Culture,Context, or Religion: What Really Gets Single Mothers down the Aisle

Abstract

This article examines whether the relationship between religious participation and marriage behaviors for low-income single mothers is influenced by social norms and structural factors that promote the formation of traditional families. Specifically, we test whether religious participation encourages marriage generally or whether a specific type of marriage is encouraged (e.g., marriage to the baby's biological father). Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 1,491), we examine the likelihood that religious participation increases marriage in single mothers. We find that the likelihood of marriage within four years after an unwed birth is not only related to church attendance but that the influence of church attendance seems to encourage the creation of biological families rather than simply two-parent households. Further, religious participation differentially influences the likelihood of marriage and a marriage partner based upon the mother's race and employment history. These findings highlight the importance of social context when analyzing marriage behaviors in single mothers.     

The Place and Relevancy of Practice with Couples in Graduate Social Work Education

Social workers often provide services and therapy for couples; however, little literature has been published that suggests models for teaching—from a social work perspective—marriage counseling or social work with couples. This article reports the results of a survey that examined how faculty in graduate schools of social work are teaching practice content in marriage counseling and their perceptions of its relevancy to social work practice. Findings indicated that some content on social work practice with couples is evident in most master of social work programs. Moreover, faculty perceived social work practice with couples as moderately relevant to all practice settings listed in the survey.     

Women from the Middle East and North Africa in Europe: understanding their marriage and family dynamics

The aim of this article is to assist the understanding of social workers in Europe of marriage and family dynamics among women from Middle East and North African countries who have moved to Europe. The focus of this article is on husband selection processes and family dynamics after marriage in Egypt, which is used as a case study reflecting culture and norms surrounding marriage in this region. This article reports on the findings of doctoral studies which examined marriage patterns and family dynamics in North Africa and in particular in Egypt where more in-depth data were available. The authors reflect issues surrounding values and process of marriage not only in terms of the implications for practice with social work clients or service users, but also in relation to the potential of women from this region who may join the social care workforce.     

Women,marriage and family--traditionalism vs. modernity in Albania

"The aim of the article is to illustrate how the transition from traditionalism to modernity in Albanian society is reflected in the fields of decision-making in choosing the marriage partner, arena of choosing the marriage partner, and factors of importance for harmony in the marital relationship. We also outline the changes in women's participation in productive work, in social and policy life, and in education. The empirical material stems from a survey conducted in Albania [in] 1984. The number of respondents was 1,303. We conclude that there is a strong modernistic tendency both with regard to choosing marriage partner and factors important for harmony. The main feature of the development in Albania is the rapidity and explicitness of changes in attitudes towards marriage and family and in women's position."     

Marriage,Obesity and Dieting

Despite the importance of marriage as a basic social institution, there has been little analysis of the relationship between marriage and obesity. This paper reviews work on the prevalence of obesity by marital status; factors associated with obesity as a criterion for entry into marriage; the similarity of fatness in marital partners; changes in weight in relationship to marital problems; and the relationship between obesity and marital termination. The application of knowledge about marriage and obesity to weight loss therapy is also considered. More research is needed to specify the extent, form and dynamics of the relationship between obesity and marriage.     

Rethinking Families and Community: The Color,Class, and Centrality of Extended Kin Ties1

Although a focus on marriage and the nuclear family characterizes much sociological research and social commentary, this article suggests that this focus ignores the familial experiences of many Americans, particularly those on the lower end of the economic spectrum for whom extended kin are central. African Americans and Latinos/as are more involved with kin than whites, but class trumps race in this regard: African Americans, Latinos/as, and whites with fewer economic resources rely more on extended kin than do those more affluent. The emphasis on marriage and the nuclear family may actually promulgate a vision of family life that dismisses the very social resources and community ties that are critical to the survival strategies of those in need. In contrast to those who have argued that marriage is the foundation of the community or even, in that overused phrase, the “basic unit of society,” this article suggests that marriage actually detracts from social ties to broader communities just as an emphasis on marriage and the nuclear family, to the exclusion of the extended family, distorts and reduces the power and reach of social policy.     

