic support system is prevalent in multi-family (nuclear) communal arrangements, where nuclear families clearly keep their separate identities. The initial change within this kind of system is not radical, but its potential effects on interaction within the family are nonetheless immense.2 Other possibilities include acceptance of lower levels of subsistence or incorporation of the economic support system within the commune. All these changes make it possible to live outside of the economic system, or at 1 A guaranteed income would also alleviate some of the difficulties of life within the nuclear family. The isolation Of the adult in the domestic role would poten- tially diminish, as both adult could remain in the home. On the other hand, as a unit its isolation would increase as the necessary economic relationship to the larger world was decreasing. 2 It is interesting to note that when the number of people living together increases from two to four, the combinations of intersubjective relationships on the dyadic level only increase from one to six. When the number of peOple living in one household is eight, there are twenty-eight combinations of dyads, and fifty-six combinations of triads! 43 least the imperatives of the economic system, that have made the isolated nuclear type of family structure so necessary and functional. These basic economic changes make new communal family arrangements realizable possi- bilities. It is also true that they make possible less dramatic shifts within the microcosm of the nuclear family. Although there is not enough evidence to prep dict which particular shifts and which developing types are going to become more significant, these adaptations will continue to occur on one level or another partially as a function of their economic feasibility. As was mentioned in the introduction, ideological and normative effects on the family have been relegated to a subordinate role in this paper. The epistemology of a purely normative or cultural approach to the family or any other institution tends to lead to statements that are tautological and non-explanatory. For example, the cul- tural approach would say to begin with, that peOple in our society normally live in nuclear families. They con- tinue to do so because that is the norm However, there are some peOple who are violating this norm. This is because in some instances attitudes have changed and in others people are behaving on the basis of deviant sub- cultural norms. The way people behave is the norm, but people behave the way they do because it is the norm. This approach gives no recognition to a dialectic between ideas and behavior. They are accepted as a unity. The 44 dialectic needs to be recognized in order to understand the family as sets of circumstances in constant flux, influenced at different points in the cycle by both objective and subjective realities. The alternative to the cultural approach need not relegate ideology and norms to a position of reflecting institutional forms completely determined by technological, environmental, and economic factors. All these variables do is create limitations which will vary according to the institution and the historical situation. For instance, the growth of a private entrepeneurial industrial system and the particular scale of renumerations that accompanied it limited the range of possible family forms in indus- trial sectors to the nuclear family which became more and more isolated. However, contemporary trends in the family present a less rigid and therefore more complex situation. Although certain economic changes make more adaptive family forms possible, there is no evidence they are necessary or inevitable. Even assuming that some form of pure communism or guaranteed income were to come into being, the consequences to the isolated nuclear family would be problematic. Although it has been the purpose of this paper to point out how the isolated nuclear family is maladaptive to important human needs and possibilities as it is historically situated today, it does not follow that the more adaptive evolving forms are necessarily going to become the dominant institutional types. Once certain 45 possibilities evolve, ideology and norms then do become important variables in determining which particular possibilities will become dominant, which will remain subordinate. Thus ideological statements such as the fol- lowing resolution by Archbishop Philip Hannan and devo— tion by Richard W. De Haan must be taken into account for their potential influence and not pigeonholed as histori- cally false consciousness: .....the develOpment of the individual is de- rived largely from the family which is the pri- mary unit of society. The individual and the family draw their strength from the mutual love of father, mother and child (or children). The recognition of the family as the primary unit of society is vitally important to heal- thy social living. Legal approbation Of sex- ual relationships contrary to the present legal and moral position of the family are harmful to the welfare of the family and society. (Mitchell 1971: 24) Yielding to everything