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Despite a dearth of relevant empirical evidence, the proposition that the extended family encourages and facilitates high fertility has become widely accepted. This paper summarizes the main theoretical discussions, presents illustrative data, and analyzes the conceptual and methodological adequacy of reported studies. It concludes that it is essential to distinguish between individual and aggregate levels of analysis and between co-residence and kin interaction. It would also be valuable to define more carefully the various types of family structure, to keep the time reference of fertility (current or cumulative) congruent with that of family structure (cross-sectional or longitudinal), to take into account age at marriage and extent of celibacy, and to be more alert to the possibility of opposing causal forces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Path analysis has been widely employed in recent years as a concise means of simultaneously analyzing the interrelationships among a large number of variables. The utility of this method in family research is demonstrated in the present paper. Four independent variables —socio-economic status, aptitude, educational plans, and marriage expectations—are related to the age at marriage among a subsample of 4,000 married young people from a nationwide longitudinal survey. Of the four independent variables, expected age at marriage, stated some time prior to marriage, is shown through path analysis to be the best single predictor of actual marriage age. The additional accuracy in prediction through assessment of the other variables is negligible. A multiple causality model, based on path analysis and including additional variables to those employed in this paper, is advocated as a means to optimize prediction of marriage- and family-related outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the author's comments on the articles "Validity of Four Measures of Family Power," by David H. Olson and Carolyn Rabunsky and "Measuring Power in Families," by James L. Turk and Norman W. Bell, published in this issue of the journal. He says that since family power structure is a theoretical concept, its relation to the real world of the family lies in its potential to make sense of the ongoing processes of decision making, bargaining, and negotiation between its members.

This paper brings together previous research on the relationship of family size to family relationships and attitudes. It reduces the rather diverse findings to four propositions dealing with affect, interaction and stress. It submits these propositions to additional tests utilizing secondary data from two large surveys. Finally, these data are shown to support some and question other generalizations of group size obtained from research with laboratory groups. Substantively families of three or four children rank lower in all of the analyses than do families with one or two children, even with social class constant. Large families with five or more children rank lower than one or two-child families in all analyses but in some analyses they rank higher than families with three or four children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Émile Durkheim's writings on the sociology of the family have generally been neglected by American sociologists. Only in the last few years has there been an increased interest in his contribution to this field. This paper presents some of Durkheim's ideas on the family: his methodological approach to the study of the family and his views on the dysfunctions of divorce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disability of the breadwinner has serious consequences for the family. In addition to severe economic problems, such families experience a disruption of roles and strained interpersonal relations. This paper is concerned with the variations in structure of families with a disabled breadwinner. Family types were constructed utilizing age, sex, and marital status of the disabled person in addition to presence and age of children and generational factors as important dimensions. The distribution of a disabled population of breadwinners among these family types is presented. Factors believed to bear an influence upon family structure are introduced: sex, age, race, size of community of residence, and severity of disability. This paper is a step toward bridging the gap in research between theoretical models of family structure and empirical reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to examine, through relevant literature, the extent to which changes in values and relational orientations are taking place in the Japanese family system, particularly in the area of child-rearing practices. It is postulated that lineal orientation rather than an individualistic or collateral principle has been, and still is, predominant in the parent-child relationship and that the shift toward individuality and independence of the child will yet take some time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study contrasts the adjustment and attitudes of mothers in broken and intact families and evaluates the possible effects of these characteristics on their children. Data analyzed in this paper are based on interviews conducted in the Negro community of a large, northern urban center. Mothers in the two types of family situations were compared on educational status, prevalence of psychoneurotic symptoms, scores on a self-esteem index, reference group behavior, and measures of goal-striving stress associated with goals for self and a hypothetical son. In general, these analyses indicated that, compared to mothers in in tact families, mothers in the broken family situation bad poorer psychological adjustment and less involvement in goals for self and a hypothetical son. These characteristics may have important implications for the achievement-related attitudes of children raised in female-headed households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper summarizes the writer's theoretical formulation concerning the process of learning parental and sex-role identification by presenting and discussing specific hypotheses. It attempts a more comprehensive and coherent framework and a clarification of concepts. Research evidence is offered in support of new hypotheses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses some of the difficulties relating to administration and data interpretation when researchers employ parental attitude questionnaires with culturally disadvantaged families. Making use of their own experience with the Parental Attitude Research Instrument and a review of the literature, the authors examine problems of language complexity and differences in class and race between interviewers and respondents. The meaning of the acquiescence response set for data interpretation is looked at in detail. An item analysis of data collected on the Parental Attitude Research Instrument suggests a new, shorter test which can be used to identify culturally deprived mothers to measure attitude change within this group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes findings of an investigation of values and interpersonal perceptions of high school seniors and parents of high school seniors. The findings support the notion that there is relatively little value conflict, that conflict arises over means not ends, and that the "generation gap" within middle- and lower-middle-class families is in large part a myth. A general tolerance of other was found in both generations in their attempt to understand value and behavior differences through an historical perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents information on the dilemma of adoptive parenthood. The main objective of this paper is to show the existence of in congruous role obligations in the situation of adoptive relations, and to indicate the likely consequences of current modes of dealing with the dilemma which the incongruity produces. Secondarily, in terms of methodology, this paper is meant to help demonstrate the applicability of structural functional analyses to the strategies of welfare practice. Reference to the adoptive situation is here restricted to a single type of it. According to the author, acceptance of values which are inappropriate to the adoptive situation may occur the more readily because adoptive parental roles as alternatives to those of biological parenthood are at present neither adequately designed nor fully sanctioned. In the absence of institutionalized learning patterns concerning adoptive family rules, biological parenthood provides the most readily available frame of reference for the self-perceptions and role definitions of adopters.