当代女大学生婚姻观调查分析——以天津市几所高校调查为例

主要分析当代女大学生婚姻观的新变化,联系当今社会大背景,剖析当代女大学生婚姻观变迁的缘由,以及女大学生婚姻观的构成要素。尤其对广大女大学生而言,近年来"毕婚"(毕业就结婚)现象愈演愈烈,"闪婚"一族屡见不鲜,这些婚姻现象不可避免地为他们以后普遍的高离婚率埋下隐患,进而影响社会的和谐。因此,研究女大学生婚姻观具有重要的理论意义和现实意义。     

Meanings of Marriage to Young People in Vietnam

Vietnam’s deepening sociocultural exchanges with foreign countries over recent decades have influenced the thoughts, lifestyles, and marital expectations of young people, who grew up in a rapidly changing social context. The opening of Vietnam’s borders, both economically and culturally, has given rise to concerns that the sanctity of the institution of marriage in Vietnam as well as the longevity of individual marriages may be weakened as a result of the detraditionalization and/or modernization of marriage in Vietnam. This article investigates the meaning of marriage to young people in Vietnam, by drawing on in-depth interviews conducted with 60 married people aged not over 30. It addresses the questions: What do young people in Vietnam think about marriage? Is it important to them? If so, why and in what ways? The findings reflect two main facets in the young people’s thinking about marriage. The first identifies marriage as an essential institution, one that is supported by social norms of family and marriage in Vietnam. The second emphasizes the rewards that marriage potentially provides to individuals. While there was general consensus regarding these two claims, there were nevertheless some differences of opinion between men and women, and across rural and urban contexts.     

Marriage Migration Policy in South Korea: Social Investment beyond the Nation State

This article seeks to contribute to understandings of South Korea's approach to marriage migration. Situating our analysis of marriage migration policy specifically within the recent emergence of a social investment approach to welfare, we bring together two bodies of literature that due to the methodological nationalism of much welfare state scholarship are usually treated separately. Through an examination of the policy framework governing marriage migration ‐ so‐called ‘multicultural family policies’ ‐ we find that successive Korean governments have actively sought female marriage migrants to perform various social reproductive roles as a means to secure the reproductive capacity of the nation, just as feminist scholars have argued the care work of citizen‐mothers can be understood. Our analysis also suggests that marriage migration policy in Korea constitutes a distinctly transnational dimension to its overall social investment approach, which is strongly motivated by concerns to reproduce the next generation of human capital.     

Marital Quality and Spouses' Marriage Work With Close Friends and Each Other

Through in‐home interviews with 142 married couples, we explored how husbands' and wives' marriage work with close friends and one another was linked to their perceptions of marital quality. Results showed that husbands engaged in more marriage work with their wives than with close friends, whereas wives engaged in similar levels of marriage work with their close friends and husbands. For wives, marriage work with their spouses was found to moderate the relationship between marital quality and marriage work with friends. At low levels of marriage work with their spouses, wives' marriage work with friends was negatively related to their reports of marital love and positively related to reports of ineffective arguing. In contrast, at high levels of marriage work with their husbands, no significant relationship was found between wives' marriage work with friends and marital quality for wives. Findings underscore the role of spouses' friendships and suggest that the strength of spouses' ties to one another is linked to the social context they and their close friends create.     

Invisibility,Illegibility, and Stigma: The Citizenship Experiences of Divorced Gays and Lesbians

The campaign for marriage equality emphasized that without access to legal marriage, gays and lesbians were relegated to “second-class citizenship.” Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), gays and lesbians find that marrying can lead to greater acceptance and support from family, friends, and colleagues, suggesting that marriage helps gays and lesbians achieve citizenship, defined in terms of belonging and inclusion. However, it remains unclear whether such acceptance and support then disappears or diminishes after divorce. In this article, the informal social consequences associated with same-sex divorce were explored by drawing on in-depth interviews with a small convenience sample of recently divorced gays and lesbians. Results indicate that same-sex divorce is largely invisible, which leads divorced gays and lesbians to worry that their life circumstances will make them illegible to others. In turn, some also withdraw from social interaction, and others report experiencing stigma.     

