History and the Family: The Discovery of Complexity Author(s): Glen H. Elder, Jr. Source: Journal of Marriage and the Family, Vol. 43, No. 3 (Aug., 1981), pp. 489-519 Published by: National Council on Family Relations Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/351752 Accessed: 14/07/2009 04:25

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http://www.jstor.org History and the Family: The Discovery of Complexity*

GLEN H. ELDER, JR.** Cornell University

New historical work in fiamily studies has produced a greater sense of complexity and differentiation in the course of social change. This perception, which is chal- lenging accepted knowledge and theory, partly reflects a shift in analytic perspec- tive from structural models to a more behavioral thrust that views ftamilv units as actors in structured situations. W. I. Thomas's adaptational approach in The Polish Peasant exemplifies this behavioral orientation as does an emerging perspec- tive on the life course of families and individuals. This essay examinies the interplay of historical research and theory building, the expanding discovery of complexity in the filmily life of past times, the potential useifulness of Thomas's theory f/r such research, and the essential contribution of age and the life course to the historical application of the Thomas approach.

Over a decade ago Richard Hofstadter Once satisfactory accounts of the transition (1968:442) noted a "rediscoveryof complexity from tradition to modernity, the legacy of in American history-a new awareness of the slavery among black families, and the course multiplicity of forces." In this time span, from marriage to old age in particular times research has profoundly enlarged our knowl- have given way to perceptions of multiple edge of family variation and complexity pathways and alternative routes, the interplay across historical time and the life span. between familiar and novel experiences, and the reworking of customary adaptations in new situations. From the *Support for this research on which this manuscript is vantage point of based was provided by Grant MH-34172 from the historical scholarship, there is clearly more to National Institute of Mental Health to Cornell University the story of family change than could have (Glen H. Elder, Jr., principal investigator). Many col- been imagined only 10 or 15 years ago. In this leagues have shared their thoughts about the ideas pre- some of the theoretical of sented in this essay and in doing so helped me to think essay, implications more clearly and precisely. I am most grateful for this this research are explored, most notably the special intellectual community and particularly for emergence of a more behavioral approach to lengthy written commentary by Andrew Cherlin, Robert the family. Merton, John Modell, John Meyer, and David Kertzer. To the remarkable of The present article is a revision of the Ernest Burgess grasp surge family Award lecture delivered at the annual meetings of the history, consider for a moment where we were National Council on Family Relations, Portland, Oregon, just 10 years ago when Robert Winch (1970) October 25, 1980.

**Department of Sociology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853. character. In Barraclough's words (1979:214-215), con- temporary social science still lacks the "depth which comes from studying society not as static but as a 'The new awareness reflects a number of develop- dynamic constellation of forces manifesting itself in con- ments, but especially the rise of quantitative methodol- tinuous and constant change." Two anthologies of essays ogy and analyses in studies of social change and patterns. on family history (Demos and Boocock, 1978; Hareven, Major advances along this line have come from the social 1978) show developments toward a more dynamic, his- sciences, though appraisals rightly fault its atemporal torical perspective in the field.

