Changes

A '''nuclear family''' is a [[family]] comprising father, mother and children, but no other relatives or borders.  

A '''nuclear family''' is a [[family]] comprising father, mother and children living together, but no other relatives or borders. By contrast an '''extended family''' includes other relatives living in the household.

During the past four decades, [[Family history|historians and historical demographers]] have argued that historical Northwest Europe and North America had a unique family system characterized by neolocal marriage and nuclear family structure. In other societies--such as Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa--powerful clans, senior patriarchs, and duties to and extended kinship networks were dominant factors in shaping families.

During the past four decades, [[Family history|historians and historical demographers]] have argued that historical Northwest Europe and North America had a unique family system characterized by neolocal marriage and nuclear family structure. In other societies--such as Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa--powerful clans, senior patriarchs, and duties to and extended kinship networks were dominant factors in shaping extended families.

Marriages were usually arranged by parents before the 19th century, when [[romantic]] notions allowed the couples to choose their mates.  

For both nuclear and extended families, marriages were usually arranged by parents before the 19th century. Starting in the 19th century the nuclear family was increaingly based on romantic love, allowing young people to choose their mates with less parental control.  

==African American families==

==African American families==

Nuclear family structures are much less common among African-Americans, who have typically have family ties that are matriarchal (controlled by the mothers and grandmothers), with a passive role for the often-absent father. Among all Americans, African-Americans are the least likely to marry, when they marry, they do so later and spend less time married than other Americans, and they are the least likely to stay married. Causal factors include structural factors such as the disparity in sex ratios between African American males and females and employment instability among African American males. Cultural factors include changing cultural trends such as marriage not being a perquisite for sex, the independence of women, the shift from familism to individualism, cohabitation as an increasing option, and the promotion of the values of materialism and patriarchy through popular culture. Individual factors stem from an internalization of cultural values that affects people’s perceptions of marriage and their expectations of potential mates, their willingness to commit to a relationship that can lead to marriage, and, once they marry, their willingness to sustain the marriage through the challenges it will face. Added to this is the fact that, until recent federal funding in 2006, there was little or no education to help couples sustain relationships to marriage or sustain the marriage after they are married.<ref> Patricia Dixon, "Marriage Among African Americans: What Does the Research Reveal?" ''Journal of African American Studies,'' (March 2009), Vol. 13 Issue 1, pp 29-46, </ref>

Nuclear family structures are much less common among African-Americans, who have typically have families that are matriarchal (controlled by the mothers and grandmothers), with a passive role for the often-absent father. Among all Americans, African-Americans are the least likely to marry, when they marry, they do so later and spend less time married than other Americans, and they are the least likely to stay married. Causal factors include structural factors such as the disparity in sex ratios between African American males and females and employment instability among African American males. Cultural factors include changing cultural trends such as marriage not being a perquisite for sex, the independence of women, the shift from familism to individualism, cohabitation as an increasing option, and the promotion of the values of materialism and patriarchy through popular culture. Individual factors stem from an internalization of cultural values that affects people’s perceptions of marriage and their expectations of potential mates, their willingness to commit to a relationship that can lead to marriage, and, once they marry, their willingness to sustain the marriage through the challenges it will face. Added to this is the fact that, until recent federal funding in 2006, there was little or no education to help couples sustain relationships to marriage or sustain the marriage after they are married.<ref> Patricia Dixon, "Marriage Among African Americans: What Does the Research Reveal?" ''Journal of African American Studies,'' (March 2009), Vol. 13 Issue 1, pp 29-46, </ref>

==Popular culture==

==Popular culture==