The erosion of citizenship

The Marshallian paradigm of social citizenship has been eroded because the social and economic conditions that supported postwar British welfare consensus have been transformed by economic and technological change. This article argues that effective entitlement was based on participation in work, war and reproduction, resulting in three types of social identity: worker-citizens, warrior-citizens and parent-citizens. The casualization of labour and the technological development of war have eroded work and war as routes to active citizenship. Social participation through reproduction remains important, despite massive changes to marriage and family as institutions. In fact the growth of new reproductive technologies have reinforced the normative dominance of marriage as a social relation. These rights of reproduction are described as 'reproductive citizenship'. The article also considers the role of voluntary associations in Third-Way strategies as sources of social cohesion in societies where social capital is in decline, and argues that the voluntary sector is increasingly driven by an economic logic of accumulation. With the erosion of national citizenship, Marshall's three forms of rights (legal, political and social) have been augmented by rights that are global, namely environmental, aboriginal and cultural rights. These are driven by global concerns about the relationship between environment, community and body such that the quest for social security has been replaced by concerns for ontological security.     

The changing meaning of cohabitation and marriage

"In the Netherlands, the social meaning of both marriage and cohabitation has changed. Cohabitation started as an alternative way of living, developed into a temporary phase before marriage, and finally became a strategy for moving into a union gradually....This article addresses the question whether or not individual past and current life-course experiences become increasingly important in explaining the differentiation of entry into marriage across female birth cohorts, and yet become decreasingly important in explaining the differentiation of entry into cohabitation across female birth cohorts. This question is examined using a non-proportional hazard model. Empirical evidence supports this hypothesis strongly, in that both past determinants such as family size or religion and current life-course determinants such as work or education change in their impact on cohabitation and marriage across birth cohorts."     

Same‐Sex Couples,Families, and Marriage: Embracing and Resisting Heteronormativity1

This article focuses on lesbian and gay couples and families and the politics of same‐sex marriage. Drawing from the literature on same‐sex couples, same‐sex marriage, and queer theory’s concept of heteronormativity, we argue that gay and lesbian couples and families both affirm and challenge heterosexual and gendered family forms. First, we review literature that discusses how same‐sex relationships and families are similar to and different from conventional heterosexual relationships and families. Second, we discuss the socio‐legal and cultural inequalities faced by LGBT families. Third, we discuss the politics of same‐sex marriage, examining the debate among social conservatives, pro‐marriage activists, and queer critics over the desirability of same‐sex marriage. We conclude that the growing visibility of LGBT couples and families has made their exclusion from the institution of marriage more conspicuous and that recognition of LGBT relationships and families seems likely to increase.     

Breaking the in‐group out‐group: shifting boundaries in transnational partner choice processes of individuals of Moroccan,Tunisian, Algerian,Turkish, Punjabi Sikh,Pakistani and Albanian descent in Belgium

The ongoing popularity in some second and third generation migrants in Western Europe of marrying a partner from the countries of origin of their (grand)parents is considered to be problematic for micro and macro level societal integration of some migrant populations. Partner choice and marriage practices in migrant communities are problematized in public, media and political discourses by discriminating them from marriage practices in the ‘native’ population on the basis of three related dichotomies: (1) agency versus structure, (2) us versus them and (3) romantic versus instrumental marriage intentions dichotomies. By means of in‐depth qualitative research methodologies on the partner choice processes of women and men of Turkish, Moroccan, Algerian, Tunisian, Punjabi Sikh, Pakistani and Albanian descent in Belgium and an intersectional theoretical approach, this article aims to deconstruct popular and simplifying dichotomous representations of partner choice processes in these migrant populations. Our study reveals how religious, gender and social class boundaries are stretched to meet personal/individual desires and preferences. Individuals do experience social restrictions when it concerns social group boundaries and the potential partners that they can look for. At the same time individuals are never fully determined by their social environment, they creatively develop strategies to by‐pass certain restrictions and to some extent are able to meet their personal needs while being sensitive to the desires of their social environment.     

