Chapter 3: The Family in Historical Perspectives

1) Summary: Chapter 3 discusses the different family structures of different moments in our country's history including the Colonial times, Early American non-European cultures including the African Americans, American Indians, and Mexican Americans, Industrialization/European Immigration, family through moments such as the Great Depression, World War II, the Golden Fifties, and then on to describe family life in the 1960s and onward to modern times. Many of the topics focused on in each of these areas of interest are the how the family is structured, who holds the power, sexual relations among parents, relationship between husband and wives, gender roles, the lives of children and how they're impacted by the timeline, social class relations, and economic responsibilities. Throughout the chapter as a whole it is clearly evident that throughout the historical timeline of our country, we see a vast amount of change going on in each of these topics of interest regarding the family. This further proves that how families are sustained and formed have changed from the early days of our country's existence and will continue to change as we move onward in the years to come. Trends have risen and fallen such as divorce rates and employment of females outside the household to name a few. Among these changes though the most eminent are within family structure, gender roles, and economic concerns.



2) what I learned: From reading this chapter there were quite a few different things I learned that I found peculiar, interestingly thought provoking, and somewhat humorous. One of the things I found to be peculiar and somewhat surprising was that the Puritans of the Colonial times used the bundling concept of allowing their son or daughter to sleep in the same bed as their significant other, even though their views of premarital sex were completely unacceptable and would go to far lengths to prevent it. What perplexes me is that they actually thought placing a plank of wood between the two opposite sexes would prevent them from engaging and any "inappropriate" act after the lights have been turned off? And even more so, the text goes on to talk about how premarital sex was actually common. I feel like these are conflicting theories but we'll go with them... anyways, something that shocked me was the fact that a husband's infidelity was considered normal. If a woman were to commit such an act of infidelity the Puritan society condemned her publicly by local newspapers, as there's an example of this in the reading. This type of exploitation reminded me of the Tabloids we see today of celebrities having various rumors of certain imperfections or acts they may or may not have committed.

When the chapter discussed the marriage and divorce relationships between American Indians, something I found slightly humorous is how easy divorce was for the early American Indians. The book states that "if a wife was fed up with a demanding husband, she would simply put his belongings outside of their home, and they were no longer married. The man accepted the dismissal and returned to his mother's household." I mean come on, how can you not get a giggle out of that! Especially since these days we hear such horror stories of divorce situations. As I am not afraid to admit that I come from a divorced parent household and have experienced most of the struggle of the situation first hand, I find it funny. If only things could be that simple these days it would save a lot of time, money, and stress!

I thought it was highly interesting that within the structure of the Mexican American families, both genders were out in the workforce providing for the family. With all of the other mediums of family that were examined, except for African Americans, women were not allowed to work or it was not the societal norm for females to enter the workforce, at least in higher social class.

It was very surprising to me that families did not recognize or celebrate birthdays until the early 1800s. Something that is so common today was unheard of not too long ago in our history.

Speaking of women in the workforce, I found it interesting that once many women were given a taste of independence and were able to realize they didn't need the support of a man in order to live a "happy" life, divorce rates spiked. The rise to the independent working woman was truly a result of the fifties and if it weren't for this I feel as if the feminist movements in the 60s and 70s may not have happened, demonstrating a major shift in gender roles.



3) Question: Going back to the flexibility of divorce for the early American Indians and how common and easy it was for them, it makes me wonder, did the concept of divorce start from the Native American culture? Could it be that this is why it's so common in our country as opposed to other countries across the world that value the sacrament of marriage more holistically?




--Megan Callahan