Suchergebnisse

The vanishing nuclear family constitutes one of the most significant demographic and social transformations in recent history. A voluminous body of theoretical and empirical literature in family studies, proceeding on the assumption that the nuclear family is the optimum child-rearing structure, suggests this change will have dire consequences for the well-being of future generations. The present essay challenges that conclusion, pointing out various methodological and conceptual problems with the extant research on which this prediction is based.

Sociological research on voluntary associations seldom has dealt with the characteristics of these organizations as emergent properties. Generally associational elements are conceived of as mere configurations of aggregate member qualities. Thus, the status accorded voluntary groups at any given time is thought to be the sum total of member and leader prestige. Although a high correlation exists between organizational rank and leader‐member status, the relationship remains unexplained. Focusing on three organizational properties as determinants of associational rank, a tentative explanation is offered. It is maintained that as organizations mature their emergent properties become crucial considerations in the selection of their leaders, one consideration being who will best symbolize the organizations' rank in the community.

Using interview data from a national sample of married persons, the extent to which people in remarriages have attributes that adversely influence marital quality and stability is examined. Five models linking remarriage-induced attributes to an increased probability of a decline in marital quality and divorce are evaluated. Persons in remarriages are more likely to be poorly integrated with parents and in-laws, willing to leave the marriage, be poor marriage material, and to have lower socioeconomic status and age-heterogeneous marriages. All but socioeconomic status are found to explain declines in marital quality and higher levels of marital instability. Together the remaining four models explain major portions of the remarriage/marital-quality and remarriage/divorce relationships.

UNIVERSAL patriarchy, asserting that males are always dominant, is firmly established as part of our conventional and scientific wisdom. Close examination of this contention shows it, however, to be wanting on both conceptual and methodological grounds. Further suspicion as to its truth claim derives from an inspection of a dubious case, that the Dahomey of Africa, in whose society women equally occupied positions of authority with men in all major institutional sectors of society. Coupled with these conceptual, methodological, and empirical difficulties, the evolutionary scenario—man as hunter—commonly used to support the notion of universal patriarchy is found to be more of a political convenience than an adequate explanation of dominance patterns. Taken together, these considerations strongly indicate the implausibility of sustaining universal male dominance as a scientific generalization. Some of the implications for family studies of its continued acceptance are noted.