August 1981 JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 489 began his Burgess address by asking what we unique time series across more than 200 years know"about permanence and change in the of family life in Hingham, Massachusetts. American family. We can be sure," he said, One of the distinct beneficiaries of this fresh "of only two things." One concerns family vigor in family history is our expanding structure or the decline in household size, the knowledge of black family life since the other pertains to functional change, to the Colonial era(see especially Gutman, 1976). decline in functions. Winch did not cite the From the perspective of the 1980s, Robert new historical studies and with good reason. Winch's two certainties now seem more Most significant work in social history and problematic on empirical detail and interpre- historical sociology had not been launched, tation. The scope of knowledge, understand- completed, or published at the time. With ing, and unknowns has increased appreciably such developments have come an expanded over the decade. From the much criticized sense of the problematic, a greater range of "modernization" thesis to women and the inquiry, and discontent with customary family economy (Wrigley, 1972, 1977; paradigms. Hareven, 1976), the new wave of findings has Diverse research influences established a challenged traditional answers to long-stand- context for the new work. The French ing questions. historical tradition on the study of mentality Problems of historical change and the produced Phillippe Aries' Centuries of Child- family were once prominent in the Chicago hood (1962), a pioneering history of tradition of sociological studies prior to childhood and youth that has influenced World War II, from Thomas and Znaniecki's countless students and scholars over the past (1974) The Polish Peasant and Frazier's two decades in Europe and America.2 (1966) The Negro Family in the United States Rudolph Trumbach (1978:xiii), author of to perceptive essays by Ernest Burgess, Wil- The Rise of the Equalitarian Family, liam Ogburn, and others. Burgess's apprecia- acknowledges that"like everyone else I begun tion for historical work is documented by a under the influence of Aries and took for laudatory introduction to Frazier's monu- granted that when one studied the family, one mental study, in which he states that it is the studied the history of education." This "most valuable contribution to the literature history is the core of Bernard Bailyn's (1960) on the family since the publication, 20 years programmatic agenda for family and educa- ago, of The Polish Peasant in Europe and tional studies in Education in the Forming of America" (Elder, 1978:53). Often deficient A imerica. in empirical details, Burgess's characteri- The influence of Aries and Bailyn, the zations of families in past time were occa- methodology of family reconstitution devel- sionally imprecise (Fischer, 1978:238) or oped in France and England, and the simply erroneous. But he firmly believed that historical demography of the Cambridge family trends (on marital age, divorce, Group, under the direction of Peter Laslett household structure) represented the best (with R. Wall, 1972), are variously expressed documented aspect of family life up to the in published studies on American family 1950s. Description is not explanation, history in the 1970s: John Demos' (1970) however, and one detects in Burgess's reconstruction of family life in Plymouth, thinking an impatience with the countless New England; Lockridge's (1970) study of unknowns on family change, a sentiment that four generations in Dedham, Massachusetts; applies equally well today. To promote Philip Greven's (1970) thoughtful study of greater understanding of the family in a four generations in rural Andover, New dynamic society, Burgess (in Bogue, 1974: England; and Daniel Scott Smith's (1973) 358) urged that priority be given to the formulation of a theoretical approach, one around the of 2Centuries of Childhood (Aries, 1962) is widely "organized concepts process, regarded a a most important influence on the develop- action, and development-concepts which ment of family history within the field of history. take into account the mutability of a changing However, sociologists tended to view Aries' work from the society." perspective of age divisions and social change. Bernard This task is still before us. We still know Farber's (1972) The Guardians of Virtue is one exception to the sociological neglect of Aries in historical studies of little about the interacting and enduring the family. effects of the Great Depression and World

490 JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY August 1981 War II, an historical period which Reuben imprint of the early school of Chicago Hill (1981) has called "the watershed of sociology can be seen in many aspects of my family change in the twentieth century." work to date, a development which now Nevertheless, research developments have seems almost inevitable in view of the increased our recognition that a satisfactory Chicago alumni who have guided me along approach must locate the family in terms of the way at critical points. both historical and life time. The historical One approach to the new family history is dimension no longer implies just the distant to take the perspective of research contribu- past which contemporary studies might tions to theory. Over the past decade, ignore. New historical understandings of historical