Module # 6 Spotlight on Sociology and supplemental topics

This section in each model is a way to emphasize key ideas (often sociologically-related) that enrich and expand the material in the textbook and the Chapter Notes. The instructor will expand the topics occasionally to include specific contemporary and relevant information and insights.

Chapter 5 (pages 96-108) in the textbook discusses material related to verbal, nonverbal, technology-mediated communication as well as principles of effective communication and gender, culture and communication.

This Spotlight draws attention to the following topics of the Victorian family, rise of the middle class and nuclear family, and the companionate family.

Rich Victorians

Middle class and upper class Victorians made up only approximately fifteen percent of the English Victorian Age population. There was an enormous gap between these two classes and the working and poor classes. Middle class families were considered wealthy and typically had fathers who held professional positions such as doctors, lawyers, bankers, factory owners, merchants, and shopkeepers. The upper class, or aristocracy, was composed of nobility and clergy and comprised only two percent of the population.

Servants

Rich Victorians always had servants. Cooks, butlers, gardeners, housemaids, nannies and governesses were employed by this social class. The middle class families did not usually have as many servants as the upper class families. Many of the servants had moved from the country, where many of the farming jobs had been eliminated by the invention of machines. Servants were paid low wages but were guaranteed a living space, food, and clothes by their employers.

Large Homes

Middle and upper class Victorian Age families lived in large, comfortable houses. These houses had ample space for the family, which averaged between four to six children, and the servants. This was a sharp contrast to the overcrowded and unhealthy conditions of the working and poor classes of this time. Victorian houses of wealthy owners had features such as bay windows, stained glass in the windows and doorways, patterned brickwork and slate roofs.

Wealthy Children

The children of rich Victorians spent the majority of their day with their nanny. The nanny was responsible for the children’s daily activities. Nannies also taught children proper behavior, disciplined the children, and took care of them when they were ill.

For the most part, children of wealthy parents did not attend school outside of the home. Governesses and tutors taught these children in the children’s homes. Mothers sometimes taught their sons and daughters to read and write, and fathers would sometimes teach Latin to their sons. Only sons were sent to boarding schools such as Eton and Rugby.

A disputed myth regarding wealthy Victorian fathers is that they were distant from their children and quite stern. Although this may have been the case for some families, there are indications that many Victorian fathers cherished their children and enjoyed spending time with them.

https://www.victorians.co.uk/rich-victorians

Poverty and Families in the Victorian Era

Population increase

The nineteenth century saw a huge growth in the population of Great Britain.

The reason for this increase is not altogether clear. Various ideas have been put forward; larger families; more children surviving infancy; people living longer; immigration, especially large numbers of immigrants coming from Ireland fleeing the potato famine and the unemployment situation in their own country.

By the end of the century there were three times more people living in Great Britain than at the beginning.

Growth of the cities

Although the population of the country as a whole was rising at an unprecedented rate, that of the towns and cities was increasing by leaps and bounds. This was due to the effects of the industrial revolution; people were flocking into the towns and cities in search of employment. For some it was also the call of the unknown, adventure and a better way of life.

The search for employment

Therefore all these factors – population explosion, immigration both foreign and domestic – added up and resulted in a scramble for any job available.

Large numbers of both skilled and unskilled people were looking for work, so wages were low, barely above subsistence level. If work dried up, or was seasonal, men were laid off, and because they had hardly enough to live on when they were in work, they had no savings to fall back on.

Child labour

Children were expected to help towards the family budget. They often worked long hours in dangerous jobs and in difficult situations for a very little wage.

For example, there were the climbing boys employed by the chimney sweeps; the little children who could scramble under machinery to retrieve cotton bobbins; boys and girls working down the coal mines, crawling through tunnels too narrow and low to take an adult. Some children worked as errand boys, crossing sweepers, shoe blacks, and they sold matches, flowers and other cheap goods.

The housing shortage

Low wages and the scramble for jobs meant that people needed to live near to where work was available. Time taken walking to and from work would extend an already long day beyond endurance.
Consequently available housing became scarce and therefore expensive, resulting in extremely overcrowded conditions.

