SOC244H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Levirate Marriage, Sororate Marriage, Interfaith Marriage
Document Summary
Talk about the idea of marriage and love, as sociologists, we view it as a social construction (structure of society) something that is created/constructed. Concept of love as a romantic concept = a current social construction that is dominant in western contemporary societies. But over history, other concepts that explain marriage. Types of questions that sociologists and demographers ask (from slide) Why marry? (theoretical approaches to why people marry) Identity (functionalist perspective); sociology metaphor; society is like a human body. Social institutions (marriage) work together in the same way organs function to keep body functioning. Focus of positive aspects of marriage and families in the functionalist theory. (focus on broad society); macro. Exchange theory: cost-benefit analysis (look at marriage, family, relationships, social life, through a cost benefit analysis. Sociologists say that people would not get married if the cost of the marriage outweighed the benefits how individuals make decisions); micro.
