Family
Family
I COMPARATIVE STRUCTURERaymond T. Smith
II DISORGANIZATION AND DISSOLUTIONClifford Kirkpatrick
The articles under this heading discuss the central aspects of the family as a universal institution in society. Closely related are the entries Kinship; Marriage. The reproduction function of the family is discussed in Fertility; Fertility Control; the socializing function of the family is reviewed in SOCIALIZATION as well as in Culture And Personality; Developmental Psychology; Infancy; Personality, article on Personality Development; Moral Development. Stages in family life are reviewed in Adolescence; Aging; Death; Life Cycle; as well as in Family, article on Disorganization And Dissolution. Specialized aspects of the family are reviewed in Adoption; Affection; Incest; Nuptiality; Paternalism; Sexual Behavior. Many anthropologists, psychologists, and sociologists have contributed to an understanding of the family; the following biographies are of particular relevance: Bachofen; Burgess; Engels; Frazer; Freud; Gesell; Hall; L,E Play; Mclennan; Maine; Malinowski; Morgan, Lewis Henry; Radcliffe-Brown; Tylor; Waller; Westermarck.
I COMPARATIVE STRUCTURE
One of the few widely accepted generalizations of social science asserts that “the family” is an institution found in all human societies. There is controversy over just what constitutes the family and what its functions might be, but the generalization itself is widely accepted. In modern Euro-American societies it is accepted that the normal family is a coresidential group which consists of a married couple and their own children and which lives apart from other kin. This has become the reference type for comparative study, and it is argued that in modern, highly differentiated societies such as those of North America and Europe the family has become a highly specialized agency exhibiting the essential and irreducible characteristics which are significant for cross-cultural comparison (Parsons & Bales 1955, p. 10).
In all human societies provision must be made for biological and social reproduction if the society is to continue, and it is generally assumed that the family performs at least these functions. Mating is never simply random, and children require a long period of care by a limited number of individuals with whom they develop relations of intimacy if they are to grow up as normal human beings capable of playing adult roles. This conclusion is based partly upon experimental evidence (Bowlby 1951) and partly upon inference from the fact that in all known societies children are raised in small kinship-based groups and there are customary modes of regulation between children and their socially recognized parents and between the parents themselves. Looked at in this way there is a very close relationship between the family and the domestic group, and both constitute systems of relationship which vary over time. The form of these systems is tied to the physical processes of individual birth, maturation, and death, so that families, like individuals, pass through developmental stages (Fortes 1958). The processes of individual maturation and death are social as well as physical, since individuals are participants in social systems as well as in biological processes. Societies live longer than either individuals or families, but societies exist only through the patterned interaction of individuals who share common understandings. Mating and procreation provide for the continuity of the biological species, while socialization relates it to the equally important continuity of social structure and cultural pattern. It has been argued on both theoretical and empirical grounds that the primary function of the family is socialization, so that an intimate relation is established between biological and social processes, a relation which is reflected in the dependence of demographic trends upon social custom.
The generalizations set out above seem to hold true in a large number of different societies, but it is not certain to what extent the observations and descriptions used have been influenced by the definitions adopted by field investigators. Some writers have expressed doubt that the family is a universal human institution, but both the assertion and its refutation depend upon some agreed identification of what is being discussed.
Definitions
Domestic groups . A domestic group may be defined as a group of people who habitually share a common dwelling and a common food supply. These minimal activities of domestic groups may be greatly extended, and domestic groups may vary in size and stability. The word “family” has its origin in a Latin word which could be roughly equated with “domestic group,” but for sociological purposes the two must be sharply distinguished. Domestic groups may be made up of individuals between whom no kinship ties exist, and, conversely, members of one family may be distributed over two or more domestic groups. The term “household” may be used interchangeably with “domestic group.”
Biological family . In Euro-American societies the basic model of kinship and family ties is that of biological relatedness and sexual intercourse, so that kin and familial relations are thought of in terms of physical descent or sexual relations. This is not so in all societies, even though it appears that family relations are almost invariably intimately associated with sexual regulation and reproduction. Social relations of family and kinship can develop independently of genetic links or sexual relations, so that adoption or other forms of fictive kinship are just as real as blood ties. Even where actual genetic links exist they do not constitute social relations; these must be learned and developed separately. Similarly, marriage is always more than sexual mating. Schneider (see Aspects of the Analysis … 1965) has expressed in a particularly pointed and convincing way the objections to confusing an analytical definition of kinship with definitions stressing biological relatedness.
The relation between mother and child appears to be in a rather special category, since the human infant is part of its mother’s physical being before birth and continues to be dependent upon her or a substitute for a considerable period afterward. The development of artificial feeding has modified this close dependence, but experience in rearing motherless infants has shown that adverse effects result from deprivation of close continuous contact with a mother figure in early infancy. The “mother figure” can be any suitable person, and experiments with monkeys have shown that, for them, even contraptions of wire and cloth can serve as “mothers” in some sense. This raises the question of just what we mean when we use words such as “mother” and should lead to a careful distinction between the activities involved in mothering on the one hand and the biological relationship of the mother to the child on the other. In the case of the father-child relationship, the more frequent disjunction between biological and social paternity has led to a distinction between pater and genitor. The former term is used to refer to a child’s legally recognized father and the latter to his supposed biological father. In some societies a child’s father (pater) may be a woman or a dead man. Among the Nuer of east Africa, the kin of a man killed in war before he had married would sometimes marry a woman to “his name.” After payment of the bride price the woman cohabited with a lover, but any children born to her were the legal offspring of the dead “husband,” inheriting from him and sacrificing to him as their ancestor. Cases such as this make clear the differences between biological and social links, and although the family is frequently, or even usually, coincident with a particular constellation of biological links, it cannot be defined in terms of them.
Nuclear family . The term “nuclear family” (or “elementary,” “simple,” or “basic”) is most frequently used to refer to a group consisting of a man, a woman, and their socially recognized children. This is a straightforward use of the term; it refers to concrete groups, and the qualification “nuclear” suggests that this is the unit out of which more extensive family groups are built or grow. The group need not be coresidential provided regular relationships are maintained among its members. It need not exist as a separate and isolated entity but may be contained within more extensive groups provided it is given some recognition. It has been suggested that the nuclear family is the universal form of family relations, always fulfilling “distinctive and vital functions–sexual, economic, reproductive, and educational . . .” (Murdock 1949, p. 3). “The nuclear family is a universal human social grouping. Either as the sole prevailing form of the family or as the basic unit from which more complex familial forms are compounded, it exists as a distinct and strongly functional group in every known society” (p. 2). The evidence for this statement is far from conclusive, and much of it that does seem to support the generalization may be biased simply because of the way in which the data have been collected and presented. Cases such as the Nayar and the Ashanti (see below) tend to disprove the assertion, and this has now been recognized by Murdock.
Parsons has argued that the nuclear family exhibits characteristics which seem to be necessary (on theoretical grounds) for the socialization of children and the stabilization of adult personalities (Parsons & Bales 1955). He has argued elsewhere that the incest taboo is also universal in human societies for similar reasons and that taboo results in the perpetual creation of new nuclear-family groups through marriage (Parsons 1954). Even if one accepts the ideas that sexual intercourse must be regulated and that children must be cared for and socialized within small groups with the characteristics exhibited by the nuclear family, this does not necessarily mean that the nuclear family, as defined by Murdock, is universal. Levy and Fallers (1959) have suggested that a distinction should be made between the nuclear family as a concrete group and the “nuclear-family relationship complex.” The latter would consist of the relationships of husband-wife, mother-son, mother-daughter, father-son, father-daughter, brother-sister, brother-brother, and sister-sister considered as a system of interaction between roles. By looking at the nuclear family as a system of roles rather than as a concrete grouping of individuals, it is possible to see that role behavior appropriate to this complex might be distributed among a number of individuals, groups, or agencies that do not themselves constitute a single group. Malinowski showed that certain aspects of what he considered to be the normal “father” role are played by the mother’s brother in some societies with matrilineal inheritance and descent. Similarly, in some societies the “mother” role is played in whole or in part by mother surrogates, such as mother’s sisters, mother’s mothers, paid nurses, or teachers. In order to make statements such as these it is necessary to assume that we know what the “real” or “normal” nuclear-family role complex is, and here it is evident that there is a tendency to take the Euro-American family pattern as the type case. Despite this drawback, the concentration of attention upon a role complex rather than concrete groups is a step toward freeing the concept of nuclear family from the rigidity imposed upon it by Murdock. If one asserts that the nuclear-family relationship complex is institutionalized in all human societies–instead of speaking of the universal occurrence of nuclear-family groups–then it is possible to account for the normal development of children brought up in groups that are not nuclear families in the restricted sense. Where one parent is missing or no siblings are present, children may still be affected by the institutionalized nuclear-family role complex, different elements of which are activated by other kinsmen, neighbors, teachers, or even more remote individuals. We may also relate the necessary biological and social functions to this role complex rather than to concrete nuclear families and leave it to empirical investigation to show just how the roles are embodied in a particular society. While this goes some way toward freeing investigation from the analytical restrictions imposed by the concept of the universality of the nuclear family, there are good grounds for going even further and asking just what is meant by the roles involved in the supposedly universal nuclear-family role complex.
Compound family . The term “compound family” is used to refer to a concrete group formed through the amalgamation of nuclear-family units or parts of them. A polygynous household consisting of one man, his three wives, and their respective children would constitute a compound family, as would a family group constituted by remarried widows or divorcees with children from a previous marriage. A compound family need not constitute a coresidential group.