research has challenged accepted women and the family, of the young and old knowledge and the empirical base of much in family context, and of black families have theory building by documenting a more modified interpretations of current observa- complex and variable course of family life tions and trends. A central theme in this new and change. This challenge reflects the work relates family history to a conceptual behavioral thrust of this new research, i. e., its approach that links historical and family emphasis on family behavior in relation to time: a life-course perspective (Elder, 1975, social structures, their constraints and 1978a, 1978b). Analysts of family history and options. An approach that has much to offer demography have found the perspective behavioral research is W. I. Thomas's adapt- useful in studying the interdependence of ional perspective on family change; although family and industrial change (Hareven, its usefulness can be enhanced by drawing 1981), the changing lives of women during upon a life-course perspective and Robert the late 19th century (Chudacoff, 1980) and Merton's analysis of structured options. 20th century (Uhlenberg, 1974, 1979), and RESEARCH, THEORY, AND HISTORY social in life transitions (Modell et al., change the feature of the 1976). Across these studies, the life-course Perhaps most distinctive of studies has been perspective has functioned as a theoretical evolving discipline family orientation; to use Robert Merton's definition the simultaneous expansion of two vigorous (1968), it has established a common field of lines of activity-theory building and histori- cal research-which bear an essential but by a framework that inquiry providing guides to each other. With the research in terms of problem identification uneasy relationship and formulation, variable selection and growth of empirical studies of the family the came rationales, and strategies of design and during postwar years mounting for such analysis. pressures "order-creating" efforts, of invento- My initial orientation to the life course as a as the development propositional the construction of and focal point of inquiry occurred through the ries, taxonomies, After more than two study of socialization as a lifelong, interactive conceptual integration. process. This emphasis in my dissertation decades of such work, it seems no in under the direc- (1961, published 1980b), have a long history, especially in relation to the life span tion of Charles Bowerman, was supplemented of the social sciences. One of the first known uses of co- by exposure to the career analyses of sociol- hort analysis appears in the work of Eilert Sundt (1980), ogists John Clausen and Harold Wilensky at a Norwegian. Sundt explained the sharp rise in number of after 1850 a the University of California and by a growing marriages by documenting preceding baby boom after 1815. Social age in the timing of lives and 1968a, 1968b, 1980a). The historical dimen- families has been the target of thought and inquiry for sion of age, as birth years, informed research centuries. Demographic work on life events and deci- on the Oakland project-published as Chil- sions in family formation is clearly a longstanding source dren the Great for life-course theory, see, for example, Kingsley Davis of Depression (Elder, and Judith Blake's (1956) "Social Structure and Fer- 1974)-primarily through Karl Mannheim's tility: An Analytic Framework." Even the idea of family essay on "The Problem of Generations" fluctuations between hardship and well-being, based on (1952) and especially Norman Ryder's classic the changing relation of family composition and essay (1965) on the cohort in the study of economics, can be traced beyond Rowntree's famous social The task of York study to the writings of French and English change. conceptual relating analysts of the mid to late 19th century (communication the social and historical meanings of age from Louise Tilly, 1976). The distinctiveness of current emerged only gradually through the time work on the life course is that it represents a convergence span of the Oakland study.3 A substantial among these various strands (Elder, 1975), a conver- gence based on the contributions of multiple disciplines 3The various meanings and conceptualizations of age in the social sciences. August 1981 JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 491 exaggeration to describe the period as an What would the data on this point suggest unparalleled era "of systematic theory if we return to the American communities building" (Burr etal.. 1979a:10). Conceptual that were studied some 30 to 50 years ago? A advances have been achieved in the domains University of Virginia research team did just of family formation, work and family, marital that in a 1978 survey of middle-and quality and power, socialization and family working-class parents in Middletown, the city crisis. Much of this work is published in the of Muncie studied by the Lynds in the 1920s two-volume handbook, entitled Contempo- and 1930s. Comparing items in the surveys of rary Theories About the Family (Burr et al., 1924 and 1978, the research team (Caplow 1979 a and b). The most noticeable deficiency and Chadwick, 1979:381) found that "moth- is the absence of theoretical developments on ers and fathers, in both working-class and family change. business-class families, spent much more Social theories about family change have time with their children in 1978 than in not fared well by the judgments of historical 