Family Realitites A Global View

9780135781050

0135781051

I have written this book for a number of reasons. To begin with, after more than 100 years of social scientific research and observation of family life, we now know more about family realities than we have ever known. This information can be helpful in making decisions and diminishing unnecessary stress in our closest relationships. At the beginning of the 21st century, we can make much more informed choices than we could in the past; we can prevent mistakes and cope more effectively with problems in our family relationships than ever before. At this point in time, unrealistic expectations, ineffective defenses, and unnecessary provocations are preventable or even curable conditions. The interdisciplinary social science research information on families that we now have can improve our ability to communicate, confide, reduce conflict, manage stress, and avoid crises in our family relationships. We can use these insights and this information to build, maintain, and strengthen relationships we value; or we can use this knowledge to terminate unsalvageable, unrewarding, and destructive relationships. Even more important, perhaps, is the accumulated social scientific research information we now have about how family relationships have changed in major kinds of societies since the beginnings of human history. I have used what sociologists call thecomparative cross-cultural methodto classify societies on the basis of the scientific and technological discoveries and inventions that distinguish them and to describe typical family relationships in these societies. I have done this for three reasons. First by comparing families in different societies, or in the same society at different times, we can gain a much needed perspective on contemporary family life--a more positive perspective than many people now have. We can better appreciate certain advantages that most families, at least in advanced industrial societies, take for granted. In the past, hunger, disease, unrelieved pain, disability, infertility, untimely death, and other agonizing frustrations were commonplace. With developments in science and technology, we can now do far more to relieve human suffering; we can prevent, control, or postpone devastating and unnecessary losses and separations in family life. Given current concerns about where family life is headed, in the United States and elsewhere, it can be helpful to keep this larger picture in mind. Second, we can also find some much needed guidelines about what to do and what to expect in family life by looking at the past. We live in a time when we have lost the comfort and security of knowing exactly what to do in the most important areas of our lives--in our family, work, love, and friendship relationships. Cultural guidelines more often now are absent, ambiguous, competing, or irrelevant. These guidelines are constantly being challenged or outdated by a flood of new scientific inventions and discoveries in both the psychological and material realms of life. Eternal truths, especially in family life, evade us. Folk wisdom survives but is in disrepute; and experience is no longer viewed as the best teacher--quite the contrary. Knowing what worked and did not work in the past--and why--can provide helpful guidelines that are based on fact rather than fiction and collective illusions. Finally, an understanding of historical changes and trends in family life can provide some valuable clues about what to expect in the future. If we understand how and why the roles, values, power, and conflicts of family members have changed historically, in all parts of the world, we can make more accurate predictions about the likely future of families everywhere. If we know where we are going and why, governments can plan for this future more rationally and effectively, given the standard of the greatest good for the greatest number of people--ideally.