Joint family . According to the handbook Notes and Queries on Anthropology (see British Association … 1874), a joint family exists when “two or more lineally related kinsfolk of the same sex, their spouses and offspring, occupy a single homestead and are jointly subject to the same authority or single head.” An example would be a group consisting of a man and his wife with their married sons and their wives and children. It would be wrong to think of such a group as being a mere mechanical aggregate of nuclear families. Joint families generally arise, exist, and persist because they carry out activities more extensive than would be possible for a nuclear-family group. Joint families grow as younger members bring in spouses rather than setting up independent households. As the younger married couples beget children, it may be possible to detect the existence of a number of nuclear-family cells within the structure of the joint family. The younger married couples will often have their own living quarters and may establish their own cooking facilities. If they have their own budgetary arrangements, then the joint family has really split–even if the young couples do not actually move out of the house. On the other hand, the joint family may be such a cohesive unit that it is difficult to see nuclear families within it as separate groups in any meaningful sense. The men may form one solidary group and the women another; the children may regard all the women of the house as their “mothers.” Eventually, as the original family grows too big, the joint family will either split or some persons will leave to form separate groups.
Extended family . An extended family is a dispersed version of the joint family. That is, the members of the constituent groups of an extended family do not all live together in one dwelling. They usually live close together and engage in common activities.
The concept of extended family really exhausts the usefulness of the word “family” for this kind of empirical classification, since an extended family is already a short lineage and can be discussed in terms of lineage theory, or it is a kindred and may be analyzed as such. Since birth is the criterion of membership in lineages and kindreds, they tend to develop considerable interest in the birth, training, and ultimate loyalties of their recruits, so that there is a close fit between these formations and the “families” which provide and train the recruits.
Comparative family studies
Because they are a part of all human experience and such a powerful agency in the formation of adult attitudes, familial relations have always been a subject of interest and discussion. Their changing and varied forms have been studied by such diverse and ancient disciplines as theology, classics, law, and philosophy. This interest quickened during the period known in Europe as the Enlightenment, but it was the late nineteenth-century interest in evolution that stimulated extensive comparative studies of family forms. Fantastic theories were proposed in an attempt to reconstruct the history of mankind and to account for the existence of seemingly pointless customs and strange kinship terminologies among non-European peoples. Bachofen’s postulated development of society from promiscuity through a great period of mother right and female dominance to father right and patriarchy was an attempt to account for the recognized importance of matrilineal descent systems and the universal importance of motherhood. Other writers of the period argued in much the same way, although disagreeing on developmental priorities. Such writers as Sir Henry Maine, Edward Tylor, J. F. McLennan, Lewis H. Morgan, Friedrich Engels, Sir James Frazer, E. Westermarck, and Robert Briffault carried forward the debate on origins, and, although their theories were highly speculative, they encompassed a wide range of cases and paid particular attention to historical sources. Despite the shortcomings of both theories and sources, these writers laid the foundations for modern studies by systematizing existing information on the family, and they are still worth reading for their insight into problems that have been neglected.
It is surprising that students of the family have not paid more attention to a series of basic sociological works which concern themselves with the classification of social relationships. Maine, Tonnies, and Durkheim, in particular, set up dichotomous categories which they believed to represent fundamentally different types of social relationship: relations of status as opposed to contract; relations of Gemeinschaft as opposed to Gesellschaft; mechanical versus organic solidarity. In all these systems one pole was most clearly represented by relations of a familial or kinship type. Since it was generally assumed that we know what familial relations are, this reference was intended to be illustrative, although Tönnies, in his Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft, attempted to show how natural will develops within the complex of relations that go to make up the family. The crux of the matter is that what we term familial relations are relations exhibiting a particular kind of solidarity that involves persons in total and permanent social relations. This type of relationship is contrasted with the partial and specialized character of Gesellschaft or contractual relations. Just where the boundaries of familial relations are drawn varies from one society or subgroup to another and is, of course, affected by a large number of empirical factors.
Intensive field-work methods developed during the early twentieth century by Boas, Kroeber, Lowie, and others in the United States and by Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown in Britain produced a new body of detailed information on kinship, marriage, and the family. Malinowski’s work on the family in Australia and Melanesia was a study of primitive matriliny and was intended to show (in part at least) that the nuclear family emerges naturally even where there is ignorance of the male role in the physiological process of reproduction. The Trobriand Islanders studied by Malinowski asserted that children are conceived when a spirit enters the body of a woman and that sexual intercourse is simply a matter of mutual satisfaction to the persons involved. Malinowski was impressed by the fact that men developed important social relationships with their wives’ children even though they did not consider that there was any biological connection involved. Furthermore, men did not exercise the kind of authority over their children that is often associated with “paternity”; the mother’s brother was more important in that respect. He concluded from these observations that the nuclear family is a universal institution but does not always assume the emotional configuration suggested by Freud’s theory of the Oedipus complex; it is rather a “functional formation dependent upon the structure and upon the culture of a society” (Malinowski [1927] 1953, pp. 142-143). The implication of this idea was that the nuclear-family complex could be activated by various persons and agencies–in the case of societies with matrilineal descent groups it may be that repressed hatred between uncle and nephew replaces that found between father and son in patriarchal societies.
Radcliffe-Brown’s brilliant and lucid treatment of the jural significance of kinship ties enabled him to look at the family in terms of the formal duties, rights, and obligations between the members and between them and external groups. Whereas Malinowski regarded wider kinship ties as “mere extensions” of the nuclear-family complex and the sentiments generated within it, Radcliffe-Brown spoke of the varying modes of incorporation, for jural purposes, of the unit of mother and children. He saw the relationship between a mother and her children as being somehow “basic” because of the close emotional and nurturant ties involved, while other kinship ties could be stressed or neglected to varying degrees depending upon the structure of the whole social and kinship system. In other words, Radcliffe-Brown’s concern was not with the family as a locus of emotional solidarity, or socialization functions, or sexual satisfactions; he was more concerned to explore the ways in which the empirical reference points of birth, sexual relations, and child rearing could be variously stressed for legal purposes. Apart from the apparent invariability of the mother-child relationship, he was prepared to accept the fact that all the other activities and functions could be distributed in widely varying ways.
In the generation since these pioneers of field investigation, detailed work has been carried out in many parts of the world, yielding new information and continuous refinement of theory. The development of the Yale cross-cultural survey is an attempt to organize material from a wide range of sources in order to make inductive generalizations about human societies or to test particular hypotheses. Other writers make similar generalizations based upon a more selective use of sources. In either case it is evident that the generalizations are no better than the observations on which they are based. This is well demonstrated by Murdock’s generalizations based on the cross-cultural survey files. Observations reported in monographic studies depend to a considerable extent upon the investigator’s preconceived ideas and categories or upon his interests. In the field of family studies all these may be severely limited.
Parallel to the development of a wide-ranging comparative study of kinship and family structure, there has been a continuing tradition of interest in the family life of Europe and America. In the nineteenth century, Le Play constructed a typology of European family structures ranging from the patriarchal systems of the semifeudal eastern European areas, which resulted in the development of extended families, through the famille-souche, or stem-family, of the semi-industrial areas to what he considered to be the unstable and disorganized systems of the urban industrial areas. Le Play’s typology, or something very like it, seems to have regained favor as a universal system of classification (see Levy in Aspects of the Analysis …1965). The stem-family type is of particular interest because it seems to combine an emphasis upon the ideal of family continuity with an actual situation where most of the domestic units are small and self-liquidating.
As a result of their work on the development of capitalism and its institutional structure, Marx and Engels became interested in the development of the family, an interest which was quickened by the publication of Lewis H. Morgan’s Ancient Society (1877). Marx read this work and made extensive notes on it, but it was Engels who published an extensive commentary on it after Marx’s death, under the title The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. In this work Marx’s general theories of social and economic history are combined with Morgan’s speculative history of kinship institutions. The most general conclusion of the book is that a stable monogamous family system, dominated by male authority and prescribed and supported by law, has really developed as a device for the perpetuation of the private ownership of property. This conclusion has been widely misinterpreted to mean that Engels was opposed to any sort of family relationships and that the family should be abolished in socialist societies. On the contrary, Engels went out of his way to point out that the emotional and sexual elements involved in family relations can only be paramount when considerations of property do not enter into the picture. Thus, he argued that the proletariat make and break marital unions only upon the basis of mutual attraction, whereas in bourgeois marriage the conjugal pair are indissolubly united even when they have no love for each other and perhaps engage in adultery with other available partners.
The influence of Freud’s work upon comparative family studies can only be mentioned in passing. It has produced some of the most penetrating hypotheses concerning the content of family relationships, particularly in European and American societies where psychoanalysis’ has been most widely practiced as a therapeutic technique. Studies of the relation between culture and personality focus upon the familial milieu as the context of personality development, and students of this field have produced some of the most detailed and intimate documentation of family life in non-Western cultures. It is also evident that Freud’s thought has influenced the formation of hypotheses about the nature and functions of family structure, at least since the work of Malinowski.
