Alternative Family Structures

This article focuses on alternative family structures. It explores the sociology of alternative family structures in four parts: an overview of the history of alternative family structures; a description of the history of the nuclear family unit; a discussion of the ways in which sociologists study alternative family structures, such as cohabitation, gay and lesbian families, single parents by choice, family networks, affiliated family, and communes; and an exploration of the issues associated with participation in alternative family lifestyles. Understanding how sociologists conceptualize and study alternative family structures is vital for all those interested in the sociology of family and relationships.

Keywords Affiliated Families; Alternative Family Structures; Cohabitation; Communes; Family; Family Networks; Gay & Lesbian Families; Gender; Nuclear Family; Society; Sociology; Values

Family & Relationships > Alternative Family Structures

Overview

Social scientists, both in academic and government settings, work to define the parameters and composition of the family unit and the household. Definitions and perceptions of family vary across cultures and life phase. Factors that influence definitions and perceptions of family include the socialization process, social movements (such as civil rights and feminist movements), women in the workforce, divorce rates, adoption, coparenting, and homosexuality. The decrease of extended kin or family relations has resulted in the expansion and rise of alternative family structures, such as family networks, communes, affiliated families, gay and lesbian families, and single parent families (Kempler, 1976).

Child Definitions of Family

In the early twentieth century, social psychologist Jean Piaget developed and popularized the concept that children define their families through a three-stage process.

  • First, a child recognizes his or her family as those who live in the same dwelling as the child.
  • Second, a child recognizes biological ties within their immediate and extended family.
  • Third, a child recognizes their family to include all those biological and nonbiological relations who perform parenting roles.

Piaget recognized a connection between a child's psychocognitive development and their conceptualization of their family. According to Piaget, children, by the time that they have moved through the three stages of family definition, recognize the existence of alternative family structures, such as postmodern alternative family forms. Factors that influence the definition and perception of family may include gender, education, age, geographic location, and family composition.

Census Bureau Definitions of Family

In contrast to the lived experience of children as described by Piaget, the United States Census Bureau exclusively defines family as a group of two or more persons connected by blood, marriage, or adoption. According to the U.S. government, families may or may not reside together. Households are characterized as either family or nonfamily. Family household types or structures include married couples, female-headed households, and male-headed households. The U.S. Census Bureau counts households outside the government's definition as family to be nonfamilies. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, nonfamilies include nonnuclear, postmodern, or alternative family structures. Nonfamily households are divided into single-person households and other nonfamilies such as same-sex couples on nonmarried heterosexual couples (Ford, 1994). Examples of alternative family structures, some of which are classified as nonfamilies by the U.S. Census Bureau, include cohabitating couples, gay and lesbian families, single parents by choice, family networks, affiliated family, and communes.

Understanding how sociologists conceptualize and study alternative family structures is vital for all those interested in the sociology of family and relationships. This article explores the sociology of alternative family structures in four parts:

  • An overview of the history of alternative family structures;
  • A description of the history of the nuclear family unit;
  • A discussion of the ways in which sociologists study alternative family structures, such as cohabitation, gay and lesbian families, single parents by choice, family networks, affiliated family, and communes;
  • An exploration of the issues associated with participation in alternative family lifestyles.

History of Alternative Family Structures

Mid-Century Alternative Family Studies

During the 1960s and 1970s, researchers developed conceptual schemes or perspectives to explain changing family roles, behaviors, and functions. In the 1960s, family sociology, led by Harold Christensen and Ira Reiss, became increasingly liberal. For instance, researchers studied the function and effects of women's paid work outside of the home. In the 1970s, family sociology recognized and studied the changing trends in families such as coparenting, daycare, premarital sex, cohabitation, divorce, extramarital sex, homosexual relationships, childlessness, single mothers, stepfamilies, open marriage, group marriage, and new divisions of household responsibilities. Sociologists developed the idea of an alternative lifestyle or family. Family sociology began to recognize the importance of applying integrated models, theories, and perspectives to understand complex family relationships in society. In the 1980s, family sociology continued to focus on alternative families, individuation, and hedonism. Multiple competing family models emerged to account for the diversity of modern families. In the 1990s, family sociology recognized the existence of the postmodern family that defies categorization with diffuse boundaries and an evolving composition.

Twentieth-Century Alternative Family Studies

Family sociology's changing subjects over the course of the twentieth century reflect the changes occurring in society. Families changed throughout the twentieth century as a result of immigration, modernization, World Wars, civil rights movements, and women's rights. Sociologists have analyzed and reported on the evolution of the traditional or functional family, liberal family, alternative family, and postmodern family. Sociologists study areas of family relations such as marriage across life span, mate selection, sexual behavior, parenthood, family planning, retirement, sex roles, divorce, premarital sexual relations, contraception, cohabitation, extramarital sexual relations, homosexual relationships, group marriage, open marriage, adoption, voluntary childlessness, communal living, single-parent households, and stepfamilies (Jallinoja, 1994).