The author, in this article, shares his opinion regarding recently held Family Research Conference. From the first conference session until the last, the concept of values punctuated the discussion of papers. Not that any of the papers dealt explicitly, specifically and in detail with the intrusion of values into family research. In general they did not. But, always there was a tendency to question why researchers choose particular problems to investigate and how their choices influence or predetermines results. As interesting as is the fact that there was continued awareness of value influences at the conference, no real effort to come to grips with the problem was evident. Two to three decades ago many workers in the family field expressed the social values including the permanency of marriage, adherence to traditional sex standards and general maintenance of the status quo, rather openly. Now while few unqualifiedly profess such values, careful scrutiny of both research and action programs might indicate considerable support, by some indirection, being given to the same values. The family research conference hinted time and again at this problem but did not make any important contribution to its solution.

This section presents abstracts of papers on marriage and family living. The article entitled The Role of the Extended family in Disaster, by Michael Young presents a small scale survey of certain flooded areas in Great Britain in 1953. It revealed that most flood evacuees took refuge in the homes of their relatives rather than in official centers and billets. The report entitled The family Constellation and Overt Incestuous Relations Between Father and Daughter, by Irving Kaufman, Alice Peck and Consuelo Tagiuri, includes the study of family relations and character formation in eleven girls who have been involved in incestuous relationships with either father or father substitute. The report discloses the occurrence of incest in families of a similar psychopathology peculiarly conducive to acting out the oedipal wish, date and future directions. The role of three factors in family breakdown are discussed in the paper entitled Economic, Cultural and Social Factors in Family Breakdown, by E. W. Burgess. Economic conditions underlie, but are not direct causes of juvenile delinquency and family disintegration. Outstanding values in U.S. culture, individualism, competition, and democracy, emphasize the development of the individual and weaken the institutional bonds of the family.

This article presents brief discussions and notes over various legal issues which are obtained from several recent law-related publications. In a recent note, published in the August 1947 issue of the journal "Newslet," legal expert William J. Goode has discussed a new approach to the divorce problem. Arguing that the time has come in this period of increasing divorce rates to regard the situation of many couples more realistically, Goode has suggested that the right place to stop divorce is before marriage, and it must be granted that incompatible matings will undoubtedly increase for some time, bringing with them the rise in divorce rates. The change the author emphasizes is chiefly in the attitude of the counselor who has to decide on the basis of the individual situation. In his recently released paper, researcher Eldon A. Bond has discussed the issue related to public school administration and the influence of offender over it. A recently conducted survey indicated, in common with similar surveys in other U.S. states, that enormous expansion was needed for the education and care of mentally, socially and physically handicapped children. Some other research papers and commentaries, presented here, deal with: issues concerning mentally defective prison inmates; laws related to probation and parole merger; salary structure in probation and parole fields; and parental responsibility for sex offenders.