Theoretical and research problems
Despite the considerable time and effort devoted to family studies and despite the refinement of definitions and the improvement of concepts, our knowledge of the family remains rudimentary. We use the term “family” in the loosest possible way, perhaps because of the very nature of the data themselves. For comparative study it is necessary to exercise great care in the construction of theoretical models in order to avoid distortions in observation and description. The bulk of family theory is derived from the Euro-American cultural tradition and from the study of European and American societies. The development and extension of psychoanalysis has produced both a large collection of empirical data and a growing sophistication in its interpretation. But this has been accompanied by a tendency to attribute functional necessity to observed patterns, so that there is a danger of assuming that the functions performed by small family groups in Euro–American societies must be performed by similar groups, similarly defined and constituted, in all societies. Parsons (see Parsons & Bales 1955) has tried to show the systematic relation between nuclear-family structure on the one hand and socialization for participation in wider social systems on the other. This analysis is very convincing in its establishment of the general conditions which seem to be necessary for adequate human socialization, but those conditions can be expressed in very general terms and could be met by a wide variety of actual persons and groups. If the nuclear family is to be thought of as that group that carries out primary socialization, then it is necessary to investigate the empirical composition of such groups in a wide range of societies.
Should we continue to use the model of nuclear family or even of nuclear-family relationship complex as a measure for cross-cultural comparison?
Is this anything more than a device for making all observations fit our conception of what should exist? Or is it mainly a problem of language? Will more flexible terms that are not derived directly from a particular cultural tradition enable us to overcome these difficulties? Similar problems have arisen in debates over the question of whether all societies have “law” or “a political system.” In spite of some recent defense of the idea of the universality of the nuclear family from linguistic analysts (Lounsbury 1965), it would seem to be desirable to keep an open mind on the question.
Much of the work already done in the study of comparative family structure has been based upon the collection of information about norms, that is, the ideal modes of behavior in different societies; and, as we have suggested above, these have usually been translated into terms of the norms of Euro-American society. Many anthropologists have supplemented interview data and informant’s statements with case material, genealogical investigation, sample surveys, and statistical analyses. The aim has been either to try to determine what the system “really is” or to discover the manner in which norms work out in practice. Pioneering work in this regard was done by Audrey Richards, John Barnes, and Meyer Fortes. Fortes has always stressed the importance of regarding the family as a process in time and of looking at the cyclical development of family structure. As the individuals who compose family groups grow older and as new members are born and others die, the structure of the group changes as well as the relationships between the individuals concerned. New possibilities for this type of analysis are presented by the development of computers. With the aid of these machines it is possible to simulate the experience of a whole community of families over a long time period by constructing models of family structure or household composition and then applying to them such variable elements as birth and death rates, age at marriage, duration of unions, and fertility patterns. In this way it is possible to determine what varieties of family and household types would be produced under varying circumstances over varying time periods.
A major controversy that has developed within anthropology has considerable bearing on the whole subject of comparative family studies. This controversy starts with Levi-Strauss’ idea that the building block of kinship systems is not the biological or nuclear family but a constellation of roles which includes the siblings of a marrying couple as well as their children. In disagreeing with Radcliffe-Brown’s contention that it is the relations between members of the “elementary family” that constitute the unit of structure from which all kinship systems are built, he says:
Of course, the biological family is ubiquitous in human society. But what confers upon kinship its socio-cul-tural character is not what it retains from nature, but, rather, the essential way in which it diverges from nature. A kinship system does not consist in the objective ties of descent or consanguinity between individuals. … The essence of human kinship is to require the establishment of relations among what Radcliffe Brown calls “elementary families.” Thus, it is not the families (isolated terms) which are truly “elementary,” but, rather, the relations between those terms. (Lèvi-Strauss [1958] 1963, pp. 50-51)
From this starting point Lèvi-Strauss proceeds to a complex analysis of preferential and prescriptive marriage systems, but the perspective which he introduced leads to a new assessment of intrafa-milial relations.
Briefly, the question is whether the relations of nuclear family and of filiation always constitute a basic “natural” system which tends to counterbalance particular kinship ties stressed for jural purposes, or whether we should regard nuclear-family relations as being nothing more than a fortuitous complex of highly variable relations some of which may be dispensed with altogether. For example, if filiation is always bilateral (because every child must have a “father” and a “mother”), then where patrilineal descent is stressed for jural purposes the strong jural tie between father and child will be balanced by the tie between mother and child and, by extension, between the child and its mother’s kin–a tie of complementary filiation. Conversely, it could be argued that where matri-lineal descent is stressed, a compensating bond will exist between father and children and between the child and the father’s kin. The point to be noted in this argument is that the ties between parents and children may be accorded great legal significance or may be simply affective, but they derive ultimately from the bonds of filiation and descent which arise within the nuclear-family relationship complex. These relations are socially rather than biologically defined, but they focus upon activities which are familial.
The contrary view is that relationships between a child and its parents may derive from the fact that the parents are married to each other rather than from any bond of filiation. Thus, the Trobri-and Islanders assert that there is no genetic link between fathers and their children. A man is a “father” because he is the husband of the child’s mother. Of course this ideological view of the matter seems to be related to the political and legal sphere rather than to the field of domestic relations, where fatherhood may be rooted in a set of activities rather than a set of abstract principles.
It is not necessary to document the details of this controversy here; adequate references will be found in Leach (1961) and Schneider (see Association of Social Anthropologists … 1966). The point of interest here is Leach’s contention that relations between children and parents may be as variable as any other social relations and that we should be prepared to find societies in which even the mother-child relationship is conceived of as one wholly derivative from the fact of the mother’s marriage to the father, who is thought of as the person with whom the child has a real consanguineal relationship. In such a situation the mother is an affine; she is not “mother” necessarily at all, but “father’s wife.”
The controversy outlined here does not focus upon the internal relations or the structure of the family as such; it is concerned with an understanding of the structure of total social systems. But it does bring into quite sharp focus the need to abandon a dogmatic view of the universality of nuclear-family relations and the need to differentiate clearly between the activities involved in domestic relations, the facts of biological interconnectedness, and the interlocking of familial and wider kinship relations. It seems likely that future research will operate with a bigger collection of more differentiated concepts derived from a splitting up of such notions as descent, filiation, sibling bonds, alliance, and, of course, the general notion of nuclear family.
Throughout the discussion so far it has been assumed that comparative family studies refer to comparisons between different societies and that “structure” means societal norms. Some of the most interesting modern research is concerned with the study of differences in family structure within societies; studies which throw light upon the nature of society itself. It has long been recognized that the structure of family relations appears to vary with class, ethnic group, and other factors. This raises the question of whether the variation lies at the level of culture (that is, in the norms themselves) or whether the actual distribution of empirically ordered “types” of family is the result of constraints operating to prevent the full realization of cultural ideals. For example, it is generally accepted that Hindus value a joint family system in which marriages are contracted at an early age and are indissoluble and in which brides are brought to live in their husband’s father’s house, where they come under the authority of the senior woman and the men form a corporate group. In fact, it would seem that such ideal patterns are met only by the wealthier families, where a common interest in property serves as a binding factor, while the poorer families tend to be small and to consist of only a couple with their own minor children. It has also been suggested that the size of households would be limited under preindustrial conditions everywhere by the early death of parents and high infant mortality rates. Such arguments ignore the fact that purely demographic constraints can be circumvented, since family and kinship relations are not biological relations and since adoption or other forms of culturally defined kinship ties can be used as the basis of household formation.
Important though adoption and the collapsing of relationships may be as a means of keeping functioning groups intact, it must be realized that the exigencies of birth-and-death rates and other demographic variables do have an effect upon household composition, just as the biological processes of maturation have an effect. Sociologically, a more important consideration is the extent to which norms vary from group to group and result in the precipitation of different configurations of family organization. In the United States there has been discussion of “the culture of poverty” in relation to the incidence of fatherless families among lower-status and lower-income groups. In such cases it is difficult to determine whether the pattern of family living among these lower-income groups is determined by a simple inability to command the means of achieving valued patterns of behavior or whether different values are operative. In such cases the study of family life becomes a very sensitive index to the whole mode of integration of the over-all social system. This question is discussed further below.
Although knowledge of the genesis of emotional disturbance and social deviance is much more extensive than it was 25 years ago, it is still inadequate. The complexity of the relationship system of family groups is understood in only the most general terms despite the considerable body of detailed information pertaining to Euro-American families. The profound hatreds and bitter rivalries which are the counterpart of the relations of familial solidarity are well known to anthropologists, both as the source of conflicts with political and economic significance and as the basis of witchcraft beliefs and magical and religious practices. These conflicts are the product of the interaction systems themselves within small “multibonded” groups and may have considerable significance for wider system organization. It has often been remarked that the family is the unit within which primary socialization takes place and within which the growing child is taught the ultimate value orientations of the whole society. This is not necessarily done formally, but the values may be implicit in the general structure of the familial relationship system itself. If this is so, then it is important to know how these relationships are structured in different societies and just how the values are internalized by the growing child.
The range of variability
In the large Ashanti villages of central Ghana one can often see children carrying pots of food from their mother’s house to the house of their father. The children may eat with their father and then go home to sleep at the house where their mother lives, while the mother may visit the father for the night. This pattern of divided residence and visiting back and forth seems to exist because the Ashanti traditional social system stresses matrilin-eal descent for important social purposes, such as inheritance of land, succession to office, and political status. Women often value the tie to their brother as highly as, or higher than, the relationship to their husband, since it is from the brother that their children will inherit. Because the child’s place in society is mainly determined through its relationship to its mother and her matrilineal kin, the breaking of a marital tie is of little legal consequence either for the spouses or for the children. It is true that fathers have always had responsibility for the upbringing of their own children, including the provision of food and the teaching of crafts and skills, but these duties could be carried out even when the child did not reside with the father and even after the parents had broken their conjugal tie. According to Fortes (1949) another factor inducing women to remain in their own homes even after marriage is the very close relationship between mother and children, and particularly between mothers and daughters. This case demonstrates the way in which interests and relationships can cut right across the solidarity of the nuclear family, and it would be very difficult to demonstrate that the nuclear family is either a normal or a necessary coresidential unit among the Ashanti. The Ashanti concept of family is quite different from the European concept; Fortes mentions that persons who speak English often say, “Your mother is your family, your father is not.”
