Statistics on family in the USA and the world are a matter of
public record. The processing and interpretation of data, even
in the age of electronic processing, takes time once data has
been collected. The Statistical Handbook on the American Family
(Phoenix AZ: The Orynx Press, 1992), for instance, deals with
trends covering 1989-1990. The numbers are intriguing. Well over
85% of the adult population married by the time of their 45th
birthday, but only around 60% are currently married. 10% are
divorced and almost as many widowed. The general conclusions
about the family are: There is a decline in marital stability
with over one million children per year affected by the divorce
of their parents. Less than 20% of the people see marriage as a
lifetime relationship. The POSSLQ (persons of opposite sex
sharing living quarters) is well over 5% of the population. The
size of the average American household shrank from 3.7 persons
over 40 years ago to 2.6 recently. Interracial marriages, while
triple in number compared to 1970, include slightly below 2% of
the population.
A.F. Robertson. Beyond the Family. The Social Organization of
Human Reproduction. Cambridge, England: Polity Press, 1991.
Martine Fell. Ça va, la famille? Paris: Le Hameau, 1983.
Nicolas Caparros. Crisis de la Familia. Revolución del Vivir.
Buenos Aires: Ediciones Pargieman, 1973.
Adrian Wilson. Family. London: Travistock Publications, 1985.
Charles Franklin Thwing. The Family. An Historical and Social
Study. Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1887.
Edward L. Kain. The Myth of Family Decline. Understanding
Families in a World of Rapid Social Change. Lexington MA:
Lexington Books, 1990. Herbert Kretschmer. Ehe und Familie. Die
Entwicklung von Ehe und Familie im Laufe der Geschichte.
Dornach, Switzerland: Verlag am Goetheanum, 1988.
André Burguière, Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, Martine Segalen,
Françoise Zonabend, Editors. Histoire de la famille (preface by
Claude Lévi-Strauss)..Paris: Armand Colin, 1986.
Family is established in extension of reproductive drives and
natural forms of cooperation. Regardless of the types leading to
what was called the family nucleus (husband and wife), families
embody reciprocal obligations. The formalization of family life
in marriage contracts was stimulated by writing.
J.B.M. Guy. Glottochronology Without Cognate Recognition.
Canberra: Department of Linguistics Research, School of Pacific
Studies, Australian National University, 1980.
Although the processes leading to the formation of nations is
relatively recent, nations were frequently characterized as an
extended family, although the processes reflect structural
characteristics of human practical experiences different from
those at work in the constitution of the family.
Martin B. Duberman. About Time. Exploring the Gay Past. New York:
Gay Presses of New York City, 1986.
Jeffrey Weeks. Against Nature. Essays on History, Sexuality, and
Identity. London: Rivers Oram, 1991.
Bernice Goodman. The Lesbian. A Celebration of Difference.
Brooklyn: Out & Out Books, 1977.
Jean Bethke Elshtain. Against Gay Marriage, in Commonweal,
November 22, 1991, pp. 685-686.
Brent Hartinger. A Case for Gay Marriage, in Commonweal, November
22, 1991, pp. 675, 681-686.
Not in The Best Interest (Adoption by Lesbians and Gays), in Utne
Reader, November/December, 1991, p. 57.
William Plummer. A Mother's Priceless Gift, in People Weekly,
August 26, 1991, pp. 40-41.
Nelly E. Gupta and Frank. Feldinger. Brave New Baby (ZIFT
Surrogacy), in Ladies Home Journal, October, 1989, pp. 140-141.
Mary Thom. Dilemmas of the New Birth Technologies, in Ms., May,
1988, pp. 4, 66, 70-72.
Cleo Kocol. The Rent-A-Womb Dilemma, in The Humanist,
July/August, 1987, p. 37.
Marsha Riben. A Last Resort (excerpt from Shedding Light on the
Dark Side of Adoption), in Utne Reader, November/December, 1991,
pp. 53-54.
Lisa Gubernick. How Much is that Baby in the Window? in Forbes,
October 14, 1991, pp. 90-91.
Self-sufficiency, reflecting contexts of existence of limited
scale, marks the Amish and Mennonite families. The family
contract is very powerful. Succeeding generations care for each
other to the extent that the home always includes quarters for
the elderly. Each new generation is endowed in order to maintain
the path of self-sufficiency. The Amish wedding (the subject of
Stephen Scott's book of the same title, Intercourse PA: Good
Books, 1988), as well as the role the family plays in educating
children (Children in Amish Society: Socialization and Community
Education, by J.A. Hosteter and G. Enders Huntington, New York:
Holt Rinehart and Winston, 1971) are indicative of this family
life.
Andy Grove. Only the Paranoid Survive. New York: Doubleday, 1996.
The CEO of Intel, one of the world's most successful companies,
discussed the requirement of genetic update and his own,
apparently dated, corporate genes.
Adam Smith. The Theory of Moral Sentiments (D.D. Raphael and A.L.
Macfie, Editors). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976.
David Hume. A Treatise of Human Nature (L.A. Selby-Bigge,
Editor). 2nd edition. Oxford/New York: Clarendon Press, 1978.
-. Inquiries concerning human understanding and concerning the
principles of morals (L.A. Selby-Bigge, Editor). Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1975.
Takeo Doi. Amae no kozo. Tokyo: Kobundo, 1971. Translated as The
Anatomy of Dependence by John Bester. Tokyo/New York: Kodansho
International and Harper & Row, 1973.