The hypothesis is advanced that extended family relations can be maintained in an industrial, bureaucratized society despite differential rates of geographical mobility. This is so because institutional pressures farce the extended family to legitimize geographical mobility, because technological improvements in communication systems have minimized the socially disruptive forces of geographical distance, and because an extended family can provide important aid to nuclear families without interfering with the occupational system. In support of these views, data are presented from a survey of 920 wives in the Buffalo urban area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Matched groups of male and female delinquents and nondelinquents are studied to test a theory that the greater rate of male delinquency is due to the different sex role objectives for boys and girls. This paper presents evidence supporting the predictions that delinquent girls will (1) more often come from broken homes, (2) more often come from homes with family tensions, and (3) will lack grooming skills more than nondelinquents or than delinquent boys. All these relational handicaps are found most commonly among the delinquent girls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various writers on the American Family have depicted relations between parents and married children as governed by certain norms. Children upon marriage typically establish themselves in neolocal residence usually determined by the location of the husband's employment. Especially in the middle classes it is believed that parents thereafter are freed from further responsibility for them, they are on their own and must fend for themselves. Since continued dependence upon parents is often regarded as evidence of weakness or incompetence on the part of the children, any further cooperation between them tends to be limited to periods of crisis, such as illness or death of a family member. Children's responsibility for parents is similarly reduced after their marriage except when elders are too impoverished or old to manage for themselves. In actual practice there is more give and take between parents and married children than these norms would indicate. The purpose in this paper is to describe the help pattern which exists between elders and their child's family and its effect upon inter-generational family relationships.

The article presents information of various developments and happenings in the educational front as of June 1, 1943. The Office of War Information, Educational Services Division is prepared to give a variety of services to adult discussion groups and to college and university student war organizations. The Northern Division of the Pacific Sociological Society held an abbreviated session in Salem, Oregon on April 6. John C. Evans, Superintendent of Oregon State Mental Hospital, was the host for the luncheon. More than 40 people, including Governor Earl Snell, administrators of state institutions, and other state officials, attended this noon session. The American Institute of Family Relations at Los Angeles is offering a summer workshop in family life education at Mills College, Oakland, California, from June 28 to July 16. The Association of American Colleges has established a Commission on Wartime Placement of College Faculties. It is the purpose of this commission to assist faculty members whose services will not be required by their institutions to secure posts in which they may aid in the war effort.

The present paper reports a portion of a study which, like numerous others in this field, utilized data obtained from college students, but which allowed certain types of comparisons not possible, so far as the writer knows, in other studies. A study of college and university students' ideals of marriage and family life was first made in 1929 as a part of a larger study of population mobility. A questionnaire, the pertinent portions of which are herewith given, was presented to the entire student body of each of two small denominational colleges (one Presbyterian and one Methodist Episcopal) in Iowa and to some two hundred students in the sociology classes at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa. In 1936, those phases of the study here reported were repeated with the corresponding student groups currently enrolled, the cross-sectional pictures thus obtained presumably furnishing certain clues to the degree and direction of social change both on the college campus and in the wider culture.

Remarriage as a means of rectifying a mistake in divorce has been given less attention. Instances of such remarriage are commoner than is sometimes supposed. The author's attention was drawn to the subject by a number of clients of the Institute of Family Relations who got divorces, afterwards decided that they were happier together than they were apart, and remarried each other successfully. This paper reports on 200 such cases. Some of these are decidedly complicated, various other marriages having served to embroider the main pattern. Of the 200 cases here reported of remarriage of the same persons, 96 were happy on the second attempt; 29 were doubtful and 75 definitely unhappy. The mean length of first marriage was 5.1 years, nearly one third lasted less than two years, while nearly one fourth were of at least ten years' duration before the divorce. There is very little relationship between the length of marriage prior to divorce and the length of intermission prior to remarriage. A short marriage may be followed by long separation or vice versa. One might suppose that those longest married would require the shortest time to discover that their divorce was a mistake; that there would be, in other words, a negative correlation between first marriage and intermission. This is not found. The correlation is positive, though small.

The article focuses on the Emile Durkheim, a theorist, views on kinship and relationship systems. It is the contention of this paper that some of what he wrote has been undeservedly neglected. Anthropologists have comparatively recently been given credit for ideas which he had already set out in columns of various sociological journals in France. The concept of consanguinity is a good example. Durkheim laid considerable stress on a point which is fundamental to the study of relationship systems, viz. that relationship systems are not the same thing as kinship systems, or even as systems of consanguinity and affinity. Admittedly he was by no means the first person to have perceived the distinction between the biological facts of consanguinity and the sociological facts of relationship. He noted that in certain societies a man's kinsmen were not necessarily consanguineally related to him and that clanship might similarly have little to do with actual consanguinity. Though, once Durkheim had clarified the concept of matriliny, he resorted to it as a sort of universal solution to all puzzles in the study of relationship systems. His explanations