The most extreme and best known example of the effect of matrilineal descent upon familial relationships was to be found among the Nayar caste of southern India in the period before the full effects of British rule were felt. Among the Nayar, it appears that the marital relationship was reduced to a merely symbolic level, being contracted at around the time that the girl reached puberty and shortly thereafter being ritually broken. Afterward, the women were allowed to have informal love affairs with men who visited them at night. The households consisted of a group of brothers and their sisters and the sisters’ children, and any children born to the woman of the household became members of the matrilineal joint family. The children were discouraged from developing any strong attachments to either their pater or genitor, and while it would be impossible to argue that the role of father was completely absent from this social system, it was obviously diminished in favor of the solidarity of the property-owning matrilineal group. It seems likely that many of the functions that are normally fulfilled by fathers in relation to socialization and personality development were carried out by male members of the matrilineage (Gough 1952).
Cases such as these have led some writers, including Radcliffe-Brown, to suggest that the basic structural unit of kinship systems is the unit of mother and children, in other words, to separate the nuclear family into a number of paired relationships, or dyads, and to see how, in differing societies, they fit in relation to each other and to other groups. This is certainly a step in the right direction toward loosening the categories involved in the nuclear-family complex and exploring more fully their independent connections. Even in societies with pronounced patriarchal authority we find that the mother-children unit often forms an important subgroup, given special recognition and marked by close emotional ties among its members.
Among the Swazi as described by Hilda Kuper (see Radcliffe-Brown & Forde 1950), descent, inheritance of economically valuable possessions, and succession to office is patrilineal, but women are given a position of great prominence in the organization of domestic life. Homesteads are built in the form of a semicircular group of huts surrounding a cattle pen, each hut being occupied by a mother and her children. In the center of the arc is the “great hut” occupied by the mother of the male head of the compound (or one of his senior wives if his mother is dead). When a young man or a group of full brothers sets up a new homestead, their mother is installed in the place of honor, for it was she who reared them, watched over their rights, guarded their inheritance, fed and nurtured them. The father is respected as the head of the group, revered, and eventually worshiped as an ancestor, but the mother is loved and cherished. This pattern is common in patriarchal societies where the father is an authoritarian figure and the holder of property that the heir requires in order to attain full maturity–thus introducing an underlying tension into the formally respectful relationship. Parsons has suggested that the father role is always an “instrumental” one as opposed to the more emotional or “expressive” quality of the mother role (Parsons & Bales 1955, pp. 157-158). In a penetrating study comparing two adjacent groups in west Africa which share a basically similar culture, Goody has shown that in one of them the matrilin-eal inheritance of certain types of property alters the interpersonal relationships between close kin and even alters the mode of ancestor worship (1962). Since intrafamilial relationship patterns seem to be so responsive to the effect of outside influences, it is premature to assert too many conclusions about the structure of the nuclear family as such. The specialization of males and females in instrumental and expressive roles may be an aspect of sex-role differentiation in this case rather than of role specialization within a small group structure. Certainly women take on instrumental roles in the absence of men, but they retain the predominantly expressive quality appropriate to females.
In tribal societies where kinship is the basis of recruitment to all or most important social roles, the family must articulate directly with descent groups and becomes a mechanism for the continuous generation of new kinship ties. As Fortes says, “the workshop, so to speak, of social reproduction, is the domestic group” (Goody 1958, p. 2). In more differentiated social systems with an increased division of labor, a literary tradition, and a well-developed class or caste system, it is still true that families may be large, multifunctional units. In China and India, for example, the whole weight of tradition, values, and religious sentiment favored the growth of large patrilineal joint families and patriarchal authority. The uneven distribution of wealth and status seems to affect the realization of these ideals, so that the majority of households are small and contain only parents and children. This is not simply a matter of demographic determinism; the absence of a sufficient property base leads to the early secession of mature sons, who try to make out for themselves. Large joint families are found mainly among landowning and merchant groups, where sons have a continuing material interest in the patrimony to reinforce and sustain filial piety. Such large “families” are really lineages or descent groups which constitute perpetual corporations managing a common enterprise.
Le Play thought of the famille-souche, or stem-family, as preserving familial continuity while adapting to the demands of industrialism. While many of the younger members of the family migrated or went off to work in industrial centers, the main family, or stem, continued and was usually located on its own land or in its own house. A regular mode of inheritance designed to prevent fragmentation was imposed to ensure both the continuity and the integrity of the familial estate. The existence of such a system in twentieth-century rural Ireland has been described by Arensberg and Kimball (1940), and its presence in parts of the United States has been depicted (Zimmerman & Frampton 1935). On the small farms of rural Ireland it is customary for one son to inherit the family farm, while the other children marry out or migrate to the towns. The heir usually postpones his marriage until his father is nearly ready to hand over control, thus ensuring that the farm will not have to support more persons than it can carry and ensuring the continuity of one male line on an undivided farm. The stem-family is not a product of industrial society. Recent work by Laslett indicates that the preindustrial family system in England did not encourage the growth of large extended families occupying single dwellings; on the contrary, the nuclear-family household seems to have been the normal type of dwelling group, and when large household groups are found, they appear to have been made up by servants or craft laborers rather than by kin. There was also a continuous process of downward mobility in which the children of wealthy or high-status families were sloughed off into lower positions, while the main heir took over an intact patrimony (Laslett 1965).
The urban family system of modern Europe and America developed out of the system found in agrarian society (or “the world we have lost,” as Laslett terms it). It has been a constant preoccupation of writers on the modern family to think of it as being somehow stripped of functions and reduced to a pale shadow of its former ample self. The ideal is that of a nuclear-family group living in its own house independently of other kin and subsisting upon the wages or salary of the husband-father. Falling birth rates, an increase in the incidence of divorce, a decline in home food processing, clothes making, and so on–all these have been held to signify a decline in family living and a shift toward increasing individualism and material values. Parsons and others have argued that the family system of the urban United States is not a denuded form of a more “normal” or “natural” family system but is itself a highly specialized form that articulates most satisfactorily with a highly differentiated economic and political system and with institutionalized values that stress achievement rather than inheritance. It is argued that the smallness and relative isolation of the family from other kinship ties is an adaptation that makes possible the spatial and status mobility of its members. The unit of mother and children remains the basic affective group within which there is close emotional identification, and the husband-father is closely integrated with it both emotionally and in terms of his status-conferring and economic-support functions. It is upon his position in the occupational system that the status and the style of life of the whole family group depends. This functional interpretation of the importance of the nuclear family in industrial society may be considerably weakened by the work of Laslett, referred to above. If the nuclear family has been the major form of European family structure for many centuries, predating the industrial revolution, and if this family form was the product of social values rather than of demographic or other constraints, then the modern family forms may be simply the continuation of a culturally preferred form.
Studies of the structure of kinship and family relations in modern industrial societies are rare in spite of the considerable literature on special problems of family living. Recent work in Britain has shown that lower-class families often live in close proximity to near kin and maintain intimate contact with them despite the “isolation” of the nuclear family (Young & Willmott 1957). The cooperation between mother and married daughters is particularly noticeable, and most writers have remarked upon the great importance of women in their role as mothers of grown-up children. Fathers are important, of course, as wage earners and supporters of their families, but in the lower class the status of the family tends to be fixed less by the occupation of the husband-father than by birth into a particular neighborhood and class. The network of relations between female kin is reinforced by daily contact, mutual help, and support in times of economic hardship, and is balanced by a tendency for men to spend their leisure time together rather than with the members of their own nuclear family.
A more extreme form of matrifocal family structure occurs in low-status ethnic groups where there appears to be some correlation with insecurity in male employment. In the plantation areas of the southern United States, the West Indies, and Latin America and in the urban areas of developing societies in Africa and Asia, one often finds high illegitimacy rates and unstable mating patterns. An array of types of domestic group is produced, the most distinctive being those in which a mother is surrounded by adult children and some of her daughter’s children. Money income flows into such a household from a variety of sources, such as children’s earnings, payment to daughters for the support of illegitimate children, the older woman’s own labor, and perhaps government relief funds. This income is reallocated around the essential tasks of child rearing and nurturance, and it appears that a household group of this kind is a useful adaptation to conditions of economic insecurity. This form of domestic group appears to be always regarded as a deviant form, partly because of the instability of male roles in relation to it. Unlike the matrilineal situation, men do not have important legal ties to their sisters; it is the mother who is the focus of the familial solidarity, and her position derives from affective rather than jural relations. It would be wrong to suggest that this is the typical household or familial form in the societies in which it occurs. Even at the class levels where it is most frequently found it constitutes only a small proportion of actual household groups, but its significance is as an expression of the strength of mother-child relations and the relative weakness of maritalties.
This brief sketch has outlined only some of the major features of family structure. Variations within single societies have hardly been touched upon, and nothing has been said about pathological forms. Nor has attention been directed toward the attempts which have been made from time to time to do away with family solidarity in favor of allegiance to other groups, although such attempts provide valuable experimental data. The Israeli cooperative communities are probably the best recent examples of this, although no definite conclusions about the necessity or otherwise of nuclear-family relationships can be drawn (Spiro 1958). What these cases do perhaps indicate, along with some of the matrilineal and matrifocal cases, is that marriage is not the only means of securing social “legitimacy” for children. Spiro shows that children brought up in central nurseries and schools are in a sense children of the whole community, in spite of the specific relationships they may develop with their “own” parents. This is possible because of the relatively small size of the communities.