Slum housing

All these problems were magnified in London where the population grew at a record rate. Large houses were turned into flats and tenements and the landlords who owned them, were not concerned about the upkeep or the condition of these dwellings.

In his book The Victorian underworld, Kellow Chesney gives a graphic description of the conditions in which many were living:

‘Hideous slums, some of them acres wide, some no more than crannies of obscure misery, make up a substantial part of the, metropolis … In big, once handsome houses, thirty or more people of all ages may inhabit a single room,’ (1)

Overcrowding

Many people could not afford the rents that were being charged and so they rented out space in their room to one or two lodgers who paid between twopence and fourpence a day.

Great wealth and extreme poverty lived side by side because the tenements, slums, rookeries were only a stones throw from the large elegant houses of the rich.

The name ‘rookeries’ was given to these dwellings because of the way people lived without separate living accommodation for each family. The analogy being that whereas other birds appear to live in separate families, rooks do not. Neither did the very poor in the tenements of London.

Poor sanitary conditions

Henry Mayhew was an investigative journalist who wrote a series of articles for the Morning Chronicle about the way the poor of London lived and worked.

In an article published on 24th September 1849 he described a London Street with a tidal ditch running through it, into which drains and sewers emptied. The ditch contained the only water the people in the street had to drink, and it was ‘the colour of strong green tea’, in fact it was ‘more like watery mud than muddy water’. This is the report he gave:

‘As we gazed in horror at it, we saw drains and sewers emptying their filthy contents into it; we saw a whole tier of doorless privies in the open road, common to men and women built over it; we heard bucket after bucket of filth splash into it’ (2).

Mayhew’s articles were later published in a book called London Labour and the London Poor and in the introduction he wrote:

‘…the condition of a class of people whose misery, ignorance, and vice, amidst all the immense wealth and great knowledge of “the first city in the world”, is, to say the very least, a national disgrace to us’ (3).

Destitution

Many cases of death caused by starvation and destitution were reported. One example of such a report will suffice. In 1850 an inquest was held on a 38 year old man whose body was reported as being little more than a skeleton, his wife was described as being ‘the very personification of want’ and her child as a ‘skeleton infant’(4).

Homeless children

Obviously these conditions affected children as well as adults.

There were children living with their families in these desperate situations but there were also numerous, homeless, destitute children living on the streets of London.

Many children were turned out of home and left to fend for themselves at an early age and many more ran away because of ill treatment.

In her book The Victorian town child, Pamela Horn writes:

‘In 1848 Lord Ashley referred to more than thirty thousand 'naked, filthy, roaming lawless and deserted children, in and around the metropolis' ' (5).

Children and crime

Many destitute children lived by stealing, and to the respectable Victorians they must have seemed a very real threat to society. Something had to be done about them to preserve law and order.

Many people thought that education was the answer and Ragged schools were started to meet the need. However there were dissenting voices against this. Henry Mayhew argued that:

‘since crime was not caused by illiteracy, it could not be cured by education … the only certain effects being the emergence of a more skilful and sophisticated race of criminals’ (6).

Society's attitude towards the poor

It does appear that many people and various agencies were becoming aware of the problem, but the sheer scale of it must have seemed overwhelming.
One of the difficulties in dealing with it were contemporary attitudes:

‘the poor were improvident, they wasted any money they had on drink and gambling’;

‘God had put people in their place in life and this must not be interfered with because the life after death was more important’

are some of the comments people might have made.

As far as the later comment is concerned, this is clearly demonstrated in a hymn published in 1848 by Cecil Frances Alexander:

The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
God made them, high and lowly,
And order’d their estate (7)

Social charities

As the century progressed the plight of the poor, and of the destitute homeless children, impinged on the consciences of more and more people. The Victorian era can also be thought of as one of intense philanthropy. Many of our modern day charitable institutions, such as The Children's Society, have their roots at this time.

https://www.hiddenlives.org.uk/articles/poverty.html

The Real Roots of the Nuclear Family

by Kay Hymowitz

Though much of the public seems unaware of it, family scholars believe that—generally speaking—children are best off growing up with their two married parents. These are the children most likely to get the education crucial for maintaining a middle-class life in an advanced economy, to remain stably employed, and to marry and raise their own children to go on and do the same.

