Marriage patterns of monogamy, polygamy, polyandry, and polygyny - Essay Example

?Different Topics Identify marriage patterns of monogamy, polygamy, polyandry, and polygyny. There are two predominant types of marriage ly monogamy and polygamy. Monogamy is a kind of marriage where one is allowed to have only one spouse while polygamy is a where one is allowed to have as many spouses as they can take care of. Polygamy is divided into two types: Polyandry and polygyny. Polyandry is where by a woman is allowed to have many spouses as she so wishes and polygyny is a marriage of one man to two or more females. The above-mentioned types of marriage have had changing patterns with time. In the postwar times, women increasingly married men regardless of how many wives the man had. This was due to the social mobility that existed at that time. However, this is not the case with the current situation. The number of women taking polygyny type of marriage has reduced with many preferring to remain as single mothers instead of getting into a polygamous setting. The reverse can be said of monogamous type of marriage. Traditionally, marriage had so much inequality where man was allowed to marry as many wives as they could but the reverse was not allowed. With economic limitations experienced in the current situations, the pattern has changed with many people going for monogamous marriage. Polyandry has always been a unique and unacceptable type of marriage in the society. Traditionally, it was not culturally right for a woman to be married to more than one man. Although even now it is not common, the pattern has changed where there are a significant number of women with more than one spouse than it was before. 2. What is the preferred marital arrangement in the world? Identify serial monogamy or modified polygamy. What is our marriage system in the U.S.? The world marital arrangement has experienced a significant change. Traditionally, polygamy was the most preferred type of marriage with polygyny being more common in sub-Saharan Africa and by the Muslim dominated countries. However, this has changed with monogamy taking preference over polygamy. Many household in the world preferred monogamy with some places even allowing serial monogamy. This is a marriage where one is allowed to marry many spouses but one at a time. Serial monogamy happens largely in industrialized countries like North America. An individual is permitted to remarry after divorce or the death of a spouse. Majority of the people prefer this type of marriage as a way of mitigating the spread of STI’s like HIV/AIDs. It is seen as the safest marriage where one can trace a spouse sexual life without endangering their lives. However, some people may prefer to remain single but keep sexual partners. Either way, even without marriage commitment, the aspect of serial monogamy still comes out. Marriage in the U.S is largely affected by economic status. The system has developed to defining who marries who. This division is mainly on the career ground, location, parents’ economic and social status and less on religion. The underlying factors have led to majority of the people ending up in homogamy where they cannot find potential partners. For them that manage to be in a marriage, monogamy remains their preferred type of marriage with possible divorce in case of a disagreement. 3. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of survey research method used in marriage and family studies A survey research method involves a respondent- researcher interaction. It takes four forms, which are, mail survey, phone survey, in-person survey, and web survey. All the mentioned forms of survey have their advantages and disadvantages and the circumstances that allow their use. Among them, the most famous is in-person survey since the researcher is able to be physically involved with the respondents. Conducting a relatively accurate survey on marriage is a basic important part in getting reliable results on marriage and family studies. The research method comes with several advantages as well as disadvantages. The advantages include, but not limited to the cost incurred is low and the information gathered is unique in that it cannot be found in any other source apart from the correspondents alone. The method also brings out the exact interest of the target research population without creating any form of biasness. Survey research method, through its tools allows a researcher to have a given standard since it requires the same information from the research respondents. With survey, there is a high response rate. Among the disadvantages of survey research method used in marriage and family studies is for an electronic type of survey, not many people have access to internet. This makes the method limited to only the people who can access internet, the researcher is not able to monitor response rate, there are high chances of receiving inconsistent information from the respondents, and when the questionnaire is too long, the respondents may turn down their interest in participating in the survey. 4. Describe the four sources of power in relationships associated with conflict theory and discuss how gender shapes the family experience under feminist perspective. In the ancient days, wealth was described in terms of prestige, power and property a family controlled in a given environment. These created a great inequality between the haves and have not hence causing conflicts even in the family setup. The conflicts generated a need for definitive sources of power some of the sources of power are wealth, prestige, gender and power. There is a social divide in the society where the wealthy seem to interact with their fellow wealthy people. This is in the interest of developing each other as they compete to make more from every opportunity. Prestige dictates the available of resources for a specific group of people in a given setting. This raises a desire in the people who have the ability to access the facilities to only be associated with their fellow prestigious colleagues. This goes at times to levels of dictating whom these people thriving in prestigious circumstances can get married to in the interest of remaining in the prestigious state. Power is another thing that affects relationships. The mighty and powerful people in the society interact with their fellow powerful friends. Feminists have had a share of control in relationships due to the new definitions they have brought to relationships. Majority of them, with the continued highlight on gender equality argue that what a man can do, a woman can do it better. The result has been creation of conflict between men and women diverse interest in a family. The women want to feel respected and honored while the men want the same from the women. This has caused the experience to be somehow tough hence ending to growing need for single parenthood in the cases where one cannot tolerate the other. 5. Discuss the colonial family as an economic and social institution Colonial families performed a crucial role in setting up economic and social standards. They were the site for economic development and were described as commonwealth due to the great wealth they commanded in their region of occupation. Their kingship nature and the level of exposure lead to great economic and cultural values. For example, in colonial British America, cloths were an economic development indicator. Their importance when introduced to places likes India lead to a challenge that leads natives to engage in cloth production hence leading to great economic growths. The people who participated in the production gained economic power that lead to continued economic growth. As a social institution, majority of the colonial families acted as centers of discipline. They worked as sources of hospitality where parenting for foster children and taking care of the old marked their hospitality standards. At that time, colonial families participated a great deal in establishing social order in the society. Their directions on how things are supposed to be done have remained as the main source of social reflections in many societies where they once lived. 6. Describe the effects of industrialization on the family and demographic change in contemporary marriages and families Industrialization came with significant changes and effects on various sectors of the society where marriage and family are some of them. Among the effects it had on family are it refined the function of the family. The family has been redefined from being a place where birth, upbringing, and education was to take place. With industrialization, birth is done in hospitals, nurturing can be done in care centres and education and training have been left to schools and training institutions. Before industrialization, it was the man’s job to provide for his family. This has changed where both man and woman go out to work as they share financial responsibilities. Industrialization also led to broke up of joint families and upgrading of status of women in the society. Initially, communion type of society dominated many parts of the world with women taking much of the home chores. This changed to individualistic type of living where family setting has been reduced to nuclear families. The woman status have been upgraded where women now have more economic power than before. The women are allowed to have control over their finances which was not there before industrialization Industrialization also came with significant demographic definitions. Before industrialization, majority of people preferred living in the rural areas where they could do own big chunks of land for farming and have as many children as they so wished. The population growth was highest since one household could have more than one woman giving birth to too many children. This has changed with industrialization since many people have been moving to urban areas for business and employment. The economic status has lead to many men now preferring to have few children in a monogamous setting where they can afford to house them, feed them and even educate them. The population growth has been mitigated with introduction of birth controls hence leading to a controlled population growth. Read More