Chapter 16

Summary:

Focusing on remarriages and stepfamilies, Chapter 16 begins by discussing the idea of being single again and dating and cohabitation. Within this section dating after divorce is first discussed. When this topic is covered, it states that many people begin to date before their divorce is even legally final. This section also states that the younger a person is, the easier it is for him/her to reenter the dating scene. When someone hasn’t dated for many years, he/she is usually apprehensive because they feel less confident; this is especially common for those who spouses initiated the divorce. This section then begins to discuss cohabitation as an alternative to dating after a divorce. In this section it is also stated that half of all remarriages begin with cohabitation and that cohabitation is actually more common in a second marriage and in older adults.

The following section in Chapter 16 revolves around forming a stepfamily. This section begins by explaining and defining a stepfamily. Sociologists in the past defined a stepfamily as a household in which at least one of the spouses had a biological child from a previous marriage. However, the current definition is a household in which two adults are biological or adoptive parents with a child from a previous relationship elect to marry or to cohabit. This definition includes the more nontraditional sense of family, allowing a larger scope of people to be considered in a stepfamily. This part of the chapter then continues with discussing how common remarriage and stepfamilies are in society. Here, we see that remarriage is common and that 85% of Americans who divorce, remarry.

Chapter 16 further discusses remarriage by discussing the characteristics of remarried couples. Within this section, age and gender, gender and race/ethnicity, social class, and the presence of children are all discussed. The average age for women to remarry is 33, versus 35 for men. This also discusses that women who married at a young age the first time, are more likely to remarry. As for gender and race/ethnicity, white women have the highest remarriage rates, and African Americans have the highest cohabitation rates. When looking at social class, men tend to be worth more than women of the same age. Young, less educated, low-income divorcees are more likely to remarry than the financially independent. However, women with higher socioeconomic standing are more eligible remarriage candidates and are likely to attract a larger number of desirable marriage partners.

Benokraitis continues this chapter with explaining the process of remarriage. These stages aren’t necessarily sequential, but they are experienced. The stages are emotional remarriage, which is the stage that often is a slow process, psychic remarriage, which is when people’s identity changes from that of a single individual to that part of a couple after they remarry, community remarriage, which is when people often change their community of friends when they remarry, parental remarriage, which involves developing relationships between a partner and the children of the new spouse, economic remarriage, which reestablishes a marital household as an economic unit, and legal remarriage, which occurs because the legal system does not specify remarriage responsibilities and people are left to struggle with many problems on their own.

The following section of Chapter 16 compares first marriages with remarriages. Within this part of the chapter family composition is first discussed. Stepsiblings, brothers or sisters who share a biological or adoptive parent and a stepparent, is one of the terms introduced here, along with half siblings, which are brothers or sisters who share only one biological or adoptive parent. The next part of this section discusses role expectations. This section explains how the roles tend to follow norms in a first marriage, but as a remarriage occurs, they begin to become fuzzy, especially when involving the extended family. Also within this section of the chapter is a discussion of the changes that occur across the life course of the children and family members involved in a remarriage, and the stress and resources that occur.

Chapter 16 then continues with a discussion of couple dynamics in stepfamilies. This section covers not only some of the myths about remarriage, but marital roles and power, remarriage satisfaction, and remarriage stability. Some of the myths that are included are the nuclear family myth. This myth includes the believers of this fantasy to expect family members to love and feel close to one another and children to show deference to parents. The compensation myth is also discussed which is when the new mate is expected to be everything the problematic old mate wasn’t, the instant love myth, which is believing marriage to be a form of parental entitlement, new stepparents presume and intimacy and authority that they have yet to earn. The final myth listed is the rescue fantasy which is when stepparents think that they will “shape those kids up” and rescue them from a negative or lenient custodial parent. As for some of the roles and powers discussed, this section stated that more remarried couples share decision making more equally than they did during their first marriage. Although these things seem like they are all positive, this section also states that there is mixed data on remarital satisfaction. Also within this section is the remarriage stability which stated that about 60% of remarriages, compared to the 45% of first marriages end in divorce.

The following section of this chapter, diversity and complexity of stepfamilies, begins by discussing the types of stepfamilies. There are three basic types of stepfamilies, the mother-stepfather family, which is when all of the children are biological children of the mother and stepchildren of the father, the father-stepmother family, which is when all the children are biological children of the father and stepchildren, and the joint stepfamily, where at least one child is the biological child of both parents, at least one child is the biological child of only one parent and the stepchild of the other parent, and no other type of child is present. This section of the chapter also continues to discuss gay and lesbian stepfamilies. Here, this part of the chapter introduces the co-parent family, the stepmother family, and the co-mother family. The following part of this section discusses the characteristics of stepfamilies, some of which are the structure of the stepfamilies is complex, a stepfamily must cope with unique tasks, stepfamilies often experience more stress and conflict than nuclear families, stepfamilies need great flexibility in the everyday behavior, stepfamily members have unrealistic expectations, and there is no shared family history.

Continuing the discussion of stepfamilies, this chapter then discusses the topic of living in a stepfamily. This begins with the stereotypes about stepfamilies, followed by parenting in stepfamilies. About 17 percent of American children live in a stepfamily which can cause a number of issues when attempting to merge two households after a marriage. Some of these issues include naming, sexual boundaries, legal issues, distributing economic resources, distributing emotional resources, developing the stepparent-stepchild relationships, establishing discipline and closeness, gender differences in children’s adjustment, and intergenerational relationships. These topics are then followed by some of the effects of stepfamilies on children, such as how children fare and some explanations for the effects of stepfamilies on children. Some of the explanations include family stress theories, risk and resilience, social capital models, and cumulative effects hypothesis.

The final section of this book discusses successful remarriages and stepfamilies. Here some characteristics of successful stepfamilies are listed such as how successful stepfamilies develop realistic expectations, adults in successful stepfamilies let children mourn their losses, adults in well-functioning stepfamilies forge a strong couple relationship, that the stepparenting role proceeds slowly, and that the stepparent should take on a disciplinary role gradually. Some other characteristics that were included were that stepfamilies develop their own rituals, and that stepfamilies work out satisfactory arrangements between the children’s households. This section concludes with the rewards of remarriage and stepparenting. One example of this is that when remarried partners are happy, the children benefit from living in a satisfying household; also, successful remarried couples say that they try harder, are more tolerant of minor irritations, and tend to be more considerate of each other’s feelings than they were in their first marriages.

What was interesting/what did I learn:

I found it most interesting that remarriage rates were high for both sexes ages 50 and older. I would have thought that the older you became that the less chance you would be willing to put yourself out there. With that being said I was not surprised that men were more likely to remarry than older women. I seem to find that the older I get, the more common it is to see younger women chase after older men. Although not many of them that I see doing this are chasing after 50 year olds, I do see how this can correlate to the idea that an older man has more of a chance to remarry. I think with this being said, that it would be interesting to see the percentage of how many of these over 50 year old men marry women who are significantly younger than them, and/or if they remarry to someone who has already been married once before or never has.

Question:

I found it interesting that most people start dating before their divorce is legally final. What are your feelings on this? Do you think this as acceptable actions or do you think it is proper to wait until everything is finalized.