The Performance of Desire: Gender and Sexual Negotiation in Long-Term Marriages

We integrate theoretical traditions on the social construction of gender, heterosexuality, and marriage with research and theory on emotion work to guide a qualitative investigation of how married people understand and experience sex in marriage. Results, based on 62 in-depth interviews, indicate that married men and women tend to believe that sex is integral to a good marriage and that men are more sexual than women. Moreover, husbands and wives commonly experience conflict around sex and undertake emotion work to manage their own and their spouse's feelings about sex. We refer to this emotion work as "performing desire" and show how it is linked to gendered experiences in marriage and to competing cultural discourses around gender, heterosexuality, and marriage.     

Social Exclusion,Social Identity and Social Work: Analysing Social Exclusion from a Material Discursive Perspective

Within this article I explore the concept of social exclusion, considering how it has been defined and the implications of this for social exclusion policy. It is suggested that the current use of the concept focuses on material definitions of exclusion, obscures the discursive origins of exclusion and tends to individualise the problem. I argue that we need to adopt a broader approach to defining and analysing social exclusion which understands social exclusion as a process which is influenced by both material and discursive factors. The connections between discourse, identity and marginalisation are discussed and these arguments are illustrated using examples related to different aspects of social identity. Finally the article presents a framework for analysing social exclusion from a material discursive perspective and suggests that adopting this perspective clarifies the role of social work in working with people who experience exclusionary processes.     

Relationship Dynamics and Healthy Exchange across the Family Life Cycle: Implications for Practice

The capacity to form and develop healthy interpersonal relationships with others is fundamental for human development. In the realm of practice, the theory of social exchange is among the most prominent conceptual frameworks for examining and understanding human behaviors and relationship dynamics. While interpersonal bonds may take several forms across the family life cycle, this article addresses how healthy social exchange can provide a basis for establishing a mutually fulfilling alliance by examining three different types of interpersonal relationships: dating relationships, marital relationships, and parent–child co-residential relationships. Interventions aimed at marriage and family therapists as well as social work practitioners working with couples and families facing relationship troubles are discussed.     

Gender roles,marriage, and residential independence

This article examines the effects of gender role attitudes on leaving home for marriage and for unmarried independence among young men and women in the United States in the 1980s. The choice to leave home for unmarried independence is associated with two major changes in family relationships: the shift in parent-child interaction from a traditional emphasis on children's obedience toward a greater stress on independence, and the shift toward more egalitarian definitions of gender roles in both work and family spheres. We ask the following: What is the effect of holding more modern gender role attitudes on gender differences in leaving home for marriage? Does holding more modern gender role attitudes influence patterns of leaving home for marriage and for unmarried independence differently for men and women? We examine these questions with data from sophomores in the High School and Beyond Survey.     

Arab American Marriage: Culture,Tradition, Religion,and the Social Worker

The growing and varied Arab American population and the continuing stereotyping and mistrust between people of Arab descent and other Americans make the need for culturally competent social work more pronounced. This study considers the importance the institutions of marriage and family retain within what can be a generally high-context community. Marriage, family, and religious relationships can be complicated by a sense of honor and stigma alongside frequently distressing experiences or news from the country of origin. Various generations of Arab Americans are returning with their Middle Eastern counterparts to their religions to reestablish their identities. We shall consider the problems between fundamental and enlightened readings and understandings of the traditional marriage contract, especially under Sharia law, and traditional gender roles in relation to the varied expectations of the bride and groom, the extended families, and the cultural community. We suggest ways that social workers can develop skillful communications within effective cultural community networks to offset both inappropriate and insensitive misdiagnosis and treatment.