14.1 What Is Marriage? What Is a Family?
Sociologists view marriage and families as societal institutions that help create the basic unit of social structure. Both
marriage and a family may be defined differently and practiced differently in cultures across the world. Families and
marriages, like other institutions, adapt to social change.
14.2 Variations in Family Life
People's concepts of marriage and family in the United States are changing. Increases in cohabitation, same-sex partners,
and singlehood are altering of our ideas of marriage. Similarly, single parents, same-sex parents, cohabitating parents, and
unwed parents are changing our notion of what it means to be a family. While most children still live in opposite-sex, twoparent,
married households, that is no longer viewed as the only type of nuclear family.
14.3 Challenges Families Face
Today s families face a variety of challenges, specifically to marital stability. While divorce rates have decreased in the last
twenty-five years, many family members, especially children, still experience the negative effects of divorce. Children are
also negatively impacted by violence and abuse within the home, with nearly 6 million children abused each year.
