All in the Family

Submitted by Yuko Nishizawa


For the most people, the family is where we belong and is where we learn values and social skills. An institutional marriage is the start of any family and has encouraged by society and almost all nations. 

Families are essential to forming the communities, societies and their cultures. not only is marriage vital to society, studies show other benefits. In general, married people live longer, have higher incomes and have greater emotional support. Children raised by both a mom and dad are less likely to live in poverty or drop of of school and are more likely to finish college. They are also at lower risk of becoming sexually active in their teen years. 


While benefits of marriage are clear, our society faces unprecedented challenges due to an increase of divorce, cohabitation, out-of-wedlock births and fatherlessness - trends which contribute to a weakened family and therefore a drop in individual and community welfare. The juvenile court judge in this video says there is a correlation in crimes committed by people who come from broken family ties. 


I do believe divorce is necessary when family is totally dysfunctional. It is sometimes better for children to be in an environment that it displays more love and care instead of being involved in hatred and violence between a mom and dad. On the same note, parents must think a great deal about children's position and work hard to minimize emotional damage when they decide to break their commitment as a family. We learned recently in the sociology class that there is a trend toward "individualized marriage" that focuses more on development of the couple's own senses of self and the expression of their feelings, as opposed to the satisfaction they gained through building a family and playing the roles of spouse and parent (Andrew Cherlin 593). I understand the point but I have mixed feeling about the individualism approach in a family. Once we become a parent, there are other responsibilities we have to take care of. 

I'm Going to Jump and Nothing will Stop Me!!!

     "Submitted by Jamiylah M."

I recently watched a film called Jumping the Broom. It is about two individuals getting married that come from two different backgrounds. The bride, played by Paula Patton, was raised in a more wealthy and suburban upbringing. The groom, played by Laz Alonso, was raised in a single parent home closer toward the city. Both individuals are African American as well as their parents, but when it came time for the two families to meet, there were a lot of clashing moments because of different viewpoints on certain wedding traditions. In the movie there is a disagreement between the bride’s mother and the groom’s mother about whether or not the couple should “jump the broom” after exchanging vows at the altar. The tradition of “jumping the broom” is a social norm among African American culture.  I could not understand why the bride’s mother would not want to include a tradition that age back to the days of slavery.  So, I decided to go into further research about what “jumping the broom” symbolizes and how and why it is an important tradition. 

Jumping the broom was a tradition that began back in the 1600s during slavery. Slaves were not allowed to legally marry and have lavishing weddings in a church. Most of their ceremonies took place within their living quarters on the plantation. A huge part of the ceremony was the tradition of “jumping the broom.” A broom would be placed on the floor and the couple would jump over the broom as a symbol of stepping into a new world as husband and wife. The broom was a household item that the couple would have for years to come. The hairs of the broom represented the members of the family. Where the handle was represented the family as a unit and the ribbon tied around the handle would signify the marriage that will bind the family of the groom and the bride as one.

   Culture is defined as the beliefs, values and norms that are passed on through generations. The broom in the tradition would be considered material culture because it is a physical object that passes on the heritage of the African culture. For the slaves to not be able to publicly express the union and love of two individuals was tragic but they were able to find an alternative way of expression. The nonmaterial culture within “jumping the broom” is the belief that once the couple steps over the broom they are unified and officially husband and wife. Nonmaterial culture is defined as a belief or value that is shared among everyone pertaining to the culture. Although union through jumping a broom is not through legal documents or anything it is accepted among the people because the belief is part of the culture.

In the world today, African Americans continue with the tradition of “jumping the broom” for many reasons. Some do so because it is tradition that they have seen their parents and grandparents do. Some exercise the custom as a norm which is something worldly accepted within the culture. And majority of African Americans do so to keep the beliefs and values of their ancestors, slaves who were not allowed to have wed, alive and continuous throughout generations to come.

All in all, I think that the bride's mother's refusal of letting the couple jump the broom is not a good idea. She felt as though it would be tacky and did not want to do something that would remind her of slavery. I think she is completely wrong and that having the couple jump the broom would be a positive contribution to the wedding. It would be a good tradition of the African culture for her to pass down to the newlyweds as well as pay homage to their ancestors by keeping the belief and values that "jumping the broom" brings to a marriage in their culture.

(click link to see the trailer) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D90GKozn-Xg

  

Family..Together We Have It All (Not)

When we look at the whole ideal of family sociologically, we learn that the structure has changed over time. Most of the time when people think of family, the image of a mother, father and children is what comes to there mind. That is actually the definition of a nuclear family, which is parents, and one or more children. However, there are more forms that can be used to define a family such as a single-parent family which is one parent and a child or children. Extended family is when a nuclear family or single-parent family lives with any extended family members. 

Nuclear Family                                               Extended Family

Single Parent Family
  




It all goes back to the development of marriage. Marriage means several different things according to the time and place of the culture and those families involved. Marriage seems to be supported by different reasons. Here are a few:

•           Love

•          Economics

•          Cultural and political structures

In the 19^th century an ideal husband was the breadwinner and the wife was a homemaker. This has tainted gradually as the economy weakened and the wives joined the workforce. They gained access to legal rights, education and birth control. These changes have altered the stability of authority within families. This raised the rates of divorce. The consequence of this is the increase of single-parent households, remarriages and extended families. It has disheartened some couples today of seeking everlasting unification. We now have non-marital unions, which are couples living together but not married. There are also cases of births from out-of-wedlock marriages.

In conclusion, Philadelphia’s same-sex couples are prohibited from marrying. In my opinion let’s recognize, embrace, and support family diversity that should exists. Criticizing people, who are divorced, single parents, unmarried couples, and the needs of gay, lesbian and bisexual people, aren’t positive approaches for supporting families.

Submitted By: Diane Mapp

The Nuclear Family

Submitted by: Jamila Ferguson

Ideally, society teaches us that the typical family consists of two married people, which are a man and a woman, plus their offspring. This is called the “nuclear” family. In before times the man was the breadwinner and the women stayed at home and took care of the children, etc. Yet in today’s time we are learning that there are many deviations in the family. I’ve noticed that in the previous neighborhood that I lived in, Polygyny has become more popular than it has been in recent years due to the number of people converting their religion over Islam, where primarily the husband is married to more than one woman. This usually happens when the primary wife cannot bear children or become seriously ill and can no longer tend to the house or the children. The second, third, or fourth wives are considered “co-wives”. In addition, the percentages of married couples in the U.S. are becoming smaller and smaller due to the independence that women are gaining. Michelle Obama is a great example of this. Also, many families are beginning to be ran by female figures. For instance, my cousin got married and pregnant when she was 18 and immediately afterwards she divorced her husband because of infidelity reasons. My cousin’s husband then abandoned her and the baby and does not support the child in any way. Now she’s all alone, a single-mother stuck, with the responsibility of raising a child and taking care of the household on her own. However, some men in Nepal and Tibet allow their wife to be married to more than one man so that the amount of limited land that’s inherited can be shared. In this case the woman usually marries brothers (Richard Shaefer, 2011), this is called polyandry. To me this sounded weird because in the United States it is generally considered “adultery” or cheating when anyone has other relations with someone else outside their primary marriage. It is considered degrading to date more than one man, let alone brothers. Despite my opinion about multiple spouses and my belief in the traditional nuclear family, I also understand the motives behind why spouses marry more than just one.