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The Demography of Marriage and Family: A History

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International Handbook on the Demography of Marriage and the Family

Part of the book series: International Handbooks of Population ((IHOP,volume 7))

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Abstract

For much of U.S. history, the definition of family or families has not been clear. The Latin term familia originally meant a group of slaves. In the Middle Ages, familia could refer both to people and to property. Classical Latin carried several different meanings of familia (Herlihy 1985). Furthermore, early data collection defined the family as “sharing a common table” (Smith 1992). Today, the idea of family has expanded. Gubruim and Holstein (1990), for instance, define a family as “people identifying themselves and their relationships with others (not exclusively “blood” kin), among people in health care or judicial settings, and more” (p. 53; see also Stacey 1997). Additionally, a stepfamily is often defined as a family with a stepchild and another child that is biologically related to both parents. Others, such as Monte and Ellis (2014:22), define a blended family as “[a woman] living with a stepchild, or living with a man who is not the biological father of at least one of the mother’s children in the household.” Moreover, Katie Acosta (2017: 245) defines a lesbian stepparent household as “one that includes an origin parent (a legal mother through birth or adoption) and her same-sex partner who, together, raise children conceived or adopted within a previous household.” All of these definitions suggest that there is not one clear definition of a family. However, the definition of family often refers to a nuclear (heterosexual) family. The Standard North American Family, or SNAF, has a heterosexual-related man and woman with two biological children living within the same household (Smith 1993). Families are rarely nuclear families and living in neo-local residences (Coontz 1998, 2000). However, society has lived under a myth that in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, families were predominantly nuclear and authoritarian with fathers as head of households. This type of ‘nuclear family’ is the statistical minority today, but this definition of family persists. As Brian Powell and his colleagues (2016) suggest, researchers need to expand the definition of family and discuss family in the plural as families.

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  1. Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, USA

    Anna-Marie Malley, Carol S. Walther & Karley Nichols

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  1. Anna-Marie Malley
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  2. Carol S. Walther
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Correspondence to Carol S. Walther .

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  1. Sociology & Criminal Justice, Texas A&M University–Commerce, Commerce, TX, USA

    D. Nicole Farris

  2. Literature and Languages, Texas A&M University–Commerce, Commerce, TX, USA

    A. J. J. Bourque

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Malley, AM., Walther, C.S., Nichols, K. (2020). The Demography of Marriage and Family: A History. In: Farris, D.N., Bourque, A.J.J. (eds) International Handbook on the Demography of Marriage and the Family. International Handbooks of Population, vol 7. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35079-6_2

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