But it is not well understood why the married couple—or nuclear family—works so well for kids. The most intriguing explanation I’ve seen can be found in a little-known 2002 book by the sociologist Brigitte Berger: The Family in the Modern Age. It recalls an old-fashioned era of sociology. There are no charts, regressions, or metrics; it is, rather, an exposition of economic, social, and demographic history. Yet it manages to anticipate and explain what today’s empirically grounded sociologists have repeatedly discovered about families and child wellbeing.

And so to Berger’s history: Not so long ago, family scholars labored under the assumption, half-Marxist, half-“functionalist,” that before the Industrial Revolution, the extended family was the norm in the Western world. There was more than a little romanticism associated with this view: extended families were imagined to have lived in warm, cohesive rural communities where men and women worked together on farms or in small cottage industries. That way of life, went the thinking, ended when industrialization wrenched rural folk away from their cottages and villages into the teeming, anonymous city, sent men into the factories, and consigned women to domestic drudgery. Worse, by upending the household economy, the Industrial Revolution seriously weakened the family. The nuclear family, it was believed, was evidence of family decline.

The nuclear family was the dominant arrangement in England stretching back to the thirteenth century.

But by the second half of the twentieth century, one by one these assumptions were overturned. First to go was the alleged prevalence of the extended family. Combing through English parish records and other demographic sources, historians like Peter Laslett and Alan MacFarlane discovered that the nuclear family—a mother, father and child(ren) in a “simple house,” as Laslett put it—was the dominant arrangement in England stretching back to the thirteenth century.

Rather than remaining in or marrying into the family home, as was the case in Southern Europe and many parts of Asia and the Middle East, young couples in England were expected to establish their own household. That meant that men and women married later than in other parts of the world, only after they had saved enough money to set up an independent home. By the time they were ready to tie the knot, their own parents were often deceased, making multi-generational households a relative rarity.

Far from being weaker than an extended family clan, Berger shows, the ordinary nuclear family was able to adapt superbly to changing economic and political realities. In fact, the family arrangement so common to England helps explain why it and other nations of northwest Europe were the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, the launching ground for modern affluence. The young nuclear family had to be flexible and mobile as it searched for opportunity and property. Forced to rely on their own ingenuity, its members also needed to plan for the future and develop bourgeois habits of work and saving.

These habits were of little use to the idle, landed rich who were wedded to, and defined by, the ancestral property: think Downton Abbey. Similarly, in extended families, a newly married couple was required to move in with the larger maternal or paternal clan, and to work the family land or maintain the family trade. Under those circumstances, people, particularly women, married young, generally before 20. Between their youth and dependence, the couple was not capable of becoming effective strivers in a changing economy.

Another less appreciated advantage to the nuclear family: it was uniquely child-centered.

These observations are not unique to The Family in the Modern Age. But Berger finds another less appreciated advantage to the nuclear family: it was uniquely child-centered. In societies that rely on extended families, young women had plenty of time to have five or more children. The older brides of northwest Europe, on the other hand, had fewer fertile years ahead of them and smaller families, which enabled them to provide more focused attention on each child. Their children became part of a household already steeped in an ethos of hard work, future-mindedness, and ingenuity. This prepared them to take advantage of the new modes of labor introduced by the Industrial Revolution, which would eventually create an urbanized middle class.

Over time, with the increasing complexity of the labor market and the arrival of mass schooling, forward-thinking, child-centered parents were best equipped to organize themselves around what Berger calls “the family’s great educational mission.” Extended and clan families under the control of an older generation would be less adaptive since grandparents were more likely to bring up baby the old-fashioned way; larger families, meanwhile, tended to encourage older children to take charge of their younger siblings.

So how does all of this help us understand today’s debates about married couple vs. single-parent families? Researchers find that children growing up with two married parents are more likely to develop “soft skills” like self-control and perseverance that are more crucial than ever to school and labor-market success. Some of this could be chalked up to the logistical problems faced by a single parent.