1924." The precise figures are not reported research. Theories produce a sense of order, and we do not know about matters of structure, and meaning, while empirical changing time allocations in parenting. discoveries frequently bring disorder to Nevertheless, these findings recommend a customary views or models. Thus, once more painstaking approach to the historical plausible accounts of family evolution record. portrayed the modern family pattern as an Research on family, household, and outgrowth of industrialization, an erroneous kinship in history has borrowed extensively concept in light of empirical research, from sociological theories and methodologies, reflecting simplistic models of linear change while sociologists on occasion have character- and timing (Hareven, 1976). The viability of ized the past from knowledge of theory generalizations from imaginary, incomplete, instead of historical reality. Both operations or deficient data has diminished in the midst have underscored major theoretical and of exanding archival studies. Noting that in- research deficiencies in charting the course of terpretations of the present always entail "a family change. For example, Weinstein and host of assumptions about the past," Platt (1969) used Parsonian theory to outline Thernstrom (1965:242) argues that the real a model of the traditional family in which choice for social research is "between explicit male and female roles are not sharply history, based on a careful examination of the differentiated, in which child rearing and sources, and implicit history, rooted in discipline functions are shared by both ideological preconceptions and uncritical parents, and in which father plays a acceptance of local mythology." nurturant role. This portrait is challenged on A case that underscores Thernstrom's all points by the historical literature for it is warning comes from beliefs regarding social founded on what the historian Barbara change in parental behavior. Since the 1930s Harris (1976:166) rightly considers "an age segregation and the expansion of social- imaginary past." She argues that the present ization influences outside the family suggest state of knowledge calls not for "brilliant that contemporary American parents are theory," but for "the facts and modest, spending much less time with their children tentative interpretations." than did parents of the 1920s or earlier. A powerful statement of this position is Using these observations and the child-rearing found in Stinchcombe's (1978) Theoretical literature on permissiveness, Urie Bronfen- Methods in Social History. He argues that the brenner (1970:95) concludes that parents poor reputation of theory among historical used to bring up their children: "While the analysts is partially due to theory that "has to family still has the primary moral and legal ignore most of the facts in order to get its responsibility for the character development concepts going" (1978:16). The more social of children, it often lacks the power or oppor- theory ignores the details of a setting or tunity to do the job, primarily because process, the more it resembles fantasy or parents and children no longer spend enough speculation. Such writing is mere "wind," time together in situations in which such argues Stinchcombe; "the classes it invents training is possible." are vacuous, and nothing interesting follows

492 JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY August 1981 from the fact that A and B belong to the activities produce new data, methods, and class" (1978:21). By comparison, an ade- insights that challenge accepted answers and quate theory of social change gives attention conventional problem statements. Painstak- to the details of narrative sequences; it builds ingly constructed models may be found deep analogies between cases of people and incorrectly specified through a fresh line of their thoughts about conditions. research. The relation between industrial and Stinchcombe's criticism applies well to family change is a prominent case in point. grand theories that once occupied center By dating key elements of the modern nuclear stage as accounts of family history and broad family before industrialization (e.g., affective historical syntheses across the centuries (e.g., individualism in marriage, a developmental Shorter, 1975; Stone, 1977). Shorter's concept of the young child, and fertility well-known book, The Making of the Modern control), historical research (Stone, 1977; Family (1975) is criticized for a "simplicity Wrigley, 1977) should prompt major re- that at times amounts to simplemindedness" casting of theory on the long-term evolution (Scott, 1977). In contrast, Tilly and Tilly of the Western family system. (1980) propose a convincing alternative: that Convergent activities develop the core of a we study what actually happened to families field such as family studies-the knowledge and members in specific settings during and procedures that inform basic education industrialization and migration by making and advanced training. But they also systematic comparisons across groups de- constitute a seedbed of divergent possibilities fined by social class, place, and period. through the Mertonian process of "serendip- Relations between social theory and the ity" (Merton, 1968:157) and novel problem historical record identify important issues of identifications. In studies of history and the problem formulation. When theory is applied family, as elsewhere, professional incentives to an