This inspired document has changed my life
I hope it can do the same for you.
The Family: A Proclamation to the World, states that families are everlasting and also that a marriage between and husband and wife (man and a woman), is ordained of God. There are often times in our society when this is not so true, and especially as I take a deeper look into the family, you will come to see how this is not always the case. Our attitudes about marriage and family, and what it entails is something we all have to figure out. What do you see being the number one key factor that requires a strong marriage, and for a healthy families to succeed?
I hope it can do the same for you.
The Family: A Proclamation to the World, states that families are everlasting and also that a marriage between and husband and wife (man and a woman), is ordained of God. There are often times in our society when this is not so true, and especially as I take a deeper look into the family, you will come to see how this is not always the case. Our attitudes about marriage and family, and what it entails is something we all have to figure out. What do you see being the number one key factor that requires a strong marriage, and for a healthy families to succeed?
As you keep this question in the back of your mind consider the
following topics and if they are at all applicable to you personally as your
framework. What is the importance of marriage/ family in society? What is the
importance of Gender and heterosexual marriage? What is the importance of
parenting and children? And finally, what is the importance of fidelity and
abuse? These are the topics in which I will be addressing throughout the
remainder of this paper, and it is my hope that you can feel the importance of
what each topic means.
The importance of marriage and family in society is rapidly
changing. It is said in this article, “The effect of non-family experiences on
age of marriage in a setting of rapid social change”, that our society and
especially social change, affects
individuals through many mechanisms. When a society is introduced for the first
time to certain areas of life it can affect them. One of those mechanisms is
the increased opportunity to participate in new activities, such as schooling,
employment outside the family, and exposure to mass media. This can cause
family patterns to change substantially (Goode 1970; Thornton and Lin 1994).
“Research shows that the introduction of mass education is associated with
delayed marriage, more contraceptive use, lower fertility, and preferences for
smaller families.” (Martin 1995; Singh and Samara 1996; Axinn and Barber 2001;
Axinn and Yabiku 2001; Bongaarts 2003). As we can see there are going to many
areas that influence a family, especially in the society. But families have to
make sure that it does not influence them and their behavior as a family.
Next, is the topic of Gender and heterosexual marriage. While
these topics are two different issues, here is an article, which states that
Gender is a structure and the dissolution of violent heterosexual
relationships. Gender differences are complications that arise in marriage.
According to this article, heterosexual relationships can be violent. You have
to make sure you are aware of what is taking place around you and to not let it
affect you too much in the end.
This article applies a structure perspective on gender to
investigate predictors of marital dissolution among men and women who are victimized
by partner violence. Here is what the article had to say: “Using panel data
from the first and second waves of the National Survey of Families and
Households, the study investigates the question whether the differential
positioning of the heterosexual women and men in the structure of gender
inequality affects their likelihood of getting out of two types of violent
relationships- those characterized by minor/symmetrical violence and those
characterized by sever/asymmetrical violence. Results indicated that the odds
of leaving a violent relationship are affected by some indicators of structural
gender inequality, particularly economic dependency, and that there are
differences in the factors that predict dissolution between the two types of
violence.” It is shown that gender inequality and a heterosexual marriage could
be a marital predictor, and one that should be taken with great caution.
The next topic to be discussed is, parenting and children.
According Cheryl Buehler and Jean M. Gerard, this is a sore issue. Their
article titled, Marital Conflict, Ineffective Parenting, and Children’s and
Adolescents’ Maladjustment, states that data from the 1988 National Survey on
Families and Households were analyzed to examine the associations among martial
conflict, helped explain the connection between marital conflict and children’s
adjustment in children aged 2 through 11. Parent child conflict was measured
only in families with a target teenager and also was a significant mediator. It
goes on to say that although ineffective parenting explained part of the
association between marital conflict and children’s maladjustment, independent
effects of marital conflict remained in families with target children aged 2
through 11 (but not for families with a teenager). With a few expectations,
this pattern of findings was consistent for mothers and fathers reports, for
daughters and sons, for families with various ethnic backgrounds, and for
families living in and out of poverty.
I believe from the articles’ findings that parenting is
conflicting when both parties are not set on working things out together as a
couple. They need to be unified in order for their family to succeed and to
also be healthy while at home. There are so many indicators, but this
particular article address those issues head on and believes that the two are
linked together in determining the overall health and well-being of the family.
Co-Parenting is best, when both husband and wife can work well together.
The final topic is fidelity and abuse. Both of these topics go
hand in hand on how they are influenced within a marriage and within the
family. This final article, The Influence of Physical Abuse on Marriage and
Cohabitation, explains that abuse truly does affect marriages and should not be
taken lightly. When fidelity is breached and abuse is taking place it affects
the spouse who is getting abused. Marriages are declining because of this topic
and it is taking place in more families than it is to be expected. From the
article we read, “Women who have experienced abuse beginning in childhood,
particularly sexual abuse, are less likely to be in sustained marriages or
stable cohabiting relationships and instead are more likely to experience
transitory unions: multiple short-term, mostly cohabiting unions with brief
intervals between them. Women who have not been abused in childhood but
experience adult physical abuse, however, are less likely to be in either a
marriage or cohabiting union, long-term, or transitory; and some have withdrawn
from having relationships with men. The relevance of these findings for the
decline of marriage among low-income women and men is found to be relevant.”
This shows us that while abuse is bad, it is extremely common and
even more so than we think it is. Women are not getting married because of
their view on men. It is disheartening but it is important to learn about so
that families can be aware of the dynamics that are taking place within our
society. More and more abuse is occurring and nothing is happening to prevent
it. It not only affects relationships but it truly affects marriages. What will
it take to prevent such issues to keep on happening? I believe that as we learn
and become more educated, we will be able to find ways to prevent such
occurrences and it will help families to stay together longer and to be happy
and healthy.
As we can see these four topics are important to
the well being of marriages and families. There are so many times when a
society can believe that some topics are not concerning or as important as
others, but I believe that from my findings, this is to be true. We need to
make sure that we are helping families to stick to together. All across the
world marriages and families are in struggle, and it is up to us to do something
to help them out. Being educated is key. By staying informed and taking action
within our communities we can be able to defend marriages and their families
and what they stand for uniquely and individually.
There is so much that can be done if only more would make the
effort, or take the necessary action to do so; because they are relaying on us
within our communities to help them out and lend them support. When they turn
to us for that kind of care we need to be willing to take the steps necessary to
helping them out in the end. We can do so much, and we should be leaving
imprints on their hearts to show how effective we were in changing the lives of
all the families who need support and love. I think that we can do our part,
and in the end the lives of all those who live among us in our communities will
be changed forever.
References:
The effect of non-family experiences on age of marriage in a
setting of rapid social change.
Scott T. Yabiku, Arizona State University,
Population Studies, Vol. 59, No. 3, 2005.
Who Gets Out? Gender as Structure and the Dissolution of Violent
Heterosexual Relationships.
Kristin L. Anderson, Western Washington
University, Vol. 21 No. 2, April 2007.
Marital Conflict, Ineffective Parenting, and Children’s and
Adolescents’ Maladjustment
Cheryl Buehler and Jean M. Gerard, University
of Tennessee, Journal of Marriage and Family 64, February 2002.
The Influence of Physical and Sexual Abuse on Marriage and
Cohabitation
Andrew J. Cherlin, Linda M. Burton, Tera R.
Hurt, Diane M. Purvin, American Sociological Review Vol. 69, 2004.
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