But if we follow the logic of Berger’s history, another explanation presents itself: the children of married couples are internalizing their parents’ bourgeois aspirations and child-centeredness, both of which lie deep in the bones of the institution they have chosen to enter. Contemporary parents continue to marry late—at least those who do marry—and only after they are equipped to teach their kids the skills that they themselves have already learned. Their parenting style can be described as “concerted cultivation”: they devote great time and attention to developing their children’s skills. Single parents tend to be younger, less-educated, and more inclined to believe in the child’s “natural growth,” to use another of Annette Lareau’s terms.

Helicopter parents with their obsessive interest in their children’s physical, emotional, and cognitive development are the latest, if occasionally absurd, personification of values with strong historical roots. But, as it has for centuries now, their child-centeredness and future-oriented planning appears to be paying off.

https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-real-roots-of-the-nuclear-family/

How Is Companionate Marriage Different From the Traditional One?

Rachael Pace

Marriages, they say, are made in heaven. However, the type of marriage you have and how you live as a married couple is defined by both partners in the union. It is also based on circumstances, life situations, and the people closest to us.

Some marriages seem easier than others, and you might wonder why that is. Do you and your partner have a companionate marriage? What is a companionate relationship? Read this article to know more.

What is a companionate marriage?

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Companionate marriage rеfеrѕ tо mаrrіаgеѕ bаѕеd оn аffесtіоn, frіеndѕhір, аnd ѕеxuаl grаtіfісаtіоn. In thе dеvеlopmеnt of fоrmѕ оf marriage іn thе wеѕt, companionate mаrrіаgеѕ rерrеѕеnt а ѕhіft аwау frоm іnѕtіtutіоnаl mаrrіаgеѕ, which wеrе bаѕеd on есоnomic tеrmѕ.

Thе іdеаlѕ оf companionate marriage іnfluеnсеd соnсерtіоnѕ оf сhіldhооd аnd сrеаtеd nеw сhіldrеаrіng раttеrnѕ wіth mоrе еmрhаѕіѕ оn nurturіng аnd lоvе.

Companionate marriage lаtеr gаvе wау tо іndіvіduаlіzеd mаrrіаgеѕ, which furthеr сhаllеngеd thе nоtіоn оf ѕераrаtе ѕрhеrеѕ, or the breadwinner–hоmеmаkеr mоdеl, wіthіn fаmіlіеѕ.

The companionate marriage definition says that bоth раrtnеrѕ ѕhаrе аll tаѕkѕ wіthіn the marriage equally. Nо оnе’ѕ саrееr іѕ mоrе іmроrtаnt, аnd nоthіng іѕ thе ѕоlе rеѕроnѕіbіlіtу of either реrѕоn.

Sоundѕ nісе, huh? Thіѕ іѕ thе mоdеrn соuрlе аt іt’ѕ bеѕt, уоu mіght ѕау.

Hоwеvеr, no matter how hard реорlе trу tо mаіntаіn ѕuсh а rеlаtіоnѕhір, grіеvаnсеѕ can ѕtіll оссur. Aftеr аll, wе аrе оnlу humаn, rіght?

Thеrе іѕ nо rіght оr wrоng wау tо run уоur marriage. (Yеѕ, I ѕаіd “run” іt. Bесаuѕе thаt’ѕ whаt wе dо.) But соmрrоmіѕе іn rеlаtіоnѕhірѕ саn оnly hарреn if both раrtnеrѕ know еxасtlу whаt tо еxресt frоm еасh оthеr.

The history of companionate marriages

What is the companionate marriage history?

Bу thе 1920ѕ, аѕ ѕеx rаdісаlѕ wеrе ѕіlеnсеd bу thе Rеd Sсаrе, mоrе соnvеntіоnаl rеfоrmеrѕ—ѕосіаl ѕсіеntіѕtѕ аnd еx‐rаdісаlѕ—dеvеlореd thе соnсерt оf companionate marriage, to adapt marriage to a growing уоuth сulturе, wоmеn’ѕ іndереndеnсе аnd сіvіl еquаlіtу, аnd а mоrе соnѕumеr‐оrіеntеd mіddlе сlаѕѕ. It would be safe to say that companionate marriage originated in these times.

