Week 12 Quiz

Which statement gives this course's definition of a family?

Select one.

• All the people who live in one housing unit, whether or not they are related to one another
• A group a society recognizes as kin, linked by birth, marriage, partnership, or adoption
• Two married parents and the children they raise together in one home
• Only the people a person is related to by birth, whatever the society recognizes

An illustrative adult lives with a partner and their young child; the adult's parents, who raised them, live across town. For this adult, which family do the partner and the child form?

Select one.

• The family of procreation, the family the adult formed
• The family of orientation, the family the adult formed
• The extended family, because the parents live nearby
• A nonfamily household, because the partners are unmarried

In an illustrative society, one wife may be married to two brothers at the same time. Which marriage pattern is this?

Select one.

• Polygyny, because one person has several spouses
• Monogamy, because each brother has one wife
• Polyandry, one wife married to several husbands
• Endogamy, because the husbands share one family

Using the Census Bureau's definitions, which of these homes are family households? Select all that apply.

Select every option that applies.

• A single father living with his two children
• Three unrelated roommates who share one lease
• Two spouses living with their teenage son
• A retired teacher who lives alone
• Two adult cousins who share an apartment

The Census Bureau reported that married-couple households were 47% of U.S. households in 2025, against 66% in 1975. Which reading of that change is accurate?

Select one.

• The share fell 19 percent, so 19 percent fewer families live in the country
• The share fell 19 percentage points, which proves that families are disappearing
• The share fell 19 percent, which shows that later marriage caused the drop
• The share fell 19 percentage points, a change in households, not a count of families

The median age at first marriage for men was 23.5 in 1975 and 30.8 in 2025, according to the Census Bureau. Which conclusion does that figure support?

Select one.

• Fewer men marry now, because the median age rose by 7.3 years
• First marriages now happen later, which says nothing on whether men marry
• The average man first marries at exactly 30.8, so most marry at that age
• Rising costs caused the later marriages, since the two rose together

A writer argues: "Fewer married-couple households and later marriage mean the family is taking new and more varied forms, not growing weaker." Which interpretation is this?

Select one.

• The change view, one reading of the same trend data
• The decline view, one reading of the same trend data
• A finding the household data prove beyond debate
• A functionalist list of the family's four jobs

In an illustrative household, the family pools its wages, food, and shelter, comforts its members, and teaches its children the culture they will live in. Which perspective reads the family this way, and at which level?

Select one.

• Conflict theory, at the macro level, because the family shares its resources
• Symbolic interactionism, at the micro level, because members comfort one another
• Structural functionalism, at the macro level, because it names the family's jobs
• Structural functionalism, at the micro level, because each member does a job

An illustrative couple never discusses chores, yet one partner takes on all the cooking because both assume it fits that partner's gender. Which idea from the course best names what is happening?

Select one.

• Sex, because the cooking follows physical characteristics
• The looking-glass self, the idea from Mead's stages
• Regulation, the functionalist job of setting partner rules
• Doing gender, the idea that West and Zimmerman describe

In an illustrative household, one partner does far more of the unpaid work at home, and the family's owned home will pass to the next generation while renting neighbors have nothing similar to pass on. Which perspective reads this household as a place where patriarchy and inequality are passed down?

Select one.

• Structural functionalism, because the household provides economic support
• Conflict theory, because it asks who gives and who gains in the household
• Symbolic interactionism, because it asks what a family role means at home
• Exogamy, because the family's property passes outside its own kin group