7.1 What is Marriage? What is a Family?

What is Marriage?

Marriage and family are key structures in most societies. While the two institutions have historically been closely linked in Canadian culture, their connection is becoming more complex. The relationship between marriage and family is often taken for granted in the popular imagination but with the increasing diversity of family forms in the 21st century their relationship needs to be re-examined.

What is marriage? Different people define it in different ways. Not even sociologists are able to agree on a single meaning. A straightforward definition of marriage is: a legally recognized social contract between two people, based on a sexual or intimate relationship, and implying cohabitation and a permanence of the union. But to create a more inclusive definition, sociologists might also consider variations, such as whether a formal legal union is required (think of common-law marriage and its equivalents), whether a sexual relationship is necessary (consider permanent intimate relationships between asexual individuals), or whether more than two people can be involved (consider polygamy, polyandry or polyamory). Other variations on the definition of marriage might include whether spouses are of opposite sexes or the same sex (regardless of local laws governing same-sex marriage), and how one of the traditional expectations of marriage, to produce children, is relevant to the question.

Interestingly, a court case in 1867, at the time of Confederation, might provide the basis for a truly “traditional” Canadian definition of marriage. In the 19th century marital unions between European fur traders and Aboriginal women were common, but also foreshadowed some of the complexity sociologists confront in defining marriage today. European authorities, especially religious authorities, tended to define legitimate marriage based on European practices — monogamy, insolubility, holy sacrament, etc. — and insisted that Aboriginal people conform to them. There were also fears about “mixing blood” and racial “degeneration.”  But in a context where marriage with Aboriginal women provided useful socioeconomic alliances, acculturation into frontier life, as well as the “many tender ties” of domestic life, European men often accepted Aboriginal practices, which included payment of bride price, polygamy, and divorce depending on the nation (Van Kirk, 2002; 1980). They were married “en façon du pays” or by the “custom of the country.”

This was the case with William Connolly and his Cree wife Suzanne, who married in 1803 at Rivière-aux-Rats (in now northern Manitoba), according to Cree customs, and lived together for 28 years, having 6 children. William then married his cousin Julia Woolrich in a Catholic ceremony. When William died and his estate went to Julia, one of his sons by Suzanne argued in court that the second marriage was null because William was still married to his mother. The question was whether their Cree marriage ceremony was legally valid, or, what definition of marriage applied to the inheritance of William’s estate. The court recognized the Cree marriage customs as valid and binding (Walter, 2017).  The ruling of Connolly v Woolrich therefore defined marriage according to components of both European and Aboriginal marriage, emphasizing local custom and social recognition. As Van Kirk (2002) summarizes, “a marriage was defined as being openly recognized and characterized by mutual consent, cohabitation, and public repute as husband and wife.”

Sociologists are interested in the relationship between the institution of marriage and the institution of family because, historically, marriages are what legally and normatively create a family, and families are a primary social unit upon which society is built. Both marriage and family create status roles that are recognized, sanctioned and regulated by society.

What is Family?

Sociologists seek a substantive definition that can distinguish family groups from non-family groups. Rather than relying on definitions borrowed from specific religious or cultural traditions, they tend to define family more in terms of the manner in which members relate to one another. Therefore, family can be defined as a socially recognized group joined by blood relations, marriage, or adoption, that forms an emotional connection and serves as an economic unit of society.

Based on Georg Simmel’s (1971 (1908)) distinction between the form and content of social interaction (see Chapter on Groups and Organizations), sociologists can analyze the family as a social form that comes into existence around five different contents or interests: sexual activity, economic cooperation, reproduction, socialization of children, and emotional support. As one might expect from Simmel’s analysis, the types of family form in which all or some of these contents are expressed are diverse: nuclear families, polygamous families, extended families, same-sex parent families, single-parent families, blended families, and zero-child families, etc. However, the forms that families take are not random; rather, these forms are determined by cultural traditions, social structures, economic pressures, and historical transformations. They also are subject to intense moral and political debate about the definition of the family, the “decline of the family,” or the policy options to best support the well-being of families.

Marriage Patterns as Social Forms

Contemporary North Americans typically equate marriage and cohabitation with monogamy, when someone is married to only one person at a time. Following Simmel’s sociological approach above, monogamy is a social form or relationship pattern that regulates sexual activity as a content of social relationships. It has consequences for the social forms that the other contents of “family” assume: economic cooperation, reproduction, socialization of children, and emotional support. In fact, who can marry whom, and who is permitted to have sex with whom, are key variables in distinguishing various types of kinship system, systems of social organization based on real or putative family ties (Carston, 1998). The most basic rule for all societies is the incest taboo — an individual may not have sex with or marry someone who is a close blood relative — but beyond this constraint there is great variation in kinship practices (Stebbins, 2013).

In a majority of cultures around the world (78%), polygamy, or being married to more than one person at a time, is accepted (Murdock, 1967), with most polygamous societies existing in Sub-Saharan Africa and Muslim dominant countries (Altman and Ginat, 1996).