However the family may be defined or structured, it always constitutes an area of diffuse and permanent solidarity between a limited number of individuals, and this is probably its most important distinguishing characteristic. This is a view at least suggested by W. H. Rivers in his Social Organization when he deliberately identifies the family of parents and children as the basic unit in European society but points out that in other societies the family may be much bigger, that biological connection is no guide to kinship, and that genealogies express kinship ties but may be fabricated to fit social reality. Rivers is very wary about drawing any precise line between family relationships and other kinship ties. Such lines can be drawn in particular cases but are very difficult to define a priori.
Raymond T. Smith
[Directly related are the entriesKinshipandMarriage; see alsoConflict, article onanthropological aspects.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Arensberg, Conrad M.; and KIMBALL, SOLON T. (1940) 1961 Family and Community in Ireland. Gloucester, Mass.: Smith.
Aspects of the Analysis of Family Structure, by Ansley J. Coale et al. 1965 Princeton Univ. Press.
Associationof Social Anthropologists
ofthe Commonwealth, Conferenceon New Approachesin Social Anthropology, Cambridge, 19631966 The Relevance of Models for Social Anthropology. Edited by Michael Banton. London: Tavistock. ? See especially “Some Muddles in the Models” by David M. Schneider.
Bachofen, Johann J. (1861) 1948 Das Mutterrecht.2 vols. 3d ed. Edited by Karl Meuli. Basel: Schwabe.
Bell, Norman W.; and VOGEL, EZRA F. (editors) 1960 A Modern Introduction to the Family. London: Rout-ledge; Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press.
Bott, Elizabeth 1957 Family and Social Network: Roles, Norms, and External Relationships in Ordinary Urban Families. London: Tavistock.
Bowlby, John 1951 Maternal Care and Mental Health. Geneva: World Health Organization.
British Associationfor the Advancementof Science (1874) 1954 Notes and Queries on Anthropology.6th ed., rev. London: Routledge.
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1951 Kinship and Marriage Among the Nuer. Oxford Univ. Press.
Fortes, Meyer (1949) 1963 Time and Social Structure: An Ashanti Case Study; Radcliffe-Brown’s Thesis. Pages 54-84 in Meyer Fortes (editor), Social Structure: Studies Presented to A. R. Radcliffe-Brown. New York: Russell.
Fortes, Meyer 1958 Introduction. Pages 1-14 in Jack R. Goody (editor), The Developmental Cycle in Domestic Groups. Cambridge Papers in Social Anthropology, No. 1. Cambridge Univ. Press.
Frazier, E. Franklin (1939) 1957 The Negro in the United States. Rev. ed. New York: Macmillan. ? First published as The Negro Family in the United States.
Goody, Jack R. (editor) 1958 The Developmental Cycle in Domestic Groups. Cambridge Papers in Social Anthropology, No. 1. Cambridge Univ. Press.
Goody, Jack R. 1962 Death, Property and the Ancestors: A Study of the Mortuary Customs of the Lodagaa of West Africa. Stanford Univ. Press.
Gough, Kathleen 1952 Changing Kinship Usages in the Setting of Political and Economic Change Among the Nayars of Malabar. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland82: 71-87.
Halpern, Joel Martin 1958 A Serbian Village. New York: Columbia Univ. Press.
Laslett, Peter 1965 The World We Have Lost. London: Methuen.
Leach, Edmund R. 1961 Rethinking Anthropology. London School of Economics and Political Science Monographs on Social Anthropology, No. 22. London: Athlone.
LÉvi-Strauss, Claude (1958) 1963 Structural Anthropology. New York: Basic Books. ? First published in French.
LÉvy, Marion J. 1949 The Family Revolution in Modern China. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press.
LÉvy, Marion J.; and Fallers, L. A. 1959 The Family: Some Comparative Considerations. American Anthropologist New Series 61 : 647–651.
Lounsbury, Floyd G. 1965 Another View of the Tro-briand Kinship Categories. American Anthropologist New Series 67, part 2: 142–185.
Malinowski, Bronislaw (1927)1953 Sex and Repression in Savage Society. London: Routledge; New York: Harcourt. ? A paperback edition was published in 1955 by Meridian.
Mead, Margaret 1949 Male and Female: A Study of the Sexes in a Changing World. London: Gollancz; New York: Morrow.
Morgan, Lewis Henry 1871 Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family. Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, Vol. 17, Publication No. 218. Washington: Smithsonian Institution.
Morgan, Lewis Henry (1877) 1964 Ancient Society. Edited by Leslie A. White. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap.
Murdock, George P. 1949 Social Structure. New York: Macmillan.
Parsons, Talcott (1949)1959 The Social Structure of the Family. Pages 241-274 in Ruth N. Anshen (editor), The Family: Its Function and Destiny. Rev. ed. New York: Harper.
Parsons, Talcott 1954 The Incest Taboo in Relation to Social Structure and the Socialization of the Child. British Journal of Sociology5 : 101–117.
Parsons, Talcott; and Bales, Robert F. 1955 Family, Socialization and Interaction Process. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press.
Radcliffe-Bhown, A. R.; and FORDE, C. DARYLL (editors) 1950 African Systems of Kinship and Marriage. Published for the International African Institute. Oxford Univ. Press.
Schneider, David M.; and GOUGH, KATHLEEN (editors) 1961 Matrilineal Kinship. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
Spiro, Melford E. 1958 Children of the Kibbutz. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press.
Thomas, William I.; and Znaniecki, Florian (1918-1920) 1958 The Polish Peasant in Europe and America.2 vols., 2d ed. New York: Dover.
Young, Michael; and Willmott, Peter 1957 Family and Kinship in East London. Institute of Community Studies, Report No. 1. London: Routledge; Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press. ? A paperback edition was published in 1963 by Penguin.
Zimmerman, Carle C. 1947 Family and Civilization. New York: Harper.
Zimmerman, Carle C.; and FRAMPTON, MERLE E. 1935 Family and Society: A Study of the Sociology of Reconstruction. London: Williams & Norgate; Princeton, N.J.: Van Nostrand.
II DISORGANIZATION AND DISSOLUTION
Aside from some slight semantic disagreements, most social scientists agree that some form of a familial group is universal among human beings. Likewise in every society some of the familial groups are imperfect in their functioning and deserving of the label “disorganized.” Generally there is some relationship between disorganization and a more climactic, terminal situation called “dissolution.” Family groups are eventually dissolved by death or some form of separation, insofar as these groups are organized around the matings of men and women. Of course, a family process, in the sense of overlapping and interacting generations, is immortal, providing there is reproductive replacement before the familial group of a particular generation disintegrates (Kirkpatrick [1955] 1963, pp. 192-195).
Nature and significance
The significance of familial disorganization and dissolution depends upon the institutional arrangements for family life in a particular culture. If stress is laid on the nuclear family, then kinfolk are less available to aid members of the smaller familial group. Some families are vulnerable in the sense that their members expect permanence, have made deep emotional commitments, and do not readily redirect affection and loyalty. On the other hand, people may be less hurt by familial instability in cultures where instability is an established norm and where kinfolk are helpful and meaningful.
In most cultures, the familial group helps prepare children both for membership in a society and for effective functioning as parents. Disorganization and dissolution are significant in that they tend to interfere with this socialization process. Furthermore, disorganization and dissolution are often cumulative and recurrent in the family process. There is a convergence of evidence in the United States that people with happy marriages tend to come from happy homes. Divorce also runs in families; divorced persons are divorce-prone, and children suffering from bereavement or parental divorce may be involved with delinquency, illegitimacy, and unwise marriage. The consequences of disorganization and dissolution experienced by the parents are commonly visited upon the offspring, perhaps for several generations. Some children, however, are warned by the fate of their parents and in marriage make an effort to reverse a trend toward disorganization.
Terminology . It is impossible to make a useful analysis of the nature and significance of family disorganization and dissolution without precise terminology. In current usage “disorganization” seems to imply maladjustment, malfunctioning, psychological decay, and the existence of family problems. Goode defines family disorganization as “the breakup of a family unit, the dissolution or fracture of a structure of social roles when one or more members fail to perform adequately their role obligation.” He lists five types of family disorganization, namely, illegitimacy, dissolution, whether as a result of divorce, annulment, separation, or desertion; “empty shell family”; unwilled absence of one spouse; and “unwilled” major role failures (Goode 1964, pp. 91-92).
Clearly, such taxonomy makes no distinction between disorganization and dissolution. It seems from the inclusion of illegitimacy that a family can be “disorganized” by role failure even before it is organized. Caplow defines an organization as “a social system that has an unequivocal collective identity, an exact roster of members, a program of activity, and procedures for replacing members” (1964, p. 1). Following this line of thought, it would seem more proper to regard the “illegitimate family” as unorganized rather than as a type of family disorganization.
Distinction between disorganization and dissolution. In the present discussion a distinction will be made between family disorganization and family dissolution, and marital disorganization will be regarded as a special case of family disorganization. Family dissolution means disintegration, disruption, or chronic instability; it is characterized by “dependence, agency intrusion, member extraction, premature atypical departure and family violence” (Kirkpatrick [1955] 1963, p. 565).