The dual-career family, in which both husband and wife pursue careers while maintaining a family, is an emergent phenomenon identified by Rapoport and Rapoport. In this paper a reexamination of their data has been made, comparing it with similar data from couples in traditional partnerships. Since a most outstanding characteristic of dual-career families is the high degree of stress they experience, the basic question asked is the reason certain couples adopt this life-style. An answer is provided in terms of a precise understanding of the stress experience of an individual. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During marriage a major family problem is that of maintaining consumption expenditures at a level consistent with physical needs and personal definitions of adequacy. Per person consumption in families is largely a function of disposable family income and family size. This paper first considers the structure of family income, and then examines some factors affecting family size. We then review alternative definitions of an adequate income for families with varying numbers, and present data on actual consumption, according to family income and family size. A model depicting the causal relations among factors affecting consumption per family member is developed. The assumption that equal family incomes will result in equal housing quality for whites and nonwhites is tested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on a variety of sources of information and describes the biraderi system of kin relations in Pun jab. The system consists of a larger circle of relatives who share a common identity through its name and a more restricted circle determined by competitive gift giving. Functions of this institution are outlined and their implications are traced for a developing country like Pakistan. It is maintained that a fresh approach is needed to resolve the conflicting requirements of the kin groups and the development processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper surveys the recently emerging fields of marital and family therapy in terms of their developments in research, theory and clinical practice. The parallel, but unrelated, developments of these two fields are described. A system framework was developed for categorizing the various clinical approaches in marital and family therapy. Neither field has yet developed a solid theoretical base nor tested their major assumptions or principles. However, both fields have recently become more concerned about conceptual and methodological issues. Several ways of bridging the professional gap between therapists and researchers are suggested. Recommendations for interdisciplinary borrowing are indicated and exemplary projects giving new direction to the fields are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper was stimulated by the controversy that has developed over the Moynihan Report and the question of the extent to which the Negro family represents an institutionalization of culturally "deviant" norms. In order to probe this question further, an attempt was made to determine some of the concomitants of discrepancies between the subjectively perceived actual and ideal family role behavior of a sample of Negro males. The results indicate that such discrepancies in family role performance are related to relatively low evaluations of one's own achievements and probability of success in goal striving, as well as relatively higher discrepancies between achievement and aspiration. These findings point to the fact that discrepancies in family role performance of the Negro male are part of a more encompassing perception of failure in the larger arena of goal-striving behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A revised observation system for analyzing video tapes of families interacting is described. In this system each communication is interpreted from the perspective of the person initiating it. The observation unit is defined operationally as any behavior which in the judge's opinion reflects one person's attempt to communicate with another. The categories as well as the procedures for transcribing, scoring, and tallying the data are presented. A new method for measuring reliability is discussed. The types of relationship patterns obtained from using this observation system are presented in a longer version of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on data from 1,521 families in the City of Cebu, the second largest city in the Philippines, this paper reports on the structure and role constellations of the urban family in Cebu. Findings include: (1) Kin solidarity is a function of both the class and the ethnic variations. The unilateral system of the Chinese family and its economic functions reinforce the clan solidarity but are in-adaptive to the political structure. The bilateral system of the mestizo ad the Filipino family is more responsive to the polity than the Chinese kinship system. (2) The peer-group system serves as an agent in the shaping of conjugal roles in the nuclear unit. (3) Sex-segregated friendship patterns in the community greatly influence the affective relations between husband ad wife. (4) Finally, such segregated role relationships within the nuclear unit give the wife a greater monopoly and autonomy of household decisions and family activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some integration of economic, psychological, and social psychological concepts could provide a more complete explanation of family financial decision-making. At least one approach necessitates the analysis of the economic value system of the family. This paper discusses the development of an instrument which identifies and measures selected economic standards of family members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses the findings of research in Nigeria, Kenya, and Britain-with a side glance at the debate on the Negro family in America to suggest that people's conception of family relationships adapts really enough to economic circumstances and does not itself inhibit change. Whether the adaptation encourages individualistic achievement may depend more on how people perceive the opportunity structure, and the need for mutual protection, than the family traditions of the society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comparative data on marital power structure for the United States, France, Greece, and Yugoslavia are discussed. Data on the United States and France show a positive association between husband's authority score and such variables as husband's educational status, occupational status, and income; data on Greece and Yugoslavia show a negative association on these variables. The contradictory findings are used to elaborate a ‘theory of resources in cultural context’—the distribution of marital power is seen to result from the interaction of (1) comparative resources of husband and wife and (2) cultural or subcultural expectations about the distribution of marital power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on three themes related to Jewish family structure: (1) family structure differences of Jews and non-Jews, (2) generational changes in the Jewish family, and (3) differential family structure within the Jewish population. Data on four aspects of the family were obtained from a random sample of the Providence metropolitan area Jewish community. The analyses revealed the overall stability, as well as generational changes, in the Jewish family. It appears that assimilation in terms of family structure has occurred for the Jewish group, although slowly, and with the retention of the value of family cohesion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper consists of two parts: the first presents a conceptual framework for viewing home management; the second identifies and illustrates guide lines for relating this framework to the teaching of family relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]