Class Notes for Marriages, Families, and Intimate Relationships, 4th Edition

Name: Class Notes for Marriages, Families, and Intimate Relationships, 4th Edition
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Author: William Chen

Stay ahead in class with Class Notes for Marriages, Families, and Intimate Relationships, 4th Edition, an essential study resource.

William Chen

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i
Instructor’s Resource Manual
for
Williams, Sawyer, Wahlstrom
Marriages, Families, & Intimate
Relationships
A Practical Introduction
Fourth Edition

iii
Contents
Chapter 1 Seeking: Finding Happiness in Relationships in a Complex World 1
Chapter 2 Understanding: Learning about Intimate Behavior 16
Chapter 3 Gender: The Meanings of Masculinity & Femininity 27
Chapter 4 Involvement: Dating, Pairing, & Courtship 37
Chapter 5 Love: The Many Faces 44
Chapter 6 Communication: Realizing Effective Intimacy 54
Chapter 7 Sexuality: Interpersonal Sexuality, Sexual Values, & Behavior 64
Chapter 8 Marriage: The Ultimate Commitment? 73
Chapter 9 Variations: Nonmarital Families & Households 83
Chapter 10 Reproduction: Decisions about Having or Not Having Children 95
Chapter 11 Parenting: Children, Families, & Generations 104
Chapter 12 Work: Economics, Jobs, & Balancing Family Demands 115
Chapter 13 Crises: Managing Stress, Disaster, Violence, & Abuse 125
Chapter 14 Uncoupling: Separation & Divorce 140
Chapter 15 Remarriage: Reinvented, Renewed, & Blended Families 152

1
Chapter 1
SEEKING: Finding Happiness in Relationships in a
Complex World
Learning Objectives
After reading this chapter, students should be able to:
1.1 Discuss how love and relationships affect personal happiness.
1.2 Describe the components, types, and benefits of families.
1.3 Explain how the families of yesterday differed from our own.
1.4 Describe the great forces that influenced family life.
Major Questions You Should Be Able to Answer
1. How could an intimate relationship make me happy?
2. What are the principal components and benefits of marriage and family?
3. How have the families of today been influenced by the past?
4. What economic and demographic forces are affecting the family?
On the Web
What Do You Seek in Love & Intimacy?
Oxford Happiness Questionnaire—Meaning and Happiness
www.meaningandhappiness.com
At the start of every chapter, we offer you the opportunity to go on the Internet to investigate a
subject that will make the forthcoming material more relevant to you. This is the first one. A
principal theme of this book is that we seek happiness in intimate relationships. But what is
happiness? To begin to investigate this subject, go to the website “Oxford Happiness
Questionnaire—Meaning and Happiness.” After you finish, you can look at the “Interpretation of
Score” to see how you scored in relation to others.
Chapter Outline
I. 1.1 Seeking Happiness through Love & Intimacy
Many people think that they will be happy if they can find the right relationship. In fact,
among the happiest people are those who are married. It’s possible that you can manage your
emotions for happiness just as you manage other things in your life. Happy couples have
common strengths in at least five areas.
 Major Question 1.1: How could an intimate relationship make me happy?

2
A. Love, Marriage, & Happiness
1. Loneliness may be hazardous to one’s health
2. Singles may be better off because some research shows that marriage actually reduces
social ties
B. Marriage & Well-Being
1. Who is very happy?
a. 40% of married people
b. 24% of people living together
c. 22% of those never married
d. 18% of those previously married
2. Research shows that once adults marry, their well-being improves
C. Numbers That Matter: Marriage, Families, & Happiness
1. 40% of married people say they are happy compared with 24% of never-married
people
2. 75% of happy couples agree on the high quality of their communication
3. Married couples declined from 71% of all families in 1970 to 48.4% in 2010
D. Practical Action: Happiness: Is It within Your Grasp?
1. The happiness “set point”
2. Can money buy happiness?
3. Where do you live? The effect of culture on happiness
E. Love, Appreciation, & Happiness
1. John Gottman indicates that the best predictor of divorce is contempt, which may be
thwarted by cultivating a “culture of appreciation”
F. How Happy Are You in a Relationship?
1. Key areas that affect a couple’s happiness:
a. They communicate well
b. They are flexible as a couple
c. They are emotionally close
d. They have compatible personalities
e. They agree on how to handle conflict
2. Other areas that affect a couple’s happiness are:
a. their sexual relationship
b. their choice of leisure activities
c. the influence of family and friends
d. the ability to manage finances
e. an agreement on spiritual beliefs
II. 1.2 Marriage & Family: The Basic Concepts
Marriage has five components: emotional, ceremonial, legal, sexual faithfulness, and
parenting. Family may be a traditional “modern” or nuclear family. Or today it may be a
“postmodern” family, such as a two-household (binuclear) or blended family (stepfamily), or
even one consisting of “affiliated kin” who are family by reason of emotional closeness.
 Major Question 1.2: What are the principal components of marriage and family?
A. What Is Marriage?
1. Five components:

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1.1 Seeking Happiness through Love & Intimacy
1. Happiness is an important and elusive topic; what will bring happiness to one person may
bring misery to another. Yet we all seem to seek happiness in our relationships with
others. Among the most important relationships in our lives are those with the people
with whom we choose to share our lives in an intimate way. Discuss how we seek
different components of happiness from different areas of our life. Then consider the
types of happiness found in our intimate relationships and the qualities of the relationship
that enhance and/or strengthen happiness.
2. What makes, or would make, you happy? Have students provide a list of things they
think will make them happy and write these on the board. Help students recognize that
different things make different people happy, and guide them in detecting any biases they
may have toward accepting what makes another happy.
3. How do you know when you are happy? Students will usually identify abstract things
such as “I feel good” or “I just feel happy.” Help them identify behaviorally observable
ways of telling how they are happy, such as being more active, smiling more, speaking
more often to people, and having more energy. This helps students recognize that they
may be happy even when they don’t “feel” it, and this recognition may increase their
overall feelings of happiness if they see that they are happy more often.
1.2

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 Discuss ways to show acceptance to nontraditional families. For example, educate
yourself about other lifestyles, don’t use derogatory terms such as “That is so gay!”
and include nontraditional family members as you would any other family member.
2. The American family has changed a great deal in the last century.
 Discuss what some of these changes mean. For example, two-income families mean
greater resources but less parent/child interactions. Both parents working means that
young children are in the care of another person, which causes an increase in daycare
centers and other alternative forms of childcare.
 The increase in single-parent families (most often headed by single mothers) creates a
group of people with the lowest incomes. Discuss what it means to be a single mother
in today’s society.
 The divorce rate creates changes in how marriage is viewed. For example, some
young people view their marriage as a “first marriage,” with the expectation they will
marry again. Discuss why marriage may no longer be viewed as “a lifetime
commitment.”
1.4 Major Forces Affecting Relationships & Families
1. What do you think of globalization? Describe the arguments for and against
globalization and have students discuss the pros and cons as they see them. Help them see
the other perspectives and expand their worldview to fit others’ views. (This may be a
challenging topic if some of their family members have lost jobs to globalization.)
Class Activities and Handouts
In-Class Activity
Bring in a variety of commonly available popular magazines. Be sure to collect magazines
representing differing ages, ethnicities, races, and cultures. Divide the class into groups of three
to four students, and give each group a magazine. Give groups 10 minutes to identify the various
family forms depicted and list demographics such as age, race, and ethnicity. Have each group
identify roles, values, and diversity represented in each magazine. Allow time for each group to
report their discoveries to the larger group.

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Out-of-Class Activity
Read the case studies of the ideal family, and then answer the case-study questions.
The Ideal Family
Case No. 1
Mr. and Mrs. Falborne live in a lovely apartment in a large city. All bills are incorporated into
their rental fee. Both have pleasant jobs. Each morning they breakfast together and then depart to
their differing interests of the day. They seldom see each other during daytime hours but each is
interested in the other’s work. They lunch separately and often dine out together in the evening.
They are successful and happy. They have friends of many kinds. They live in a world full of
opportunities for gracious living, and each has some private interests to which they devote part of
their time, effort, and money. Each is “somebody” in the eyes of the other. They have no
children. They are not against children, but they are not in a rush for them. They will have as
many as they feel comfortable with and for whom they can find suitable resources to help care
for them. They do not have maid service daily, but someone comes in weekly. They expect to be
good parents, but the wife expects to continue her career, so they will involve other people and
community resources in the rearing of their children. They feel that their commitment in life is to
themselves and their world and to raising their children to operate effectively in life.
Case No. 2
Robin and Keri live in a nice house in the suburbs of a mid-sized town. They are both
professionals working in jobs that provide them with meaning in their lives. They feel they are
contributing to society with the work they do. They have many outside interests that occupy their
time and each enjoys these activities. They are involved in some outside activities together, and
others they are involved in without the other. They are comfortable with each other, dedicated to
their relationship, and comfortable with their sexual orientation. They feel their lives are
committed to social justice and service. At times they experience prejudice, but this does not
happen often, and they have a strong support network and many accepting friends and
colleagues. They have no children but have discussed adopting at some point in the future when
they feel ready for the responsibility and have resources available.
Case No. 3
Mr. and Mrs. Claymore live in a small town in a medium-sized house with a lovely yard. The
neighborhood is alive with children. Mr. Claymore has a responsible and respectable job with a
local firm. Mrs. Claymore does not work outside the home except in emergencies. Four children

