 Family usually valued the most.  Family life changing in Canada. Why?  Rising divorce rates  More single-parent families  Same –sex couples

 Family is universal among all societies, but its form and that of the marriage that brings about a family are not universal.

 Canadian Society = Monogamy ( which a person may have only one wife or husband at a time.  Polygamy: One person can be married to two or more members of the opposite sex.  There are two forms of polygamy; 1) polyandry 2) polygyny

 POLYANDRY: woman marries two or more men. Where is this seen?  Tibet and among the Todas of southern India

 POLYGYNY: a man can marry two or more women at the same time.  Seen in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other Islamic countries and among some of the mormons of the United States.

 New Guinea : among Banaro tribe, a women can only marry after she has borne a child, and the husband cannot be the father of the child.  In Nigeria: among the Igbo people, a woman may take another women as a wife if she can live up to the same financial obligations as a male bridegroom. Wife may have a baby by another man, but the female husband has full paternity rights.

 Idea of romantic love is relatively new in western societies and has been uncommon in practically all non-western societies until recently.  Arranged marriages  Younger people need the guidance of their older parents. Love will develop as the couple settles down  Exchange of property  Bride price  Dowry  Anthropologists say that in societies where women are valued, a bride price is paid; in those in which they are not valued as highly as men, a dowry is paid.

 Why do we cringe at arranged marriages? Are marriages for love really that different?  Western marriage may not be so different then arranged marriages.  Most partners have similar educational, ethnic, and religious backgrounds and come from the same social class.

 Nuclear family: father, mother, children living together.  Extended family: a family unit consisting of a husband, wife, children, grandparents and other relatives  Blended family: when one or both partners in a marriage have children from a previous marriage and combine them to form a new family.

 Patrilineal System: when relatives of a family are deemed by society to be from the father’s side.  Matrilineal System: When relatives of a family are deemed by society to be from the mother’s side only  Bilateral System: When relatives of a family are deemed by society to be from both parents’ sides.

 Is the family as a an institution on the decline in the Canada?  Why or why not?