Family, Marriage And Intimate Relationships Essay Examples

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Family and marriage are, in many respects, two sides of the same coin. The traditional understanding of a marriage is a procreative unit – it exists in order to produce offspring. However, the idea of marriage and creation of families has undergone tremendous change in the past few decades to the point where it is almost unrecognizable. For this assignment, 3 couples have been interviewed in order to better understand exactly how much the ideas of a family and marriage have changed.
The three couples were – an elderly pair who had been married for several decades, a newly wed couple and one dating couple. Their opinion was asked for on the following topics - (1) marriages which are outside their socio-economic sphere, (2) relationships which do not last long, and (3) intimacy before and after marriage.
It was expected that if the institutions of family and marriage had changed drastically in the past few decades and is still changing, then each of the couples would give different answers – the elderly couple would be traditional, the newly weds would be conformist but open to change, and the dating pair would be the most ‘avant-garde’. These expectations were surprisingly well met. The elderly couple preferred endogamous marriages. Also, traditional monogamous marriages were much more preferred among them. The newly wed couple and the dating couple were more open in their views on endogamy. Next, The elderly couple believed that marriage was literally till ‘death do us part’, while the newly weds were open to ending relations, though would do their best to keep things going and the dating couple was less inclined to force a relationship they thought did not work. And finally, with regard to alternate family set ups, the elderly couple got married without becoming intimate in the contemporary sense – this was brought about over time. The newly weds were more intimate, but it was the dating couple that wished to know everything about each other before actually marrying. Overall, the findings of this assignment were very much as expected.
Hatsfield, Bernsman, and Rapson posited two kinds of loves – passionate, or sexually charged, powerful, idealizing love, and compassionate, or calmer, more enduring love which has more a tone of companionship. This can be used to explain the findings for the first question. With the elderly couple there is not much of a sexual dimension to begin with but it is slowly ‘evolved into’ as the relationship ages while younger couples go the other way – they begin with passionate love and, if they want to go long-term, they develop compassionate love. Zygmunt Bauman’s idea of ‘liquid love’ can be used to explain the findings for the answers to the second question. Younger couples are more willing to move on and attempt many relationships before settling down (if ever). Older ones, however, look to find a working match as quickly as possible. Jamieson’s ideas on intimacy seem to corroborate with the findings of this study. Over the decades, intimacy has been moving out of the marriage and into relationships.

Work Cited

Ritzer, George. Introduction to Sociology. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications. 2015. Web.