Instances of polygamy are almost exclusively in the form of polygyny. Polygyny refers to a man being married to more than one woman at the same time. The reverse, when a woman is married to more than one man at the same time, is called polyandry. It is far less common and only occurs in about 1 per cent of the world’s cultures (Altman and Ginat, 1996). While the majority of societies accept polygyny, the majority of people do not practice it. Often fewer than 10% (and no more than 25 to 35%) of men in cultures that accept polygamy have more than one wife. Having multiple wives is a sign of status and wealth for a man, but he usually must have the wealth and status before he can have more than one wife (Altman and Ginat, 1996).

What is love (for a sociologist)?

Throughout most of history, erotic love or romantic love was not considered a suitable basis for marriage. Marriages were typically arranged by families through negotiations designed to increase wealth, property or prestige, establish ties, or gain political advantages. In modern individualistic societies on the other hand, romantic love is seen as the essential basis for marriage. In response to the question, “If a man (woman) had all the other qualities you desired, would you marry this person if you were not in love with him (her)?” only 4 per cent of Americans and Brazilians, 5 per cent of Australians, 6 per cent of Hong Kong residents, and 7 per cent of British residents said they would — compared to 49% of Indians and 50% of Pakistanis (Levine, Sato, Hashimoto, and Verma, 1995). Despite the emphasis on romantic love, it is also recognized to be an unstable basis for long-term relationships as the feelings associated with it are transitory.

Although romantic love is often characterized as an involuntary force that sweeps people away, mate selection nevertheless involves an implicit or explicit cost/benefit analysis that affects who falls in love with whom. People tend to select mates of a similar social status from within their own social group. The selection process is influenced by three sociological variables (Kalmijn, 1998).

Firstly, potential mates assess each other’s socioeconomic resources, like income potential or family wealth, and cultural resources, like education, taste, worldview, and values, to maximize the value or rewards the relationship will bring to them. Secondly, third parties like family, church, or community members tend to intervene to prevent people from choosing partners from outside their community or social group because this threatens group cohesion and homogeneity. Thirdly, demographic variables that effect “local marriage markets” — typically places like schools, workplaces, bars, clubs, and neighborhoods where potential mates can meet — will also affect mate choice. Due to probability, people from large or concentrated social groups have more chance to choose a partner from within their group than do people from smaller or more dispersed groups. Other demographic or social factors like war or economic conditions also affect the ratio of males to females or the distribution of ages in a community, which in turn affects the likelihood of finding a mate inside of one’s social group. Mate selection is therefore not as random as the story of Cupid’s arrow suggests.

Making Connections: Sociological Research

How Do Working Moms Impact Society?

What constitutes a “typical family” in Canada has changed tremendously over the past decades. One of the most notable changes has been the increasing number of mothers who work outside the home. Earlier in Canadian history, most family households consisted of one parent working outside the home and the other being the primary child care provider. Because of traditional gender roles and family structures, this was typically a working father and a stay-at-home mom. Research shows that in 1951 only 21.6% of all women worked outside the home. In 2015, 82% of all women did, and 69.5% of women with children younger than six years of age were employed (Moyser, 2017).

Sociologists interested in this topic might approach its study from a variety of angles. One might be interested in its impact on a child’s development; another sociologist may explore its effect on family income; while a third sociologist might examine how other social institutions have responded to this shift in society. A sociologist studying the impact of working mothers on a child’s development might ask questions about children raised in child care settings outside the home. How is a child socialized differently when raised largely by a child care provider rather than a parent? Do early experiences in a school-like child care setting lead to improved academic performance later in life? How does a child with two working parents perceive gender roles compared to a child raised with a stay-at-home parent? Another sociologist might be interested in the increase in working mothers from an economic perspective. Why do so many households today have dual incomes? Has this changed the income of families substantially? How do women’s dual roles in the household and in the wider economy affect their occupational achievements and ability to participate on an equal basis with men in the workforce? What impact does the larger economy play in the economic conditions of an individual household? Do people view money — savings, spending, debt — differently than they have in the past?

Curiosity about this trend’s influence on social institutions might lead a researcher to explore its effect on the nation’s educational and child care systems. Has the increase in working mothers shifted traditional family responsibilities onto schools, such as providing lunch and even breakfast for students? How does the creation of after-school care programs shift resources away from traditional school programs? What would the effect be of providing a universal, subsidized child care program on the ability of women to pursue uninterrupted careers?

As these examples show, sociologists study many real-world topics. Their research often influences social policies and political issues. Results from sociological studies on this topic might play a role in developing federal policies like the Employment Insurance maternity and parental benefits program, or they might bolster the efforts of an advocacy group striving to reduce social stigmas placed on stay-at-home dads, or they might help governments determine how to best allocate funding for education. Many European countries like Sweden have substantial family support policies, such as a full year of parental leave at 80% of wages when a child is born, and heavily subsidized, high-quality daycare and preschool programs. The debate in Canada is often between the effectiveness of child tax benefits and family allowance payments vs. the provision of subsidized early childhood care. Sociologists might be interested in studying whether the benefits of the Swedish system — in terms of children’s well-being, lower family poverty, and gender equality — outweigh the drawbacks of higher Swedish tax rates.