historical situation, as in Neil Smelser's for young scholars favor the innovative (1959) classic study of family change in 19th formulation of an old problem, the discovery century Lancashire, the research problems of an unmined archive to probe an are posed by the theory itself. Smelser unexplored question, or the proposal of new (1968:77) observes that his model of solutions that question established views. (C. structural differentiation generated the core Tilly, 1979). If "order-creating" tasks lack problems of his study, not the "period of the priority on this list, they nonetheless remain a Industrial Revolution as such." In this case, prime step toward the puzzles and unknowns the relation between theory and research that spur innovative work. Kuhn (1977:234), problem is not problematic, since the among others, reminds us of the connections problem is defined by theory. What may be between new and old ideas. New theories and problematic is the relation between the theory even discoveries are not produced "de or problem, on the one hand, and the novo"-they emerge from "old theories and historical event, on the other. As noted within a matrix of old beliefs about the elsewhere (Elder, 1978b), Smelser's theory is phenomena that the world does and does not not adequately informed by the details of contain." Theoretical limitations are com- industrial change and family adaptation. A monly rooted in errors of fact, especially in structural theory is not suited to the analysis pseudofacts which have been plentiful in the of family behavior or to its articulation with background of theories on family change. the economy across the life span. Such facts, as Merton points out (1959:xv), The expanding enterprises of historical "have a way of inducing pseudoproblems, inquiry and theory building in family studies which cannot be solved because matters are are linked in ways that reflect Thomas not as they purport to be." Or, as Mark Kuhn's (1977) observations on "the essential Twain noted: "It isn't what you don't know tension" between tradition and innovation or that gets you into trouble. It's what you do convergence and divergence in scientific know that ain't so." research. As Kuhn makes clear, the best very THE DISCOVERY OF COMPLEXITY of such work entails both types of operations. Convergent activities build and draw from a Problems of historical change and the generally accepted fund of principles, family have been studied from the perspec- procedures, and knowledge, while divergent tives of social structure (of institutional

August 1981 JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 493 arrangements, authority, social bonds, etc.) which utilize both structural and behavioral and of behavior. Structural accounts of social levels of analysis, bear directly on what change which include the family as one Tamara Hareven (1977:69) has called "the element specify constraints and options that discovery of complexity in family behavior in impinge on family behavior: for example, the the past." schooling and employment options for older The compelling attractions of behavioral children in urban centers of late 19th century questions and modes of analysis are reflected Massachusetts (Kaestle and Vinovskis, 1980), by two developments over the past decades: women's employment prospects in textile and (1) the application of structural general- mining communities, and the access of izations to the behavioral world, which has families to community services in critical life had unfortunate consequences for the situations (Anderson, 1971). Theories of research community; and (2) greater atten- declining and expanding options or con- tion on process and dynamics in the form of a straints do not enable us to understand or shift away from the static concepts of stage predict the choices families make from the and status to more dynamic concepts. Family options available-e.g., how they work out stage and socioeconomic status are being lines of action in periods of economic supplemented by concepts of family transi- dislocation. Such questions are characteristic tion and economy (Demos and Boocock, of the new family history which views family 1978; Hareven, 1978 a and b). A brief action, strategies, and patterns in relation to discussion of these distinctions provides a urban and rural social structures. Concepts useful framework in which to illustrate the of the family and individuals as decision discovery of complexity through historical makers have come from historical analysis studies of family and kinship during which views the family from the perspective of industrialization. actors in structured circumstance. One Behavioral is Thomas Dublin's Inferences from prominent example Structlural Antalyses (1979) study of the family ties of women in the Lowell mills. The prominence of structural models of A clear illustration of the conceptual shift family change since the 1940s obscured much comes from a comparison of two historical empirical complexity and encouraged errone- studies of family structure in 19th century ous accounts through the generalization of Lancashire, England, published slighly more modal family structures to the behavioral than a decade apart: Neil Smelser's (1959) world of domestic units and people. A study of family change and growth in the particular structural type could readily textile industry of Lancashire (1770-1850) become a monolithic description of actual and Michael Anderson's (1971) research on family units. A classic