Marital dissolution, as a special form of family dissolution, may take the form of suicide, murder of spouse, annulment, separation (ranging from psychological withdrawal to legal separation), and, finally, divorce. The withdrawal from spouse may be accompanied by substitution for wife of a co-wife, concubine, mistress, or prostitute. Sometimes dissolution is by stages, for example, in a sequence of avoidance, suit for separate maintenance, legal separation, an interlocutory divorce decree, and finally an absolute divorce with the right of remarriage.
Family dissolution is an imperfect index of family disorganization. Divorce is an imperfect index of marital disorganization because there may be disorganization without divorce. For example, divorce was very difficult to obtain in England prior to liberalization of the laws in 1857 and again in 1937. When the divorce door is closed, marital disorganization may be inconspicuously endured. On the other hand, a couple with high expectations of marital bliss but relatively little marital disorganization may seek divorce as an exit from marriage. That marital disorganization is often not extreme is shown by the frequency of reconciliation, dropping of divorce suits, and remarriage to the former spouse. Thus, Harvey J. Locke (1951, pp. 54-55) found that about a fourth of the divorced couples he studied were in the same marital adjustment category as the less happy fourth of the married couples.
Religious and moralistic viewpoints . Family disorganization and dissolution are viewed by many people in moralistic and religious terms. The family at one time performed functions so important that disharmony and disruption were viewed with alarm. One assumption of the patriarchal system in western European culture was that paternal authority could insure efficiency and stability in family life. It is probably still the assumption of middle-class people in the United States that “nice” people get on together and as spouses stay together.
The Roman Catholic viewpoint concerning family disorganization and dissolution has remained rather clear and constant since the Council of Trent, 1545-1563. The ideal is patriarchal harmony established by a marriage sacrament directed toward the goals of parenthood and marital love. The Catholic doctrine assumes various impediments, such as disparity of religion, lack of consent, or intention to seek a divorce. Given the impediment of disparity of religion, the marriage of a Catholic to a non-Catholic, especially one un-baptized, can be nullified, thus permitting the Catholic party to obtain a civil divorce and marry a Catholic partner “in favor of the Faith.” Even a marriage between Catholics may be dissolved by papal dispensation if the marriage is unconsum-mated and grounds exist for the marital disruption. In addition to nullification and dissolution by dispensation, the church grants separation from bed and board, which does not include the right of remarriage. The consummated and valid marriage between two Catholics is indissoluble and permits no remarriage unless terminated by death. Certain Protestant denominations hold equally religious and moralistic views (Kirkpatrick [1955] 1963, pp. 573-575).
The legalistic viewpoint . The legalistic view, which is prevalent in the United States, had its origins in canon law and was influenced by the common law of England. It is complicated by the lack of uniformity among the various statutes and decisions of the 50 states; the practice of seeking divorce in states other than the state of residence has brought controversial cases to the U.S. Supreme Court (Harper & Skolnick [1952] 1962, pp. 451-458).
Basic to the legalistic doctrine of divorce in the United States is adversary procedure. It is assumed that a relatively innocent party may be granted a divorce because of the relative guilt of the other party with reference to “grounds” specified in the statutes of the various states. There are four legal doctrines associated with the basic adversary procedure. If spouses cooperate in providing evidence calculated to obtain a divorce on certain grounds, that is collusion, and the divorce should be denied. If one party forgives an offense such as adultery and continues to live with the spouse, condonation is assumed, and the derivative inference is made that the damage to the innocent party was not great enough to justify a divorce. If one party shows that the other party is equally guilty, successful recrimination is established and the divorce is not to be granted. If one party plots the guilty behavior of the other party, that is connivance, and the divorce would be denied to the allegedly innocent party. Thus the legal operation of divorce is withheld from marriages so sick as to menace the well-being of both adults and children in the familial group (Kirkpatrick [1955] 1963, p. 595).
Social pathology . Disorganization and dissolution are subject to a third viewpoint, that of social pathology. This viewpoint assumes that well-functioning, organized families are “normal”; maladjustment and disruptions are regarded as deviant behavior. The families with problems should be brought back into line by monetary aid, psychological manipulation, and a therapy designed to help people achieve conformity to the social norms. With little reflection upon alternative frames of reference, there is concern for the cure of pathological situations.
Sociological viewpoint . A fourth viewpoint is that of scientific sociology. In the choice of this label there is no intended implication that sociology is a distinct, mature, and sophisticated science. Perhaps at the present time it is merely an attempt at clear, honest, abstract thinking about social phenomena, increasingly aided by systematic observation and analysis. From such an intellectual orientation, which is relatively free from concealed value assumptions and distorting preconceptions, family dissolution is sometimes seen as a relief of family disorganization. For certain infections, amputation is the choice of a lesser evil as compared with further spread of infection. So it may be with divorce.
The sociological viewpoint is generally deterministic and assumes that social changes make inevitable certain reactions in terms of disorganization and reorganization. According to this view, familial institutions, groups, and relationships are part of a larger social structure in which every aspect of the total configuration is related to every other aspect. Family disorganization may be one facet of a larger social disorganization.
Methods and trends in research
Family crisis . Research concerning crises of the family has been extensive. The great depression in the United States brought forth books on unemployment as a crisis for the family, and World War II brought an interest in bereavement and other trials visited upon the family by wartime conditions. More recently scholars have speculated as to the devastating influence that an atomic war would have on the family.
The confusion of terminology in regard to disorganization and dissolution is compounded by the concept of family crisis. Death, like divorce, can cause the dissolution of family units, and often bereavement is placed in the category of family crisis. Hill writes of the event (A) which interacts with the ability of the family to meet a crisis (B); both (A) and (B) interact with the definition which the family makes of the event (C), and thus the situation is an (X)–the crisis for a particular family. One family may take in its stride an impact which would crush another family that is lacking in resources and prone to regard a trifle as a crisis (Waller [1938] 1951, p. 460).
Endogenous and exogenous disorganization. Kirkpatrick drew a distinction between endogenous and exogenous disorganization, the former having an internal origin and the latter a relatively external origin. Distinctions were also made between the normal and atypical, the timely and the premature, and the objectively severe as compared with the objectively trivial. It was suggested that the term “crisis” be restricted to exogenous disorganization due to an objectively severe atypical or premature event (Kirkpatrick 1955, p. 503). Insofar as family dissolution results from exogenous disorganization, as defined above, it would seem proper to speak of exogenous family dissolution; an example would be the wiping out of a family by flood or fire.
Bereavement. The assassination of President Kennedy in 1963 was a conspicuous atypical, extreme experience which brought premature bereavement. The disorganization in the Kennedy family, in the sense of shock and sorrow, was exogenous disorganization; and the dissolution, in the sense of the loss of the head of the family, could be regarded as exogenous dissolution. Perhaps all bereavement, save that due to violence within the family group, could be regarded as exogenous, and if premature or atypical, it would be a family crisis. An expected death from natural causes of old age would be less clearly a crisis by the criteria which have been set forth, although some degree of disorganization and dissolution might result. There is no claim of exclusive categories in the suggested terminology, and the distinctions are relative.
It is important to make a distinction between father-deceased bereavement and mother-deceased bereavement in view of their differential implications for the family in terms of economic consequences and implications for the offspring in terms of sex typing, identification, and preparatory af-fectional relationships with parents of the opposite sex. Many aspects of bereavement experience have been probed by Howard Becker, Willard Waller, Thomas D. Eliot, David M. Fulcomer, and others. Perhaps more attention should be paid to the loss of common memories. If a beloved person is no longer available to confirm a happening, there may be doubt about the reality of prior experience and uncertainty about personal identity. If the identity of A is essentially the identity of A in relation to B, the loss of B drastically alters the subjective identity of A. Improved knowledge of familial disorganization and dissolution calls not only for greater precision of terminology but also for further exploration of bereavement as a family crisis that may lead to subtle forms of exogenous disorganization.
Demographic investigation . Investigators have explored the distribution of familial disorganization and dissolution over space, by social categories, and in time. For example, relief cases of a certain type may be more prevalent in certain urban areas and within social categories such as “nonwhites.” Furthermore, there may be fluctuations in the case load of social welfare agencies by time periods. Unemployment associated with the business cycle has generally meant an increase in the number of families dependent upon external financial assistance.
The most extensive investigation has been that of divorce regarded as a measure of familial dissolution and, more specifically, of marital dissolution. Numerous studies have noted variations in divorce rates by geographical region, sometimes considered in combination with various social categories. Paul Click has studied “marriage instability” as measured by separation ratios, divorce ratios, and proportion of children not living with both parents. His hypothesis that marital disruption in the United States tends to be more closely related to urbanization than to regions of residence was only partially supported (1963, pp. 47-54).
Various writers such as William J. Goode, Robert Winch, and Christine H. Hillman have stressed the higher divorce ratios among persons of lower socioeconomic status (Goode 1964, pp. 88-90; Winch [1952] 1963, pp. 706-708). However, this evidence contains some inconsistencies when men and women are considered separately. One finds a rather high incidence of divorce among college women as compared both with less educated women and with men at the same college level (Kirkpatrick [1955] 1963, p. 589). It should be stressed that the proportion divorced in a particular group or category of people is affected by remarriage and the rapidity of remarriage. If every person receiving a divorce decree remarried on the same day, there would be no residue of unmarried “divorced persons” in the population.
