Sociological Exploration Of The Family System Essay

Families are shaped by the society, culture, and numerous life patterns. Although they are strongly founded on the human nature’s history, they also reflect the developments of societies and cultures including race diversities and culture. Members learn how to live from the family but the society also has an influence on how a person decides to live after being taught how in the family. Worth noting, families are shaped by the environment and shape the environment as well. However, there are many forces that have made the family to change. How people view and understand the family has also changed gradually. There are disagreements regarding the actuality and idea of what a family actually is, has lost, should be, and requires to lose. This paper aims at exploring the family system sociologically.
Based on the assertive mating theory, individuals tend to select mates who have similar attributes to themselves. Therefore, husbands and wives have higher chances f being similar compared to unrelated men and women. According to empirical findings, married couples are more alike on values, demographics, personality, attitudes, and psychological outcomes as opposed to couples who are paired randomly. Arguing from this perspective, the gender roles of husbands and wives should be the same. However, the family systems perspective argues that families are complicated units that are made up of people with varying needs and experiences. Being integrated units, families are more likely to self-organize themselves based on the internal and external forces. As a family develops, there are components that are bound to change more rapidly compared to others. For instance, the gender role attitudes of the spouses may change and develop at varying rates. Nationally representative samples comprising of spouses from the US established that husbands stick to more customary gender roles attitudes compared to their wives. This is not a wonder considering that the male dominance and privilege concepts are inherent and very prevalent in traditional gender roles views.
Sociologically, parents have roles as reinforcers, instructors, as well as models of the gender role attitudes their children exhibit. More specifically, parents communicate the gender beliefs directly when offering guidance, instruction, and training to the children. Moreover, parents reinforce the sex-typed behaviors through encouraging the children to engage in gender-stereotypical actions. By parents modeling sex-typed behaviors, they indirectly transmit gender socialization messages. Therefore, children learn about the roles they are supposed to engage in from watching how their parents act.
Families come in different styles and shapes. Although they are universal, they vary based on the culture. Families having a similar shape in a given community might function differently. For instance, one may be matriarchal or patriarchal in style while there may be another practicing mutually shared leadership. On the same note, the styles of parenting differ, with some being authoritative, authoritarian, and others inconsistent and easy-going. The style and shape of the birth families differ from those of the families where we currently live. Some behavior patterns are transmitted from one generation to the next.
Based on the sociological perspective, transformations in personal and family relationships can be traced back to post-industrialization. As a result, there is individualization and de-traditionalisation of social life. Some social commentators argue that these changes will distort the moral frameworks. On the other hand, those holding a positive view argue that these changes are necessary since plurality of lifestyles and greater diversity result to democratization of individual relationships.