example of this mis- rural and working-class families between guided practice stems from Talcott Parsons' 1840 and 1860. Lacking data on the workers, (1965) concept of the "isolated nuclear Smelser's analysis shows the unfolding family" a depiction of the structurally dif- process by which industrial change led to the ferentiated position of the conjugal family in structural separation of family and work the bilateral kinship system of the United roles. Families are not depicted as dynamic States. Dozens of studies tested this struc- social units interacting with situations tural proposition on the behavioral level and through their life courses. Family groups and produced findings that had nothing to do people with careers, histories, and choices with Parsons' theoretical statement. Struc- drop out of the picture. By comparison, tural isolation does not ensure or imply Anderson uses historical materials on behavioral isolation. workers and their families to study changes at Similar opportunities for erroneous infer- both the structural and behavioral levels, and ence were presented by Arensburg and their relationship. He concludes that migra- Kimball's (1940) classic study of the peasant tion to urban centers of textile employment Irish family in County Clare, a project carried altered the availability of kin among young out in the midst of the Great Depression. workers and promoted individualism, yet kin Their objective was not to conduct a rich support proved to be a critical urban resource ethnography of the peasant family but to in time of crisis. Family studies of this sort, apply Radcliffe-Brown's version of structure-

494 JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY August 1981 function theory to the construction of a theo- cially in relation to the level of education, mi- retical model of this social institution. gration experience, economic well-being, and Excluding matters of parameter distribution involvement in mass media. Modern family and variability, the model depicted a rigidly expectations on equality and mutuality were structured patriarchy with father as the commonplace among men and women in the severe, emotionally repressed and distant sample, even among women from traditional authority figure and mother as the principal homes. The latter felt the strongest pressures source of emotional support and the manager for change and ranked highest on dissatisfac- of tensions and conflicts. The division of tion with family roles. The full meaning of labor in the household and farm economy these contemporary observations remain as followed the doctrine of separate spheres for elusive as the historical reality of structural males and females; roles were highly forms among peasant families of County differentiated by sex, age, and relative status. Clare in 1932. Nearly 40 years after the Arensberg and One lesson from the County Clare study Kimball project, an interview survey (Hannan applies more generally to the intellectual task and Katsiaouni, 1977) was fielded in the of describing and accounting for change County Clare region for the purpose of processes and outcomes in family and gaining insights into the nature and kinship: the complete dependence of this prevalence of traditional forms of the Irish venture on what is known and understood in farm family. The study included interviews the baseline period. Given the recency of with husbands and wives in some 400 families scholarship on family history, one should not from the 10 least developed counties. Across be surprised by a widespread uncertainty on all families, income depended mainly or what is known and understood. Consider the entirely upon the farming operation. The emergence of subjective themes that are re-study did not attempt to establish lineage generally attributed to the "modern family ties between the current sample families and pattern in America"-the companionate or family units in the 1930s, partly because the equalitarian marriage that is central to the original study's emphasis on theory construc- Burgess-Locke thesis, a nurturant concept of tion did not lend itself to such research. parenting, and a developmental concept Nevertheless, the intervening years encom- which distinguishes the young child from passed a striking period of social change for adults. Building upon the work of Mary Beth family and patriarchy, rapid growth of the Norton (1980), Robert Wells (1971), and market economy, commercialization of agri- others, Carl Degler (1980) dates the culture, and a communications and educa- emergence of these themes in the urban tion revolution. More than a third of the middle class of the post-Revolutionary family farms were mechanized in an era-up to about 1830. This timing is far innovative manner. Close to half of the removed from old ideas regarding the causal families used banking facilities, owned a role of industrial change, and there is reason television set, and possessed an automobile. to believe that additional work in the Colonial An ideology of personal choice (Goode, 1963) era may push the date back further, even into generally governed boy-girl relations and the 17th century. Additional complications vocational decisions, unlike the custom of are posed by the pattern of ideological family control in the depressed 1930s. change. Did the ideas and sentiments of the As might be expected from the diversity of modern family follow a linear course of postwar change, the study did not come up diffusion across places and social groups in