a "women's lib" or a similar "men's lib" movement might demand would only make everyone more miserable. This is simply because the key to genuine happiness and contentment in life is the recognition of God's place for each of us and the willing- ness to fill it...The husband should be the head of the home. The wife is to occupy a position of loving submission. Children are to honor and obey their parents...To seek freedom from these reSponsibilities will lead to greater bondage. Only by submitting to God's plan can you ever find true "liberation!" (De Haan and Bosch 1971: l) Normative statements such as these cannot be con- sidered unimportant. All that can be said definitely is that new forms of the family are being realized today in the United States. The degree of their significance 46 will depend in large part on the ideological foundations they develop relative to the normative support for existing forms. The deevolution of the historical neces- sity of the nuclear family does not affirm the necessity of its deeevolution. CHAPTER V CONCLUSION I have difficulty drawing any conclusions. The freedom or will to act in order to change one's life situation must be preceded by an awareness of realizable alternatives. The diversity and flux of modern life tends to impose this awareness, yet people still may use their freedom to escape from this awareness. The only conclusions I can make are very general ones. Even in the modern situation everyone has a family of some form imposed on them--the family they are born into. The extent of this imposition depends on the awareness of both those doing the imposing (the parents) and those who are imposed upon (the children) that this imposition is not necessary or at least that it may be minimized. (COOper 1970) However, this paper has dealt less with the imposed family of birth and more with the chosen families of peoples' lives that follow. Here I have Observed that in the context of changing contingencies-~economic es- pecially-~people are becoming aware of and realizing alter- natives regarding the structure and duration of the fami- lies they choose to live in. As the family has become 47 48 less entrenched in the realm of necessity and entered into the realm of freedom, predictions regarding any family form or form as being necessary and sufficient are dis- honest and futile. The statistical evidence I have presented on divorce indicates that the isolated nuclear family has reached a crisis period. Still the majority of people choose to live in this type of family. For some this may be a safe escape from freedom, for others a miserable knotting es- cape. For even a few it may be a haven of freedom. In this paper I have strongly implied that the deliv- erance of the family from the realm of necessity in Ameri- can society is closely linked with the struggles of women. Although the liberation of women may be considered philo- sophically, their efforts to free themselves are induced by factors more significant than ideology. The nuclear family arrangement in western society has traditionally been more beneficial to men, yet more necessary for women. Women and their children have needed the family for the food and shelter that men have provided them. Men have consumed the family for the comfort, security, and labor that women have provided them. The state and a more Open and affluent economic system now have begun to provide women the food and shelter which they previously were dependent upon men for. Women in turn are no longer so willingly providing comfort, security, and labor to men on inequitable terms. 49 People will continue, though, to live in nuclear families. Possibilities for liberation do not necessi- tate it. In most cases this is not a revolution involving fonts. Reactionary ideology is continuing to have a great deal of influence. Furthermore more equitable arrangements for the nuclear family can and are being worked out.1 But the liberation of women and the concomitant liberation of men no longer makes this particular institutional form of the family necessary. To live in a nuclear family or in any other family arrangement is becoming an authentically personal philosophical problem. It has en- tered the realm of freedom. In the final chapter I mentioned briefly some of the burgeoning communal alternatives to the nuclear family. These included Open arrangements of men,wwmmena and chil- dren; collectives for women and their children, and matrifocal (or patrifocal) families._ Another growing alternative are male homosexual families and communes that may include children adopted from previous situations. There may of course be variations to all of these arrange— ments. It has not been the purpose of this paper to discuss any of these particular alternatives in depth. What is important is that from an ecological or techno- economic perspective all these alternatives are viable, not as deviant forms, but as healthy choices. 