Traditional vs. Alternative Family Structure

Sociology's traditional view of the family unit functioning to serve society and economy, a view represented by the work of Talcott Parsons and Robert Bales, is challenged by the existence of alternative family structures. Alternative family structures may be born of economic necessity, as in the case of lower economic classes that cannot afford the nuclear family lifestyle of one income, or personal need and values, as in the case of single-parent-by-choice families. For instance, in the United States, families of low socioeconomic standing usually cannot afford to subsist with one wage earner and, as a result, rarely adhere to a traditional family structure (Miller & Browning, 2000).

History of the Nuclear Family Unit

The tension between traditional family forms, such as the nuclear family, and the lived experience of families across cultures is represented in the sociological literature. Up until the 1960s, sociologists studied and wrote almost exclusively about the nuclear family unit. The field of family sociology, also referred to as family science or family sociology, was established in the early twentieth century by prominent sociologists such as Ernest Burgess, Talcott Parsons, Florian Znaniecki, William Thomas, Willard Waller, and Reuben Hill. For instance, sociologist Ernest W. Burgess (1886–1966), the 24th president of the American Sociological Association, developed schemes to predict marriage success and outcome in nuclear families. Burgess's work on the study of marriage and family remains influential. The family, as an object of study for sociologist, became extremely popular and important in the early twentieth-century (Spanier & Stump, 1978).

In the 1950s, Parsons advanced the idea that the isolated nuclear family contributes to the functioning of economy and society. The isolated nuclear family socializes and educates its young but remains mobile and able to move should the man's employer require. In industrialized societies, social institutions such as schools, libraries, community centers, and government programs take over some roles that were once served by families. Parsons believed that the family performed very clear functions for its members and society as a whole. Family functions included socialization of children and stabilization of adult personality. Parsons argued that a full-time mother was responsible for the family needs, while the father/husband was responsible for income and thus could move between home and work contexts. Women were limited to their roles of wives and mothers. Parsons predicted increased gender role segregation in the future. According to Parsons, the marriage becomes the source of feminine and masculine role socialization. Sociologists in the 1950s believed that young girls were given mixed messages by providing the girls with a full education and then offering marriage and motherhood as the best or only roles available (Breines, 1986).

Functionalist View of Family Structure

Mid-twentieth-century sociologists understood the nuclear family to be a social institution whose functions are determined by a functionally organized society. Sociologists believed that a family's function, purpose, and performance would be determined by factors such as a society's gendered division of labor. Mid-century sociology furthered the belief that a nuclear family was the ideal family form or construct. Parsons advanced the concept of the isolated nuclear family with differentiated gender-based family roles for men and women. He believed that a family's class position was determined by a husband's occupation and described a gender-based division of labor in households. Parsons studied families and society in general through a functionalist lens and held that gender-based division of labor in households and families strengthened the family and contributed to its overall stability. He felt that the gender-based division of labor, in which the man's career is prioritized, eliminates power or status competition between spouses and allows the family to move whenever a husband's career requires without the complication of a second career in the family to consider (Szelényi & Olvera, 1996).

Applications

Alternative Structures & Family Well-Being

Family sociologists study the effects that alternative family structures, such as cohabitation, gay and lesbian families, single parents by choice, family networks, affiliated family, and communes, have on the academic success, careers, psychological well-being, and emotional connectedness of family members. The National Survey of Families and Households is a common source of data for studies of alternative family structures. For instance, social scientist Jennifer Lansford used data from the National Survey of Families and Households to explore the connections between family structure, psychological well-being, and quality of familial relationships among five different types of family structures, including families with adopted children, families with two biological parents, families with single mothers raising biological children, families with stepfathers, and families with stepmothers. Lansford found that familial processes had more of an affect on family well-being and the quality of relationships than family structure (Lansford et al., 2001).

Numerous changes in kinship ties occurred in the decades following World War II. Alternative family structures offer psychological and material support through interdependence and shared responsibility. Alternative family structures can replace the nuclear family or provide support elements or structures for the nuclear family. Examples of nuclear family support systems include carpooling, shared babysitting, and the common ownership of machines such as snowblowers and lawnmowers. Many alternative family structures have formed to compensate for the loss of extended kin. The benefits of extended kin include imparting psychological self-esteem and comfort, identification and social learning, historical continuity and awareness of the life cycle, and transmission of ideology and value system (Kempler, 1976).

Forms of Alternative Family Structure

Alternatives family structures to the middle-class nuclear family include cohabitation, gay and lesbian families, single parents by choice, family networks, affiliated family, and communes. These alternative family structures, and related research findings, will be described below.