Desertion, another mode of marital dissolution, may not be accurately reflected in the census categories “separated,” “spouse absent,” and “divorced,” because of remarriage. During 1955 a Philadelphia court recorded 4,224 desertions handled, in contrast to only 2,812 divorces (Kephart 1961, p. 548). Desertion may be a substitute for divorce or preliminary to the legal action of divorce.
The demographic approach stresses the changing prevalence of divorce in various countries. The trend of the divorce rate after World War II was upward in many European countries, such as France, England, and Sweden, as well as in the United States and Canada (Jacobson 1959, table 42, p. 90; table 47, p. 98; Kirkpatrick [1955] 1963, p. 586). For the United States, rates are available from 1920 through 1960, expressed as divorces per year per one thousand married females 15 years of age and over. A curve based on such rates shows a drop during the depression in the 1930s, a huge peak in 1946 following the war, a decline to a plateau, and a figure of 9.2 on that plateau in 1960 as compared with 8.0 in 1920 (Carter & Plateris 1963). From a sociological point of view, this increase is far from spectacular.
The clinical approach . For many decades investigators have utilized methods less objective but perhaps more penetrating than those of the demographers. The various theories of Freud concerning emotion-laden interaction in the family group were integrated by J. C. Flïïgel. Waller, in his brilliant pioneer study of divorced couples (1930), drew upon psychoanalytic concepts in his analysis of alienation and postdivorce adjustment. He expressed original intuitions concerning motivation, as, for example, the suspicion that some ex-wives seek alimony not out of greed but because of jealous disinclination to see an ex-husband financially capable of marrying another woman. Some psychiatrists probably go to an extreme in regarding the seeking of divorce as an expression of neu-roticism.
Historical and comparative studies . The older and well-known accounts of the family, such as those by Edward Westermarck, George Elliott Howard, and Arthur W. Calhoun, contain much historical and comparative information concerning disorganization and dissolution. A book by Lichten-berger, published in 1931, gives a thoughtful and comprehensive analysis of divorce.
More recently, Murdock (1950) made a systematic survey of divorce practices in 40 nonin-dustrial societies. In many of these societies he found divorce to be more frequent than in the United States, but he also found more preventives and functional adaptations. From this anthropological perspective, the American family does not seem to be in a state of hopeless decay. Following Murdock’s lead, various anthropologists have investigated determinants of divorce rates in various cultures. Ackerman (1963), from a study of 62 societies, found certain forms of homogamy to be associated with low divorce rates. Christensen (1963) has given an elegant demonstration of the fact that the association between premarital pregnancy and divorce varies with a culture’s sexual permissiveness.
Measurement and prediction . Beginning in the 1930s, researchers attempted to measure and predict marital disorganization. The investigators often collected information concerning background factors at the same time that information was requested concerning marital adjustment. Some of the correlations between the so-called prediction scales (based upon various items, for the most part premarital) and the adjustment scales probably involved a “halo effect” (see Kirkpatrick [1955] 1963, chapters 15, 18, and appendix). Well-adjusted respondents tended to report favorably on both their marriages and their childhood backgrounds. The reverse was probably true for maladjusted couples.
In the longitudinal or forecasting studies of such authors as Ernest W. Burgess and Paul Wallin, Truman L. Kelley and Louis M. Terman, information was first obtained on a sample of individuals, and then after a period of years further information was gathered concerning their marital adjustment. [See the biography of BURGESS.] In general, correlations between scores on a prediction instrument and some categories of outcome tended to be lower when the halo effect was controlled by the passage of time.
In connection with this body of research, a great deal of information was collected concerning factors associated with “marital adjustment” or other criteria of success. The findings of many of these studies were brought together, with the revelation that there was rather a striking lack of convergence in evidence (Kirkpatrick 1947). Cautious verbal generalizations about the convergence of findings concerning factors related to marital adjustment and a guide to the sources from which these findings were derived are available (see Kirkpatrick [1955] 1963, chapter 15 and appendix A).
Improvement of scientific knowledge
More precise terminology, pertinent distinctions, and rigorous theory would all be helpful in furthering scientific knowledge in the area under discussion. Since disorganization and dissolution are aspects of family behavior, any advance in knowledge of family systems in general would indirectly contribute to knowledge in this specific area.
Theories of mating . Winch has systematically carried over his functional theory of the family to the area of family disorganization and dissolution. If he is correct in his theory of complementary mating, a foundation would be laid for generalizations concerning the kind of matings which would avoid family disorganization and dissolution ([1952] 1963, pp. 567-655).
Kirkpatrick derived a theory of mating from a basic postulate concerning the influence of prior satisfactions and dissatisfactions in the course of family experience; this theory was called a theory of “selective needs” based on prior satisfactions and dissatisfactions. In some respects it is different from the Winch theory, and in other respects it is convergent and supplementary (Kirkpatrick [1955] 1963, pp. 300-307). According to the Kirkpatrick theory, an extreme of marital disorganization and perhaps consequent familial disorganization would exist when the spouse violates “minus-plus needs” by providing more of the particular kind of dissatisfaction which was distressing during a prior phase of family experience. For example, the wife who fails to compensate for the dissatisfactions experienced by her husband with his mother and aggravates these same dissatisfactions by behavior similar to that of the mother, risks marital disorganization and possibly divorce.
Criteria of scientific worth . Improvement of scientific knowledge in this as in other areas depends upon meeting five different criteria of scientific worth (Kirkpatrick 1939; 1959). One criterion is that of verifiability. In one sense verifiability implies repeatability of procedure, as in the case of experiments in the natural science field. There is some assurance that research is verifiable by others when it is presented as already verified by the investigators in the sense of proper sampling, validity and reliability of instruments, and correctness of logical inference. It is striking that so many findings concerning factors favorable to success in marriage have been nonverifiable or unverified.
A second criterion is transmissibility. A marriage counselor may achieve striking success and yet be unable to transmit his art or technique to a pupil. Often a description of divorce rates in a certain country cannot be transmitted to another scholar because symbols lack identical meanings for each person.
A third criterion of scientific worth is consistency. The contribution having this quality is logically sound, and the terms are carefully defined and consistently used with reference to their assigned meanings. Theory, hypotheses, research design, findings, and conclusion are interrelated. Any convergence or discrepancy in evidence is systematically presented.
The fourth criterion is scope. Family disorganization and disruption may be analyzed in a single brief case study, or a massive three-volume work may describe this aspect of family systems with global coverage. For example, Goode made an admirable study of divorce as affecting a sample of women in Detroit (1956) and in another book analyzed the family patterns as affected by industrialism in varied countries of the world (1963).
A fifth and somewhat multiple criterion is that of implication. Research having the quality of implication has one or more of four characteristics–namely, prediction, practical application, methodological innovation, and creative integration. It would be useful to construct a questionnaire that would predict divorce with 100 per cent accuracy. A study would have implications when, if applied to family counseling, it prevented 90 per cent of the needless divorces. It would be a methodological contribution to integrate the various measures of marital dissolution into an improved index of marital disorganization. Finally, the subcriterion of creative integration would be illustrated by a new integration of existing theories concerning family disorganization into a generalized theory that generated hypotheses subject to definitive verification by empirical research.
Statistics and indices . The improvement of scientific knowledge concerning disorganization and dissolution depends upon improved statistics. In recent years some improvements have been made in marriage and divorce statistics in the United States, which are often inferior to those of less wealthy countries. In 1958 a reporting system known as the “divorce registration area” was established. For inclusion in the divorce registration area a state must have central files of divorce records; include on its record forms certain standard items; receive regularly reports from local areas such as counties; and cooperate with the National Vital Statistics Division in regard to testing data for completeness and accuracy (Carter 1960). Further support to the movement for improved statistics was given by a committee on marriage and divorce statistics of the American Sociological Association, which published a report in June 1958. As part of an action program initiated by the federal agencies concerned with marriage and divorce statistics, a national sample of marriage and divorce transcripts was collected for the year 1960, and the official improved statistics for 1960 are based on this new source, which extends coverage beyond the 18 states in the divorce registration area.
There are various ways in which scientific knowledge would be advanced by improvement of marriage and divorce statistics. Certain needs and research possibilities will be mentioned.
The duration of marriage prior to divorce is a very important item of information. While it is claimed that the duration of marriage to the time of the decree is known for 96.2 per cent of all divorces granted in the United States during 1960, this information has not been fully used to compute the probability of divorce for couples marrying at a particular time. Such true probabilities for earlier years have been computed by Monahan (1959) and Jacobson (1959), but there is a tendency to regard mistakenly the ratio of divorces to marriages of the same year as expressing the risk of divorce.
Improved divorce statistics would reveal on a national basis the details of prior experience with marriage and divorce prior to a particular divorce that is being recorded and tabulated.
It would also be helpful to have national statistics on the total number of persons of various types who have been affected by divorce. People pass out of categories which imply a record of divorce, but they may carry the subjective experience of divorce with them into a remarriage or a relationship with a stepparent.
Statistics concerning divorce should be more closely related to improved statistics concerning separation and desertion. It may be that concern about the divorce of a particular date is inappropriate in view of the fact that the granting of a decree is merely a legal event far removed in time from significant experiences of the individual concerned (Monahan 1962).
It is highly important to have national statistics which are cross tabulated, showing the characteristics of one divorced spouse as matched with those of the other spouse. For research purposes it would be useful to have such cross tabulations by previous marital experience, religion, age at divorce, education, occupation and social status, and children resulting from prior marriages of the divorced spouses.
An interrelation of divorce, marriage, and birth statistics on a national basis would be helpful. Christensen (1963) has already demonstrated that such comparisons are useful in showing the association of premarital pregnancy with divorce. It may be that computer storage and retrieval of data will make the method of “record linkage” increasingly applicable.