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APPENDICES APPENDIX A FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS I do my thing, and you do your thing I am not in this world to live up to your expectations And you are not in this world to live up to mine. You are you, and I am I, And if by chance, we find each other, it's beautiful. If not, it can't be helped. -The Gestalt Prayer Fritz Perls There's a new you coming everyday. --from an ad for milk The self-as-known-to-others is an aspect of psycho- logical existence that has been going through a couple of paradoxical changes in recent times. On the one hand, computerized information banks and other Dick Traceyish technologies of investigation available to governments and other large institutions make it virtually impossible for an individual to be unknown and invisible to a society which finds it advantageous to obtain information on his identity. On the other hand, accelerating possibilities for geographical and social mobility create grand discon- tinuities in personal relationships. As a result the know- ledge others have of an individual's existence is becoming more fragmented. Knowing another person becomes more 58 S9 difficult as lives are less shared.1 Both categorical and personal relationships take on a more contemporaneous quality. Filling in the past can never reveal as much as a shared past. The individual remains unknown. Planning for the future becomes more individualistic where possi- bilities are infinite and therefore agreement to share that much more problematic. The family is the universal unit in which shared knowledge of the self among individuals exists. In con- temporary society, sharing of the self continues as long as the individual endures in the family of origin, al- though fragmentations develop and grow as soon as the child's experiences widen to include those his mother and father do not share (though they demand to), and therefore often cannot understand. In a tribal or agricultural society, where knowledge remained relatively constant, these early fragmentations were minimal; the experience of children in one generation were almost identical to those of previous ones. When the individual departed from the family of origin, he usually continued to have day-to-day contact with the extended family, if in fact he did not continue to live in the same household. In any case, the intrasubjective knowledge and experience of individual persons in these societies rarely had an impact on social relations. The universal uniqueness of each person's I. In his novel Being There (1971), Jerzy Kosinski pre- sents a realizable fantasy of a man whose identity in the social world is falsely created by others who cannot accept the simple, gentle, barely socialized self that is him. 60 subjectivity, whether recognized or not, usually did not have an externalized praxis in these societies. Where it did it was deviant and something to be dealt with accordingly. In America the externalized praxis of the individual has always been and continues to be the name of the game. The rugged individualism of the frontier has been replaced by an introspective concern with autonomy, self—actuali- zation, self-realization, doing one's thing, sense of accomplishment-«all obviously individualistically ori- ented concepts. Although inner peace is one of the imperatives of these new concerns, finding a praxis in the world has an equal importance. The philosophies and therapies that have arisen around these concepts are not in themselves revolutionary, they are reflections of evolving social and ecological conditions. PeOple must do their own thing not because it is cool but because it is less possible or necessary anymore to do anyone else's thing. PeOple must be autonomous in ways that they never had to or were able to in the past because they will risk psychological disaster if they are not. In traditional societies knowledge and experience were shared as was praxis, and all three were linked with the endurance of relationships. In our own society knowledge, experience, and praxis are becoming more individualistic and heterogeneous (deSthe uniformizing influences of television and other media), and this trend is linked to the discontinuity of relationships. In a way it is a 61 process over which we have little control. Fragmentation of knowledge, eXperience, praxis, and relationships are social facts. Like the isolated nuclear family, isolated rural communalism may disguise these facts, lessen the shock of this new world, or allow the fleeting to become enduring where this is possible, but the rest of the business goes on and communes do seem to have a rapid pOpulation turnover. This paper has been concerned with the evolving adaptations that are occurring in the family in conjunc- tion with other social and economic changes. This dis- cussion should not be allowed however to upstage a more basic revolution which is occurring among all human rela- tionships. James Cooke Brown (1970) and Alvin Toffler (1970) both depict our socialist society of the near fu- ture as one where no individual is dependent on any other individual for the fulfillment of his basic needs. All human relationships (as well as most labor) are released from the realm of necessity. All relationships an indi- vidual has with other individuals (except maybe those with representatives of the state) then will be in the realm of free choice. They will exist with only mutual interest and love as their bases. Both Brown and Toffler describe individuals who are alone in the world because the permu- tations for living a life are so numerous that few lives overlap for very long. While Karl Marx was combatting the idealist Hegelians 62 he wrote, "Life is not determined by consciousneSs, but consciousness by life." (Marx 1947: 15) Marx was writ- ing about collectivities, not individuals. Also, it is clear now that Marx was very much concerned with the dia- lectic between consciousness and behavior, and did not view the determination of consciousness by behavior as the total picture any more than the idealist perspective. In any case, it seems as if we are entering into an his- torical period in which the Marxian dialectic must be used to understand individuals 923 individuals and not just as members of groups and classes. As mobility increases, and the quantity of common everyday experience decreases, the existence of any person can be grasped more through knowing the relationships among the individual's unique complex of behavior and thoughts. Each person still may be part of various classes and collectivities, but the probability has increased that these relationships are tenuous and temporary. It is with some regret then that this paper has not examined the alternative to living in any sort of family-- living alone with oneself. It should be clear from my analysis that this alternative is becoming possible for all men and women in our society to the extent that they are allowed to have access as individuals (not as representatives of some unit) to the means of basic sur~ vival. Up to this point the human condition has been marked by the necessity of people depending on particular other 63 people for their survival. For this reason the self rarely has been seen as more than the identities and roles that must be assumed as a dependent being. Neces— sarily peOple have had to join the trips of others. Real autonomy cannot be developed until all these depen- dencies become unnecessary, and in turn the choice is made to be free from vestigial forms of dependency. The human child then can become the human adult. Take a very ordinary situation between parent and child. Parent walks down the high street holding his child's hand. At a certain point there is a necessary breakdown of reciprocity-— the parent holds the child's hand, but the child no longer hold the parent's hand. By a subtle kinesic alteration in hand pressure, the child of three or four years indicates to the parent that she wants to make her own way down the high street in her own time. The parent either tightensrhis grip or takes what he has been taught to experience as a fearful risk--to let his child leave him, not in his time or in socially prescribed time, but in the child's time. ‘1David Cooper If I gave you everything that I owned, And asked for nothing in return, Would you do the same for me as I would for you? Or take me for a ride, Strip me of everything, including my pride, Still it is something that no one destroys. -—Steve Winwood APPENDIX B A PROPOSAL FOR STUDYING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FAMILY DISORGANIZATION AND GENERAL SOCIAL ORGANIZATION Broel-Plateris (1964) has shown that there is a direct positive relationship between divorce and separa- tion rates and the permissiveness of divorce laws, showing in addition how this relationship is less pronounced in rural areas. My proposal will be to utilize existing theory to develop a research strategy that will allow us to account for family disorganization (especially divorce) by examining the effects of changing and varying forms of social organization. In this framework divorce law would become a dependent variable. divorce social organization-----;> family disorganization-~43rlaw changes However in order to determine that divorce law is in fact a dependent variable, we must control it as a variable in initial studies of divorce. Studies ideally should be made within the confines of one state. After separate initial studies have been made within single states, di- vorce law permissiveness ratings then may be used to try to show that divorce law is a dependent variable. For instance, if the separate state studies showed that 64 65 particular forms and manifestations of social organization are highly associated in a positive manner with higher and lower divorce rates, then cross state comparisons predic- tably would show that high divorce rate sectors of states having low divorce law permissiveness ratings would demon- strate similarities in social organization to high divorce rate sectors of states having high divorce law permissive- ness ratings. States where high divorce rates and or- ganizational forms associated with divorce prevail throughout the state would have more permissive laws. In the same manner, those low divorce rate sectors in high divorce rate states having permissive laws would de— monstrate organizational forms already shown to be asso- ciated with low