Summary:
The main focus of Chapter 3 is on the family throughout history. This chapter discusses the colonial family, including the actual structure, sexual relations, husbands and wives, the children’s roles and how the social class and regional differences played an affect. Chapter 3 then goes on to discuss early American families from Non-European descent, mainly focusing on the American Indians, African Americans, and Mexican Americans. Also touching base on industrialization, urbanization, and European immigration from 1820-1930, Chapter 3 discusses the impact of family life and social class, immigration and urbanization and its effect on the family, and how work plays a role in family life. Also within this chapter, Benokraitis explains how the modern family emerged. Within this part of the chapter she discussed the rise of the companionate family which occurred from 1900-1930, the great depression from 1929-1939, and World War II from 1939-1945. Further in, the chapter highlights the golden fifties where it talks about gender roles and the mass moving to the suburbs. The chapter concludes with the description of the family since the 1960s such things as what the family structure is, the gender roles that have been assigned, and economic concerns.
What was interesting/what did I learn:
I found it interesting that the ages that married American Indians typically marry between overlapped the way that they did. Although I was aware that they generally waited for the men to be capable to provide for a family, I was shocked that the youngest that they would be able to do that was at the age of 15. Considering that these men were probably brought out hunting for many years, I find it interesting that it would take them until 15 to be able to hunt successfully when the women would have been expected to be able to bear a child and take care of them by the age of 12.
Question:
When talking about the divorce rate rising after World War II, I can’t help but wonder why they believed it to be caused by alcoholism of the veterans. It makes sense that couples would marry impulsively during and after the war, especially considering the factors that they hadn’t seen each other for long periods of time, and that they could have died in the war. This over excitement of return from the war explains why many couples would end up in divorce, considering most would have made the rash decision to marry. How could alcoholism have had that much impact on the society for people to believe it to be the main cause?
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ReplyDeleteMari-Kathryn,
ReplyDeleteI agree with your point that the rush to marry after the war might have had a large impact on divorce rates. However, I think alcoholism might have been the leading cause in the sense that it can be caused by Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which is a disease that war veterans commonly develop. People with PTSD are more likely than others to have an alcohol use disorder. War often causes veterans to turn to drugs or alcohol to relieve their pain or stress. Many veterans can not deal with all the cruel things they have witnessed at war and are severely traumatized and the best way they find to cope with such trauma is by drinking heavily. In addition, since Vietnam veterans had a difficult time reintegrating into the workforce and returning to the lives they had before the war, they were filled with anxiety, which also led many cope by using alcohol. So with alcohol as a major way of dealing with trauma, anxiety, and depression many veterans became alcoholics, which can cause tons of problems in relationships and marriages (ex. abuse, crimes, mental problems, etc.) and end in divorce.
I hope this gives you a clearer understanding of why alcoholism rates were high, which in turn caused high divorce rates.
-Natalie Fisher