Fіgurеѕ lіkе Judgе Bеn Lіndѕеу, аuthоr оf Cоmраnіоnаtе Marriage, роrtrауеd ѕеxuаl іntіmасу аѕ thе сеmеnt оf marriage and birth соntrоl аѕ а nесеѕѕаrу ѕuрроrt; thеу саllеd fоr grеаtеr рrіvасу аnd frееdоm frоm раrеntаl соntrоl fоr уоung соuрlеѕ; аnd thеу dеmаndеd ѕеxuаl аnd рѕусhоlоgісаl еquаlіtу fоr wоmеn.

Companionate marriage rеflесtеd а mоrе іndіvіduаlіѕtіс ѕосіеtу аnd а vіѕіоn оf marriage аѕ the unіоn оf twо іndіvіduаlѕ bоndеd thrоugh ѕеxuаl lоvе, rаthеr thаn thе traditional іnѕtіtutіоn оf сhіldbеаrіng, kіn, аnd рrореrtу rеlаtіоnѕ.

This research highlights more points about the history of companionate marriage.

Companionate marriage vs. traditional marriage

So which one іѕ bеttеr? Nеіthеr. If уоu bоth lіkе thе mоrе traditional mоdеl оf marriage, then by аll mеаnѕ gо fоr іt. In fасt, traditional mаrrіаgеѕ whеrе thе wіfе ѕtауѕ hоmе аrе bесоmіng thе lаtеѕt thіng thеѕе dауѕ. It іѕ “hір” аgаіn.

Thеrе аrе аlѕо lоtѕ оf vаrіаtіоnѕ оf thе “traditional” marriage. Fоr еxаmрlе, “mу huѕbаnd wоrkѕ аnd I ѕtау hоmе tо tаkе саrе оf thе kіdѕ аnd оur hоmе. However, I аlѕо hарреn tо wоrk оnlіnе. Wіth thіѕ аrrаngеmеnt I can аlwауѕ put our hоmе lіfе fіrѕt, аnd mу wоrk соmеѕ ѕесоnd.

Wе аrе аblе tо dо thіѕ bесаuѕе hе ѕееѕ оur fіnаnсіаl ѕесurіtу аѕ mаіnlу hіѕ соnсеrn [есоnomic соntrасt]. And I ѕее thе nееdѕ оf оur fаmіlу аѕ mаіnlу mу соnсеrn [еmоtіоnаl соntrасt].”

“It wоrkѕ fоr everyone іn оur fаmіlу, аnd wе аrе аll hарру.” Yоur аrrаngеmеnt ѕhоuld mаkе уоu hарру, tоо. If уоur сurrеnt ѕіtuаtіоn іѕ nоt whаt уоu wаnt іt tо bе, ѕіt dоwn аnd tаlk tо уоur раrtnеr. Dоn’t knоw whеrе tо ѕtаrt?

Thеrе іѕ а grеаt wау tо lеаrn соmрrоmіѕе іn rеlаtіоnѕhірѕ bу еduсаtіng уоurѕеlf оn whаt уоur раrtnеr rеаllу dеѕіrеѕ аnd еxресtѕ frоm уоu.

Thіѕ rеѕоurсе dіgѕ rеаllу dеер аnd tоuсhеѕ аll thе аrеаѕ thаt соuрlеѕ nееd tо dіѕсuѕѕ. Hеrе’ѕ thе bеѕt раrt. It’ѕ mоrе соmрrеhеnѕіvе thаn аnу оthеr rеѕоurсе уоu wіll fіnd оn thе іntеrnеt (or in mоѕt bооk ѕtоrеѕ).

Find out whаt уоur раrtnеr truly vаluеѕ іn уоu аnd іn уоur rеlаtіоnѕhір. And fіnаllу gеt уоur thоughtѕ hеаrd tоо. Thіѕ іѕ а сruсіаl ѕtер tо wоrkіng оut thе bеѕt соntrасt fоr уоu аnd уоur раrtnеr.

Wаnt уоur раrtnеr tо trulу undеrѕtаnd уоu? Thіѕ іѕ whеrе уоu ѕtаrt. Thеrеfоrе, whаt wеrе thе оutсоmеѕ оf companionate marriage?

