Childlessness is one aspect of the diversity inherent in contemporary experience of marriage and the family. With this greater diversity, once-common pressures for childbearing have given way to greater social acceptance of remaining single or married without children. Nonetheless, childlessness is a concern, partly because of its implications for the maintenance of societies and partly because of…
Children of Alcoholics (COAs) is a general term used to describe individuals with one or more alcoholic parents. Although the ramifications of living with an addicted, alcoholic parent are variable, nearly all children from alcoholic families are at risk for behavioral and emotional difficulties (Christensen and Bilenberg 2000), and live with scars—psychological or physical—as a resu…
A country can be judged by countless measures, but for many people the most significant are its treatment of children under eighteen years of age and the legal protection that society affords them. Most people profess to love children: Is this merely an abstraction, or are political and social environments truly child-centered? Are children accorded the rights, dignity, and benefits worthy of thei…
Patterns of health, sickness, and death differ dramatically among countries based on levels of economic development, health policies, and medical technologies. By the mid-1900s, people living in developed (industrialized) countries experienced a sharp decline in their incidence of acute, infectious illness and an increase in rates of chronic illness. The National Commission on Chronic Illness defi…
Circumcision is the practice of surgically removing parts of a person's genitalia, usually involving skin covering the clitoris or glans of the penis. This surgery is most commonly performed on children: either newborn infants or adolescents. The practices, meanings, and implications attached to this activity vary greatly by region, religion, and gender. Because the implications and types o…
A clan—alternatively called a sib or gens—is a kind of kin group whose members claim a shared identity and certain rights based upon descent from a common ancestor. Clans are usually found in societies with descent systems based on only one lineage—descent is figured only through the male line (producing patriclans)or female line (producing matriclans).They have, however, also…
The concept of codependency in the family system emerged from the study and treatment of alcoholism (Gorski and Miller 1984). In the alcoholic family system, codependency may be defined as a particular family relationship pattern in which the alcoholic is married to a spouse who, despite being a non-drinker, serves as a helper or facilitator to the alcoholic's problem behavior (Scaturo and …
Cohabitation, sometimes called consensual union or de facto marriage, refers to unmarried heterosexual couples living together in an intimate relationship. Cohabitation as such is not a new phenomenon. It has, however, developed into a novel family form in contrast with conventional marriage. Part of this change is associated with the absolute rise in cohabitational relationships. Since the 1970s,…
For most parents, a human baby's crying is a particularly evocative signal, which compels them to seek and resolve the cause. Some babies, though, cry for prolonged amounts of time without apparent reason in the first three months after they are born, worrying their parents and leading many to seek expert help. In Western societies, this puzzling phenomenon has come to be known as colic. Fr…
Often, the terms sex difference and gender difference are used interchangeably. This collapsing of terms is somewhat in error. Specifically, sex differences refer to biological differences between men and women. Gender differences, on the other hand, refer to social expectations and stereotypes attributed to men and women by virtue of the biological sex. Similarly, the terms man and woman should b…
Commuter marriage is a voluntary arrangement where dual-career couples maintain two residences in different geographic locations and are separated at least three nights per week for a minimum of three months (Gerstel and Gross 1982; Orton and Crossman 1983). Dual-career families (Rapoport and Rapoport 1976) are those where both heads of the household pursue careers, and their work requires a high …
The comparative method has taken many forms since Augustus Comte first employed the concept in 1853 in his foundational Cours de philosophie positive. Subsequently a variety of comparative methods have emerged in the social sciences with different goals, units of comparison, and types of data that reflect a variety of theoretical assumptions and interests. Comparison has formed the core of anthrop…
The emergence of new technologies in the home, such as microwave ovens and food processors, has continued at an unprecedented rate over the last several decades. Perhaps none of these new technologies is as fraught with questions about its impact on the family as home computers and the Internet. For example, in the developed world, it is commonly estimated that 60 percent of homes have at least on…
Aggressive conduct is that which threatens or causes physical harm to people or animals and typically involves acts such as initiating fights, bullying, intimidating, overt aggression, and physical cruelty. Nonaggressive conduct is characterized by vandalism or intentional destruction of property. Common manifestations of deceitfulness include stealing, persistent lying, and fraudulent behavior. L…
Three characteristics distinguish family conflict from other types: intensity, complexity, and the duration of relationships. First, relationships between family members are typically the closest, most emotionally intense of any in the human experience (Bowlby 1982). The bonds between adult partners, between parents and children, or between siblings involve the highest level of attachment, affecti…
Confucianism is a philosophy with a religious function. It is named after Confucius, whose teachings on ethical behavior have been adopted as a national development model in Chinese history. Currently, Confucianism has a strong influence in China, Korea, Taiwan, and the countries of Southeast Asia, as well as influencing people of Far Eastern descent living around the world. An increasing number o…
The term coparenting refers to the support that adults provide for one another in the raising of children for whom they share responsibility (McHale 1995). Joint parenting of children has been the norm in families cross-nationally since the earliest human societies, with children's grandmothers or other female family members (rather than fathers) most often the ones sharing everyday parenti…
English-speakers classify up to four distinct groups of relatives as cousins. The children of a set of brothers and sisters form the primary category: they are first cousins to each other. More distantly related kin of one's own generation (collateral kin) form the second category. The grandchildren of your grandparents' siblings are your second cousins; the great-grandchildren of yo…
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country measuring 78,866 square kilometers, lying in the central part of Europe. It was established in 1993 after Czechoslovakia split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The Czech Republic has 10.2 million inhabitants, 94.2 percent of which are Czech by nationality. The country's borders neighbor Germany, Poland, Austria, and Slovakia. The Czech Republi…
Dating, from casual to serious, is likely to involve romance and sexual activity, which distinguishes it from social outings between people who consider themselves merely friends (Newman 1999). It is related to two broader processes—courtship and mate selection. Historically, the term courtship has been applied to situations where the intent to marry was explicit and referred to the sociali…