Statistics concerning family dissolution which permit valid international comparisons would be desirable. Obviously, a country which regards divorce as a private family matter and lacks a governmental agency concerned with divorce may seem to have a low divorce rate because of underreporting. A logical extension of trends in the United States would be an international divorce registration area, having as members countries with acceptable statistics. Other countries might seek then to improve their indices of family dissolution.
Given the process of changing marital status, which is conspicuous in the United States and in other industrialized countries, there is need for statistics that contribute to an index of what might be called the velocity of family dissolution. The speed of separation, divorce, remarriage and redi-vorce, could be known only with the aid of information concerning prior family experience, which would be reported at each transition. It is known from unusually good statistics in Iowa for 1953 that the duration of marriage prior to a divorce ranges from an average of 6.3 years for primary marriages, to 3.2 when both parties have been married before, to 1.8 for couples breaking up their third marriage (Monahan 1959). Kirkpatrick attempted a crude measure of velocity of family dissolution by dividing the number of divorces per year by the number of persons who in the year following were in the status of divorced (1955, p. 534). A good index of velocity of family dissolution would require improved statistics and would take into account the speed with which children lose natural parents to acquire a stepparent and perhaps a series of such stepparents.
Knowledge of causes and consequences . The distinction between disorganization and dissolution must again be stressed. As compared with couples equally disorganized but undivorced (either contemporary or living in a previous century), certain modern couples seek divorce for special reasons. Often the woman is able to get a job and hence can insist on a high standard of marital happiness. Thus, dissolution may be a preventive of disorganization. Some people are less tied to marriage than others; family functions, religious taboos, or life-long commitment to parental roles may simply have less meaning for them (Landis 1963). The door of divorce is more open to certain couples than to others because of lenient laws in their locality, relative freedom to migrate elsewhere for an easy divorce, encouragement of relatives, opportunities for remarriage, and in general, the prospect of freedom without the economic, religious, and psychological penalties which have threatened other couples in various times and places. It can even be argued that divorce itself is a cause of divorce, in that frequent divorce weakens the norm of marital stability. Divorce frees bad matrimonial risks for remarriage and subsequent divorce; offspring imitate divorced parents; and the divorce of numerous friends makes the choice of divorce more normal and respectable (Kirkpatrick [1955] 1963, pp. 577-582).
Persons facing divorce during the latter half of the twentieth century in the United States have varied problems. Variations in the divorce laws of the 50 states contribute to the possibility of legal tangles. The divorce procedure is neither consistently routinized nor consistently established as an individualized therapeutic procedure; certainly, as compared with the bereaved person, the divorced person lacks a clearly defined role to play. The more meaningful any marriage is, the more painful will be its dissolution. But the confusion involved in divorce as compared with bereavement is often almost as disturbing as the previous frustration and deprivation. Seriously maladjusted couples are confused and torn between the choices of continued sickness in their marriage and the amputation brought about by the choice of divorce. The grim challenge is to find the choice which brings the lesser evil.
Effect on children. It can be argued that research concerning the effect of disorganization and disintegration on children is important, even if it is imperfect by the criteria previously mentioned. Children are the helpless victims of the mistakes of their elders; they have little control over their destinies and usually cannot select the stepparent who comes to them in the course of the divorce–remarriage process.
Much of the research has failed to compare the children of disorganized but undissolved homes with those from disorganized and broken homes of specific types. Landis and Nye found that children from broken homes fared as well or better, according to certain criteria, than children from intact but unhappy homes (Nye 1957). Burchinal (1964) considered homes reintegrated by remarriage, as well as broken and unbroken homes, and found no differential effect on adolescents.
In regard to the convergence of valid findings, much depends on the methods used, the type of effect on children, and the age of offspring at which possible effects are investigated. Landis (1963) found rather impressive evidence that happy parental marriages were favorably related to the dating experience of offspring. Robert R. Bell and James DeBurger, both using the sibling-cooperator method (Kirkpatrick & Cotton 1951, p. 82), found that parental divorce showed greater influence than bereavement on the marital adjustment of grown offspring (see Kirkpatrick [1955] 1963, pp. 665-674).
Applications of knowledge
Effective application of improved knowledge of family disorganization and dissolution depends on the emerging pattern of interprofessional cooperation. Lawyers, doctors, psychologists, social workers, educators, home economists, clergymen, and demographers, as well as social scientists, draw upon the growing body of knowledge in this area. That thriving interdisciplinary organization in the United States–the National Council on Family Relations–draws members from all of the above-mentioned professions. Furthermore, the emerging international organizations concerned with the family tend to be interprofessional in character.
Legal changes . Legal changes, both actual and proposed, tend to reflect a sharper international perspective. Varied explanations of the divorce trends in England include the influence of changes in the divorce laws. However, Max Rheinstein (1960) found little influence of legal changes on divorce rates in Germany. In the United States, a tabulation of the divorce laws in the various states as of 1952 was cross tabulated by the crude divorce rates of 1950 and the percentages of respondents in the various states answering “No” to a question on a poll of 1936 which read, “Should divorces be easier to obtain in your state?” There was a striking lack of correspondence between severity of the laws, behavior as to obtaining divorces, and public opinion concerning legal restrictions (Kirkpatrick 1955, p. 538). Of course, extreme differences in divorce law among various countries or extreme changes within an area, for instance, in South Carolina, do correspond in some degree with divorce rates.
David and Vera Mace note a more “folksy” and less legalistic type of divorce procedure in Russia than in the United States (Mace & Mace 1963, pp. 203-226). Olson (1961) makes similar observations with regard to Japan. In view of the long and, thus far, futile campaign in the United States to achieve either a uniform divorce law in the various states or federal control by a change in the constitution, it is interesting to observe that Australia established such a uniform federal law in 1959. This may well have some effect on the pattern of Australian divorce rates.
Family counseling . Counseling and therapy offer one means of applying improved knowledge concerning family disorganization and dissolution. At times, legal reforms converge with provisions for family counseling. In Australia the Matrimonial Causes Act (mentioned above) restricts dissolution before three years of marriage and provides for marriage counseling and conciliation; it authorizes federal payment for such services to approved marriage guidance organizations (Harvey 1964). The provision for counseling in connection with the divorce procedure in Australia and Japan may give encouragement to persons in the United States who, like Judge Paul W. Alexander, plead for a therapeutic approach, abolition of adversary procedure, and family courts that provide for counseling prior to the granting of a divorce (Kirkpatrick [1955] 1963, pp. 631-632).
There is some agreement, furthered by experience with counseling and therapy, that prevention of family trouble should be sought by a focus on education and counseling at an early period in the life span. Since family dissolution results in no small measure from the coming together of the wrong combinations of people, there is an argument for premarital counseling and guidance in the process of selecting mates. Many issues, however, remain controversial. For example, the small number of trained counselors in relation to potential demand provides an incentive to sacrifice quality to quantity by approving the activity of many relatively untrained persons as counselors.
Perhaps the dilemma of quality versus quantity may be solved to some extent by group counseling and therapy instead of individual treatment. The mutual support found in such groups is impressive. Certain instruments constructed for measuring attitudinal agreement, marital adjustment, and empathy in dyadic relationships might be adapted for self-analysis on the part of individuals and couples with minimal outside aid from experts (Kirkpatrick & Hobart 1954, pp. 10-19).
International trends . The international outlook with regard to family disorganization and dissolution offers an intellectual challenge that goes beyond the parochial applications of existing knowledge. However, some promising beginnings have been made; Goode, for instance, has noted the influence of industrialization upon differential family instability among the different social classes of various countries. These classes may vary, of course, as to degree of urbanization, type of kinship system, and feministic orientation (de Vis-scher 1956). The most valid generalization seems to be that with the spread of Western technology there tends to be increasing similarity in the family systems of the world, including their provision for marital dissolution. The diffusion of feminism may temporarily increase family dissolution, as women demand equality in the privilege of divorce and become economically independent of both husbands and kinfolk (Sysiharju 1960).
Family systems tend to have a certain resiliency under the impact of drastic social change. The free divorce of the 1920s in communist Russia has been replaced by a conservative and restrictive procedure. Hitler attempted reactionary change of the German family (Kirkpatrick 1938), but after the political and military crisis had passed, the general feministic and egalitarian trends characteristic of Western civilization reappeared (Schelsky 1953). As the dominance of the independent nuclear family is proclaimed, evidence appears of the survival of functional kinship systems. Carle C. Zimmerman, who expressed concern about the return of the unstable “atomistic family,” found substantial evidence that “friend-families” tend to be supportive and homogeneous in regard to low incidence of divorce (Zimmerman & Cervantes 1956, pp. 91–117; see also Shanas & Streib 1965).
Improved facilities for communication are characteristic of the modern world, on the international, the national, and the familial level. Cultural interaction may increase both the similarity of familial institutions and agreement concerning human goals such as peace, freedom, and happiness–ends to which social institutions are means. If improved communication reduces repression, hollow ritual, and pretense at every level, the pursuit of happiness and freedom may lead to an increase in divorce rates or other indices of familial dissolution in conservative areas of society. Nevertheless, if dissolution be distinguished from disorganization, certain increases in dissolution may mean merely a spread of higher aspirations and a reluctance to endure familial disorganization with its associated misery.
Clifford Kirkpatrick
[See also Marriage, article onfamily formation; and the biographies of Waller; Westermarck.]
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