divorce rates. This prOposal grows out of the criticisms of existing strategies utilized in attempting to understand and ex- plain family disorganization in'the United States presented in Chapter II. Social psychological variables are de-em— phasized (with the exception of role conflict), whereas operationalized social organizational variables are empha- sized on the methodological assumption that the former provide no more than descriptions of the divorce phenome- non, while the latter provide more explanatory clues. So- cio-economic variables are neglected because they ultimate- ly provide no explanations unless we jump to the organiza— tional level. The rural-urban continuum or typology is both updated and brought to ammore concrete social organ- izational level. 66 The essence of this proposal is outlined in Figure 2 on page 67. Two basic dimensions of independent varia— bles are used. The first dimensions (horizontal) includes examples of residence categories. This is an extreme modification of the rural-urban continuum with the cate- gories used varying not merely on the basis of pOpulation density. In addition each broad residence category is broken down into finer sub-categories. The possibilities of this first dimension are hardly exhausted by what is presented in Figure 2. The second dimension (vertical) includes specific social organizational variables. It has been attempted in this second dimension to operationalize some of the changes in social organization associated with industrialization and urbanization. The central hypothesis is that all of these variables reflect behavioral changes in the family and outside of it that have accompanied industrialization and urbanization, and that one end along the continuum of variance of each factor has a significant correlation with divorce. Higher divorce rates in particular spheres of the first dimension will be explained by the greater or lesser presence of social organizational variables of the second dimension. For example, one hypothesis might be that in some residential categories there would be a significant positive correlation between the absence of enduring primary group ties and extended family, and that segment of the population with a high divorce rate. Correlations should be found between each social 67 negateszkizenesszea:ssep .950 .fi‘o. mofifldmcgo; 3.32.. mm...» owe gt we): Swag _ 4.. j m. 25,531.. a: DEED. def: :5.“ scan, .dcam chtcwu “teak,“ we At.—i..£..dsd Cashews? to adaptive 1.25.. heficdwco mwta J 8.1.6.. 3a Tobfisflce P0 «5212.. A ooakdn'sFasn. Ascotfioflcomco £2.th 1.3. Nficflofi x33 swung»; ATV/9&5 . xtwtpstfl. dwsoaouVoaon xtcoEEoo xteew wee Aoav #02300 flog ......cDEEQU we. ocatncefi. 2453 we @EJKOLL..30&EW+ ...xcoB o6 tassel» .szemm wimwr’mcovfio’wu - c... ¥zrawocu metawcv xtcoafioo 5 Ex ...Q .2 ..r. w m s. .w s . .m m V We. As is) gofiew .. cameo «a 30 m on»? wocwmfiux ®0L0>CO fig wfidfiOWn/x mwj)o..cd> flocofideEdmeo makgirm cow ‘wfloz ,fi wxjwwm 68 organizational variable along the second dimension and the three divorce divisions of each sub-category along the first dimension. The first division will be for the total population (T) of that sub-category; the second will be for the part of the sub-category's population with a high divorce rate (H); and the third will be for the part of the population with a low rate (L). If we find that even within one sub-category the divorce rate is associated with particular manifestations of the social organizational variables of the second dimension, then we are one step closer to discovering independent variables that do not describe divorce, but explain it. Existing date pools are insufficient to carry out this proposed research. Divorce rates are unavailable for the sub-categories of residence in the first dimension with the exception of rural-farm and rural-village. Although data for the organizational variables may be available, they probably are not broken down residentially. APPENDIX C A STATEMENT MORE PERSONAL Like all intersubjective human endeavors, this paper is less than all mine. The form and logic are yours and theirs. I have modelled what is yours and theirs, but it still falls short of being mine. What is mine has been the participation in the strug- gles of being married, of feeling isolated in that unit, of moving with that marriage to a collective base, of having the marriage fail while in this context, of living alone, of living collectively as a once-married, and of knowing others who have lived comparative chaotic experiences. This paper has been an attempt to find order in this chao- tic experience. The experience and chaos have been real. The ordering is a grasping for something larger than myself--though certainly less real. Once more I return to the reality of subjective chaos with the desperate hope that order will emerge or I can create order when chaos brings me to the edge. Intersubjectivity must be orderly. Sometimes that happens. Most order we experience isn't intersubjective. It is mutual response to an objective order. 69 MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES ll IIIIIJIIIIIHIIIII 3 75 4421 3 1293