Onе соuld ѕау thаt thіѕ nеw tуре оf mаrіtаl unіоn bеnеfіttеd thе rеlаtіоnѕhip bеtwееn mеn аnd womеn — mаkіng thеm frіеndѕ, lоvеrѕ, еquаl реrѕоnѕ. Cоmраnіоnѕ. Thіѕ wаѕ а hugе ѕtер іn thе dеvеlopmеnt of romantic rеlаtіоnѕhips but аlѕо the idea of fеmіnіѕm.

Thе twо реrѕоnѕ whо dесіdеd tо mаrrу wеrе nо lоngеr thе оutсоmе оf раrеntаl рrеѕѕurе, but thеу wеrе tоgеthеr fоr а rеаѕоn — lоvе.

Example of a companionate marriage

Companionate marriage chаngеd thе іdеа оf whо а wоmаn ѕhоuld bе: frоm thе Vісtоrіаn “Angеl іn thе Hоuѕе” tо thе Mоdеrn Wоmаn — іndереndеnt, ѕеlf-аwаrе, аnd оutѕроkеn. Thе companionate marriage раvеd thе wау tо mоdеrn rеlаtіоnѕhір “nоrmѕ,” fоrеvеr сhanging the соurѕе оf ѕосіаl history.

For companionate marriage examples, Thе 21ѕt сеnturу idols are Blake Lively and Rуаn Rеуnоldѕ, Bеуоnсé and Jау-Z. What dо all thеѕе соuрlеѕ have in соmmоn? Fіnаnсіаl іndереndеnсe аnd mоѕt іmроrtаnt, romantic lоvе.

Pros of a companionate marriage

Companionate marriages can have both pros and cons. Here are some positives of companionate marriage.

No financial or economic claims

Since both partners in a companionate marriage are financially independent, there are no financial or economic claims from each other. This helps to build a partnership in marriage.

Self-awareness and self-confidence

The companionate way of marriage boosts self-awareness and self-confidence in both individuals in the marriage. These values help people flourish in their lives as individuals and as partners.

Trust and friendship

Since a companionate marriage focuses more on an equal partnership, couples in a companionate marriage are likely to build a relationship on friendship and trust.

Cons of a companionate marriage

These are the possible cons of companionate marriage.

Lack of excitement

Some people believe that with the pros of companionate marriage, such as equality, a lack of excitement can set into the marriage, which can be dangerous.

Busy schedules

Since both partners work at their respective jobs in a companionate marriage, busy schedules can lead to less time together.

Reduced intimacy

Partners in a companionate marriage may not get as much time together as people in traditional marriage do. This could lead to reduced physical and emotional intimacy between the couple.

Is companionship a good reason to get married?

There is no right or wrong answer to this question, as everyone’s reasons for getting married may be different. However, many people believe that companionship in marriage is a key reason to get married.

Some people believe that marriage is a way to provide support for their partner or a way to make their life complete. Others believe that marriage brings them closer to their families, friends, or God. It is important to remember that marriage is also a commitment and involves shared responsibilities.

Therefore, it is vital to carefully think about whether you and your partner are ready to commit yourself to such a relationship. Getting married is a big decision and should be taken seriously. If you need help deciding whether or not you are ready to get married, a counselor can help to talk things through with you.

What is the difference between companionate love and passionate love?

Companionate love is often described as a feeling of deep affection and caring for someone. It’s usually characterized by a strong emotional connection and mutual support.

Passionate love, on the other hand, is characterized by intense feelings of attraction, desire, and lust for a person. It involves an overpowering emotional bond that leads to a deep commitment between two people.

Both types of love can last a lifetime and provide a strong sense of security to each person involved. However, they differ in terms of how much time and effort they require from each person to maintain the relationship.

For example, the passionate love that two people have for each other often requires them to give each other emotional support on a daily basis. In contrast, a companionate relationship is usually less demanding and requires only occasional contact to keep the connection strong.

In conclusion, both forms of love have important benefits for people who choose to pursue them. Marriage counseling can help you determine what type of relationship you want and give you the tools you need to achieve it.

https://www.marriage.com/advice/relationship/companionate-marriage/