Marriage, divorce and family diversity: key terms
12 terms. Say the definition out loud, tap to check, then say whether you knew it. Back to the topic
These cards were written by the site from the specification, mark schemes and examiners' reports and are being checked by our Sociology tutor; tell us if you spot an error.
Family diversity
The range of different family types in a society, such as lone-parent, reconstituted, same-sex and cohabiting families.
Exam tip The Rapoports' five types of diversity (organisational, cultural, class, life-stage, generational) give a ready structure for an outline question.
Cereal packet family
Leach's term for the image of the ideal family as a married couple with two children, the man as breadwinner.
Exam tip Used to show the gap between the ideal and the diversity of real families.
Nuclear family
A family of two generations, parents and their dependent children, living together.
Exam tip Functionalists and the New Right see it as the norm; postmodernists and feminists challenge that.
Reconstituted family
A family in which one or both partners have children from a previous relationship, also called a stepfamily.
Exam tip Link its growth to rising divorce and remarriage.
Cohabitation
An unmarried couple in a sexual relationship living together.
Exam tip Distinguish trial marriage from a permanent alternative to marriage; the evidence supports both.
Serial monogamy
A pattern of having a series of marriages or partnerships, one after another.
Exam tip A result of divorce and remarriage; useful when explaining changing marriage patterns.
Secularisation (and divorce)
The declining influence of religion, which reduces the stigma attached to divorce.
Exam tip One of several explanations for the rise in divorce: pair it with legal changes and women's financial independence.
Individualisation
The idea that people are freed from traditional norms and make their own choices about relationships.
Exam tip Giddens and Beck. Links to the pure relationship and to family diversity.
Pure relationship
Giddens's term for a relationship that lasts only as long as both partners find it satisfying.
Exam tip Used to explain rising divorce and cohabitation; critics say it ignores structural constraints such as money.
Beanpole family
A family that is long and thin: several generations alive but few children in each.
Exam tip Brannen. A result of longer life expectancy and lower birth rates.
Neo-conventional family
Chester's term for a dual-earner nuclear family, which he sees as the new norm.
Exam tip Chester argues diversity is exaggerated: a good counter-view in essays.
Divorce Reform Act 1969
The law that allowed divorce for 'irretrievable breakdown' of the marriage, without proving fault.
Exam tip Name the act and say what it changed; mark schemes credit specific legal change.
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