• Cohabitation: Cohabitation is an alternative family structure in which adults live together in a familial household without marriage commitment. Cohabitation became a recognizable alternative family structure in the 1970s and has grown more common in ensuing decades. Data from the 2006–2010 National Survey of Family Growth[CCL1] (NSFG) indicates that cohabitation rates in the United States increased by over one-third between the mid-1990s and late 2000s. Data suggests that duration and frequency of cohabitation vary by racial or ethnic background and level of educational attainment. Cohabitation has different meanings for different adults. For instance, for some couples, cohabitation will serve as a step toward marriage, and for other couples, cohabitation will be the final level of familial commitment. There is no final word on whether or not cohabitation is a step toward marriage or an alternative to marriage. Cohabitating couples may choose to procreate. Significant research has been carried out on nonmarital childbearing. Researchers have studied the link between cohabitation and fertility to assess whether and to what degree cohabitation fits into the family system. The common presence of children in cohabitating households suggests that cohabitation is an alternative to marriage for many (Musick, 2007). • Gay and Lesbian Families: Gay and lesbian families are an increasingly common alternative family structure. Gay and lesbian families challenge society's conceptions of family gender roles and family composition. Society, characterized by a heterosexist or heterosexual perspective, has been slow to accept alternative family structures. The 2011 American Community Survey census data indicate that 605,472 same-sex couples were living together, and 16 percent were raising at least one child in their household. Research demonstrates that gay and lesbian families tend to be equally or more dedicated to maintaining family integrity than heterosexual parents. Parental discipline, intimacy, and involvement tend to be similar in homosexual and heterosexual families. Gay and lesbian families tend to hold more liberal viewpoints and politics than heterosexual families. Historically, the lack of legal and parental rights afforded gay and lesbian parents has required gay and lesbian families to be resourceful and resilient. In the absence of legal recognition, gay and lesbian families have created familial bonds through conscious formation, ritualization, and alternative legal agreements such as adoption or partnerships. (By November 2013, fourteen [CCL2]states and Washington, DC, had legalized gay marriage and the Supreme Court had struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, thereby legitimizing existing gay marriages and enabling the federal government to extend many of the legal benefits of marriage to gay and lesbian families. However, thirty-five states prohibited gay marriage and legal hurdles to adoption or partnership remained in many states.) Gay and lesbian families practice nontraditional family gender roles. Research suggests that children of same-sex couples and children of heterosexual couples have comparable intelligences, ethics, and growth. Children of gay and lesbian parents have been found to have resilient and liberal points of view (Negy & McKinney, 2006). • Single Parent by Choice: Single parenthood by choice is becoming increasingly possible and common through the processes of donor insemination and adoption. While single parenthood is a familiar family structure created through widowhood, spousal desertion, or divorce, the alternative family structure of single parenthood by choice is new. Women, as a group, are newly economically independent and are able to support the economic and material needs of children. Reproductive technologies, such as intrauterine insemination and in-vitro fertilization, have enabled single women to grow and birth their own biological children without partners. The growing numbers of international adoption programs increasingly permit nontraditional families, such as single women, to adopt children. Postmodern theorists examine single parenthood by choice through the associated issues of gender expectations, femininity, fertility, the body, sexuality, reproduction, and ownership (Mazor, 2004). • Family Networks: Family networks refer to an alternative family structure in which several nuclear families join together on a regular basis to share resources, enjoy leisure activities, and solve problems. In the 1970s, sociologists developed the family network concept. The family network serves to address and remediate the isolation that characterizes most nuclear families. The traditional middle-class nuclear family provides few opportunities for parents to receive parenting feedback and advice. In contrast, family networks provide regular opportunities for discussion of parenting choices and options. The family network is intended to be a resource for families interested in reducing isolation and increasing the range of possible identification. The main challenge of the alternative family network structure is sustainability over time. Critics find fault for the family network structure due to the absence of elderly family members in the network (Kempler, 1976). • Affiliated Family: Affiliated families refer to an alternative family structure in which a pairing of wife/mother and husband/father live along with their children and one other older or elderly adult. The kin live in one household and stay together through voluntary commitment and responsibility to one another. Affiliated families are particularly effective alternative family structures for widows and single mothers. Affiliated families function to meet instrumental, psychological, social, and emotional needs. The affiliated family is believed to be very well suited to modern industrialized societies (Kempler, 1976). • Communes: Communes are an alternative family structure that may be characterized by complete or partial interdependence of its members. Communes may completely remove their members from mainstream society and culture or keep members partially involved in dominant culture. For instance, commune members may live in communal housing but remain employed in positions outside the commune. In the 1970s, social scientists recorded the existence of several hundred different communes in the United States. Communes tend to be characterized by their counterculture ideology and behavior. Commune members tend to be financially, emotionally, and socially interdependent. Communes may reject traditional views on monogamous, heterosexual marriages and traditional family gender roles. Sociologists have found that communes with strong charismatic leaders tend to disband faster than communes with models of shared leadership. In some instances, communes may be partial commitments such as communal food coops, communal housing, investment groups, or progressive schools. The advantages of the communal family structure over nuclear family may be the psychological and emotional support between families. The disadvantages of the communal family structure over nuclear family may be limited mobility of members and blurred relationship boundaries (Kempler, 1976).

