Families

Unlike other family textbooks that mostly emphasize conflicts and problems, this book also features the joys and pleasures of family living and its mutually nourishing qualities. Its perspective reflects polls, surveys, and student essays indicating that most people value their families. Families everywhere provide love, support, and sustenance to their members, but they do so in many different arrangements.Understanding the wide variety of families historically and across cultures gives the student a better basis for understanding how families change and a better grasp of more controversial changes such as the gradual acceptance by Westerners of same-sex marriage and child-rearing by single people. Liazos offers two poignant chapters not found in other texts. Family Living (Chapter Six) focuses on the social value of caregiving and family meals. Kin and Community (Chapter Seven) focuses on relationships among kin and the larger community. PREFACE, ACKNOWLEDGMENTS, Chapter 1 Setting the Scene, Chapter 2 Families in U.S. History, Chapter 3 Making Sense of Families, Chapter 4 Marriage, Cohabitation, and Same-Sex Marriage, Chapter 5 Parents and Children, Chapter 6 Living in Families, Chapter 7 Families, Kin, and Communities, Chapter 8 Economies, Migration, and Families, Chapter 9 Families and Gender, Chapter 10 Class, Race, and Families, Chapter 11 Families, Work, and Housework, Chapter 12 Divorce: A World Tradition, Chapter 13 Violence in Families, Chapter 14 Closing Reflections and Parting Comments, REFERENCES, INDEX, ABOUT THE AUTHOR