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young and old. Mr. and Mrs. Claymore jointly head up the home and each is willing to
condescend to the other though they generally believe that father should be the head. The
children fit in well with their peer groups with occasional upsets. Family members are likable
and liked. They are developing skills but are not greatly pressured concerning them. Life for this
family is pleasant and regular and all seems to fit into its place.
Case No. 4
Mr. and Mrs. Featherwell live in a lovely, spacious house in the suburbs of one of our central
cities. Mrs. Featherwell is president of her local Parent-Teacher Association (P.T.A.) and is an
active member of other community and women’s groups. Mr. Featherwell is a junior executive in
one of the large companies in the city. They have three children, ages 12, 9, and 7. They are
usually nicely dressed and are rather careful around the house. Family and children’s friends are
numerous, but they are screened with some degree of selectivity and friendship with certain
groups is greatly reinforced. Mr. Featherwell is involved in some community groups where he
seeks to play an active role, as he does also in his church. He provides the income and, with help,
takes care of the yard, of which he is very proud. Mrs. Featherwell handles the budget and is an
excellent hostess. They are going to a company party and she has just called her husband and a
friend for further details and to determine and discuss what she should wear. The children have
been waiting for her to take them to their activity for the afternoon and are becoming quite verbal
in their impatience at her slowness. Family council is held once a week in this family, directed
by the father. Each person is considered an individual and has freedom to express himself or
herself as such. The family does some things together and frequently seeks to be involved in
educational and cultural activities. Mr. and Mrs. Featherwell go places frequently together
without the children and even for extended periods of time, during which they hire someone to
care for the children. Life at the Featherwells’ home operates very efficiently under the mother’s
guidance and is generally pleasant, but proceeds at a hurried pace. Children are expected to
demonstrate achievement in some of their activities and to develop skills.
Case No. 5
Mr. and Mrs. Trueman could be living in any city or area of the country. He is advancing well
with his company. Mrs. Trueman thinks he is a wonderful person. He makes many contacts and
is a well-known figure in the world in which he operates. His family is well informed and
respected by others in the community. Mrs. Trueman is happy with his activity on behalf of
herself and the family, but she is quite content to stay in the background and let him front for the
family. They are very polite and cordial with one another and with their children, who are well
behaved and are achieving well in school and in the development of personality skills. Their
names often appear on the lists of achievers. Life in the home is organized around the coming
and going of the father. Mrs. Trueman spends a lot of her time in home hobbies and in visiting

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Case No. 6
Mr. and Mrs. Straman live in a medium-sized house in a respectable urban housing situation.
They have four children. Both work at jobs they like and in which they find satisfaction. There is
not a lot of interchange between them concerning their jobs or activities. Each is a strong
individual entity, and they go their separate ways without much worry about one another. If
emergencies come up they pitch in and help one another, but otherwise each is expected to be on
his/her own. The children have been given the same privileges of being strong individuals and
have a strong voice in family affairs. They do not hold family councils. Life revolves largely
around the mother at home, with the father free to come and go as he wishes. The mother may
hire help, or do whatever is needed to handle the home situations without overdoing herself.
They consider themselves a very modern family. The husband and wife do not engage in a lot of
joint activities, though they will when needed. They build their relationship on a strong
affectional sex life. They move about the community as they wish, choosing their activities and
associates and encouraging their children to do the same. They are supportive of the children and
back them strongly, but they will also put pressure on them to express their personal strengths.
Life in the home varies with the situation and in mood and tempo. It has a situational aspect to it
that decides what shall be done. They contribute to community and church affairs in the areas in
which they feel interested and capable. The mother may be as free as the husband to move about
in the home. A family of strong individualists, this family flows with the tide as needed, is not
highly analytical or emotionally communicative, but is very supportive of each one’s selection of
ways to express the strength of his/her individuality.

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Name: ________________________________________ Date: ____________________
Case Study Questions
Each of these family lifestyles allows the expression of individual personality. Each family goes
about it differently and does not produce the same types of personalities, but each represents
different kinds of family strengths. You won’t find exactly what you want in any of them.
Nevertheless, some will carry the message of what you want more than others. Answering the
following questions should help you gain a better recognition of what you are looking for and
what you are biased toward and against, particularly as we may have the opportunity to
interchange ideas in class sessions.
1. Which of these families most closely reflects the image you have of a good family? You may
not like any of them, but you should be able to pick one as being more reflective of your
ideas.
2. Identify three things about the family you chose that caused you to be more attracted to it.
a.
b.
c.
3. Is there anything in the family you chose that you dislike? If so, identify it.
4. Which of these family groups seems to have achieved the most . . .
________ a. unity?
________ b. favorable conditions for providing for the personal satisfaction of each family
member?
________ c. favorable conditions for providing for the personal welfare of husband and
wife, i.e. the well-being of their “pair” relationship?

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Diversity Resources
National Center for Family and Marriage Research
https://www.bgsu.edu/ncfmr.html
This site offers various resources by topics and data sets, and it provides family profiles,
comparisons, and data. The NCFMR extols a three-fold mission—research, training, and
dissemination.
National Healthy Marriage Resource Center
http://www.healthymarriageinfo.org/index.aspx
This resource is “a clearinghouse for high quality, balanced, and timely information and
resources on healthy marriage.” The NHMRC’s stated mission is to “be a first stop for
information, resources, and training on healthy marriage for experts, researchers, policymakers,
media, marriage educators, couples and individuals, program providers, and others.”
University of Central Florida: Marriage and Family Research Institute
www.mfri.ucf.edu
The University of Central Florida Marriage and Family Research Institute conducts original
research to meet goals including the facilitation of scholarly activity of faculty and graduate
students interested in marriage and family issues and imparting skills and best practices to
professional and nonprofessional individuals and couples.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children & Families
https://www.acf.hhs.gov/

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