Further research in the field of family sociology is required to see how new and alternative family structures are formed and the benefits and drawbacks of each new family structure.

Issues

Consequences of the Alternative Family Lifestyle

While the social sciences have incorporated the existence of alternative family structures into theory and literature, numerous social institutions, such as the legal system, remain undecided or resistant to including and accepting the reality of multiple, expanded family structures. The social, legal, and economic consequences are many for participation in alternative family structures. Participation in alternative family structures is associated with stigma, stereotyping, and legal discrimination. Social scientists, and sociologists in particular, have chronicled the negative experiences that may result from participation in alternative family structures, such as legal discrimination.

The family, as described by Parsons, is important to the functioning and survival of the state. Due to the importance of the family to the state, it, the government, and the public sphere oversee and monitor the proper functioning of families through laws exclusive to the family. The U.S. legal system is concerned with maintaining the integrity of the family unit; alternative family structures or units, such as heterosexual couples, communes, and cohabitating couples, are considered by the law to be nonlegal de facto families. Alternative family units do not fit the legal definition of family and, as a result, are not entitled to the legal rights of traditional families. Areas of legal problems for alternative families include child custody, inheritance, taxation, and zoning restrictions. Ultimately, despite the growing acceptance of alternative and plural family structures and lifestyles, participation in alternative family structures remains structurally discouraged by the legal system (Weisberg, 1975).

Conclusion

In the final analysis, definitions and perceptions of families vary across cultures and life phase. Factors that influence the definitions and perceptions include the socialization process, social movements (such as civil rights and feminist movements), the increased number of women in the workforce, divorce rates, adoption trends, single parenting, cohabitation, communal living, and homosexuality. The increase of alternative family structures during the latter half of the twentieth century reflects increased liberalism and changing social conditions.

Terms & Concepts

Affiliated Families: An alternative family structure in which a pairing of wife/mother and husband/father live along with their children and one other older or elderly adult.

Alternative Family Structures: Nontraditional family structures, such as cohabitation, gay and lesbian families, single parents by choice, family networks, affiliated family, and communes.

Cohabitation: An alternative family structure in which adults live together in a familial household without marriage commitment.

Communes: An alternative family structure that is characterized by shared households and complete or partial interdependence of its members.

Family: A group of two or more persons connected by blood, marriage, or adoption.

Family Networks: An alternative family structure in which several nuclear families join together on a regular basis to share resources, enjoy leisure activities, and solve problems.

Gay and Lesbian Families: Families headed by gay or lesbian parents or spouses.

Gender: The cultural rules, roles, and characteristics attributed to and associated with masculine and feminine identities.

Nuclear Family: The traditional unit of family that includes two married heterosexual parents and their children.

Society: A group of people living and interacting in a defined area, such as a country or other geographic region, and sharing a common culture.

Sociology: The scientific study of human social behavior, human association, and the results of social activities.

Values: Intangible qualities or beliefs accepted and endorsed by a given society.

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Suggested Reading

Biblarz, T., Raftery, A., & Bucur, A. (1997, June). Family structure and social mobility. Social Forces, 75, 1319–1341. Retrieved September 11, 2008, from Academic Search Premier database. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=9709090404&site=ehost-live

Goldscheider, F., & Goldscheider, C. (1998). The effects of childhood family structure on leaving and returning home. Journal of Marriage & Family, 60, 745–756. Retrieved September 11, 2008, from EBSCO Online Database Academic Search Premier. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=1012172&site=ehost-live

Kuhr, F. (2006, May 23). The science of same-sex marriage. Advocate, , 34–36. Retrieved September 11, 2008, from EBSCO Online Database Academic Search Premier. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=21076146&site=ehost-live

Parke, R. D. (2013). Future families: Diverse forms, rich possibilities. Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell. Retrieved November 4, 2013 from EBSCO online database eBook Academic Collection (EBSCOhost). http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e000xna&AN=636963&site=ehost-live

Essay by Simone I. Flynn, Ph.D.

Dr. Simone I. Flynn earned her Doctorate in Cultural Anthropology from Yale University, where she wrote a dissertation on Internet communities. She is a writer, researcher, and teacher in Amherst, Massachusetts.