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  3. Family Sociology A) The structure of the family and the needs that the family fulfills vary from society to society. The nu

Family Sociology A) The structure of the family and the needs that the family fulfills vary from society to society. The nu

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问题                                                                    Family Sociology
    A)  The structure of the family and the needs that the family fulfills vary from society to society. The nuclear family—two adults and their children—is the main family unit in most Western societies. In others, especially in Asian societies, it is a subordinate part of an extended family unit, which also consists of grandparents and other relatives. A third type of a family unit, which is becoming more prevalent, is the single-parent family, in which children live with an unmarried, divorced, or widowed mother or father.
    B)  Anthropologists (人类学家) and social scientists have developed several theories about how family structures and functions evolved. One theory is that, in prehistoric hunting and gathering societies, two or three nuclear families, usually linked through bonds of kinship, banded together for part of the year but dispersed into separate nuclear units in those seasons when food was scarce. The family unit began primarily as an economic unit; men hunted, while women gathered and prepared food and tended children. Infanticide (杀婴罪) and expulsion (逐出) of the infirm who could not work were common. Later, with the advent of Christianity, marriage and childbearing became central concerns in religious teaching. However, after the Reformation, which began in the 1500s, the purely religious nature of the family ties was partly abandoned in favor of civil bonds. Today, most Western countries now recognize the family relationship as primarily a civil matter rather than a religious one.
    C)  Historical studies have indicated that family structure has been less changed by urbanization and industrialization than was once supposed. As far as is known, the nuclear family was the most prevalent pre-industrial unit and is still the basic unit of social organization in most modern industrial societies. The modern family differs from earlier traditional forms, primarily in its functions, composition, and life cycle and in the roles of husbands and wives. Many of the functions that were once performed by or within the traditional family unit are now performed by or within community institutions, e.g., economic production work, education, and recreation. In the modern family, members now work in different occupations and in location away from the home. Education is provided by the state or by private groups. Organized recreational activities often take place outside the home. The family is still responsible for the socialization of children. Even in this capacity, however, the influence of peers and of the mass media has assumed a larger role.
    D)  Family composition in industrial societies has also changed dramatically. The average number of children born to a woman in the United States, for example, fell from 7.0 to 2.0 by the early 1990s. Consequently, the number of years separating the births of the youngest and oldest children has declined. This has occurred in conjunction (联合) with increased longevity. In early times, marriage normally dissolved through the death of a spouse before the youngest child left home. Today husbands and wives potentially have about as many years together after the children leave home as before.
    E)  During the 20th century, extended family households declined in prevalence. This change is associated particularly with increased residential mobility and with diminished financial responsibility of children for aging parents, as pensions from jobs and government-sponsored benefits for retired people became more common.
    F)  By the 1970s, the typical nuclear family had yielded somewhat to modified structures including the one-parent family, the step-family, and the childless family. One-parent families in the past were usually the result of the death of a spouse. Now, however, most one-parent families are the result of divorce, although some are created when unmarried mothers bear children. In 1991, more than one out of four children lived with only one parent, usually the mother. Most one-parent families, however, eventually became two-parent families through remarriage. Between 1971 and 1991 the proportion of lone-parent households with dependent children doubled, from 3 to 6 percent. The proportion remained at around this level in 2002.  At the end of the 20th century, a total of around 3 million children—nearly a quarter of children—lived in a single-parent family. Almost one in five dependent children live in lone-mother families, while lone-father families accounted for around 2 percent of all families with dependent children in 2000.
    G)  A step-family is created by a new marriage of a single parent. It may consist of a parent and children and a childless spouse, a parent and children and a spouse whose children live elsewhere, or two joined one-parent families. In a step-family, problems in relations between non-biological parents and children may generate tension; the difficulties can be especially great in the marriage of single parents when the children of both parents live with them as siblings (兄弟姐妹). In 2001 step-families accounted for 8 percent of the total number of families with dependent children in the United Kingdom. Eighty-eight percent of these step-families consisted of a couple with one or more children from the previous relationship of the female partner only.
    H)  Childless families may be increasingly the result of deliberate choice and the availability of birth control. For many years, the proportion of couples that were childless declined steadily as venereal (性病的) and other diseases that cause infertility were conquered. In the 1970s, however, the changes in the status of women reversed this trend. Couples often elect to have no children or to postpone having them until their careers are well established.
    I)  Since the 1960s, several variations on the family unit have emerged. More unmarried couples are living together, before or instead of marrying. Some elderly couples, most often widowed, are finding it more economically practical to cohabit without marrying.
    J)  All industrial nations are experiencing family trends similar to those found in the West. The problem of unmarried mothers—especially very young ones and those who are unable to support themselves—and their children is an international one, although improved methods of birth control and legalized abortion have slowed the trend somewhat. Divorce is increasing even where religious and legal impediments (阻碍) to it are strongest. Unchecked population growth in developing nations threatens the family system. The number of surviving children in a family has rapidly increased as infectious diseases, famine, and other causes of child mortality have been reduced. Because families often cannot support so many children, the reduction in infant mortality has posed a challenge to the nuclear family and to the resources of developing nations.

The increased residential mobility and children’s decreasing financial responsibility for aging parents contributed to the decline of extended families.
选项
答案E
解析 由题干中的residential mobility和financial responsibility for aging parents定位到E)段。细节归纳题。定位段介绍了20世纪大家庭数量减少的原因是居住流动性的增加和子女对上了年纪的父母经济责任的减少。题干是对定位段的概括归纳，故答案为E)。
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