with a single predominant type of family historical time or is the course cyclical, structure. Only a fifth of the families reaching states of accentuation and disfavor resembled the traditional patriarchy of in relation to demographic and economic Arensberg and Kimball's study, while a third fluctuations? Unlike individuals and family of the families were classified as modern as organization, with their indelible imprint on represented by the sharing of tasks and countless records such as census and local decision making, mutuality, and emotional survey schedules, city directories and proper- support. Within the limits of a cross-sectional ty rolls, employment files, and vital event sample, modernizing forces seemed to make records, data limitations make the subjective a difference in the degree of male dominance dimension of family life exceedingly difficult and in the prevalence of traditionalism, espe- to research. August 1981 JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 495 From an organizational and behavioral 1976; Hogan, 1981). The time span between perspective, the new historical research has leaving home and establishing a new home produced a broader, more detailed, and and family is much shorter today. This differentiated formulation of change in change has direct consequences for the family American families since the late 18th century of orientation, particularly in relation to the than is seen in Robert Winch's (1970) launching phase and the empty nest. With overviewsome 10 years ago, with its emphasis greater longevity and a smaller number of on household shrinkage and functional children, middle-aged couples today can look specialization. A glance across a full list of forward to a much longer time span after the documented and potential family changes children leave home (Wells, 1971; Glick, underscores the inadequacy of simple 1977). Turning to old age, the most statements about the leading or pioneering important economic transition in the late role of any class, ethnic, or regional sector on 19th century was the departure of the last the development of new family forms. The child of working age (especially for the separation of workplace from household working class). Retirement occupies this appeared first among the lower strata of position among the elderly today (Chudacoff laborers, while a more prolonged residence in and Hareven, 1979). These contrasts vividly the family household occurred mainly for portray the changing relation between family reasons of work in the laboring classes and and other institutional sectors of society. because of advanced schooling in the middle Increasingly, scholars have looked for the class (Katz, 1975). Fertility declines in 19th imprint of macro-changes in processes of the century America add a good many puzzles to family economy. This global concept refers to the modernization of family sentiments and a system of resource allocation in family pro- structures. Perhaps the surest argument duction, reproduction, and consumption; a concerns the spread of individualism and system that brings all members of the family preferences of personal choice among the and household into the picture, and focuses young and the better educated (Goode, attention on decision processes, strategies of 1963). Class and age models of cultural adaptation, and life plans (L. Tilly, 1979; diffusion, whether of the filter down or up Bennett and Elder, 1979; Fruin, 1980; variety (Young and Wilmott, 1973), presume Goldin, 1981; Vanek, 1981). Katz and his a knowledge base and theoretical under- co-researchers (1981:425) argue that the key standing of change that do not exist. Judging to an understanding of change in family from the work to date, a more profitable step organization is likely to be found in the family toward explanation entails on investigation of economy, "in the strains, opportunities, and the interaction between families and the anxieties induced by the differential social variable course of urban-industrial change in impact of capitalist development upon specific settings. As Laurence Veysey (1973: domestic life." From operations to resources 72) has put it, "the fundamental fact of and structure, family economies are known to history is the unevenness of rates of change." have varied by economic circumstances and cultural by historical and Concepts and Pathways of Family Change groups, settings stages of the life course (Modell, 1978). Transition and economy depict modes of Among Italian women in Buffalo at the turn family change since the 18th century and of the century, cultural traditions influenced illustrate basic conceptual features of the new work options and choices, as well as the family history-its dynamic, behavioral, and productive activities of children (Yans- contextual emphases. Transitions to adult- McLaughlin, 1977). Such variations restrict hood, to a household without children, and to generalizations about historical change in the old age show an historical shift in the transfer family and its form, whether linear or of control over life events, from family to cyclical. organizations and the individual. Owing The concept of family economy in largely to educational upgrading, young historical studies has supplemented accounts Americans today remain at home longer than of functional loss and the diminished signifi- their counterparts of the mid-19th century, cance of the family with a concept of families but they pass through events that mark the as regulatory units, influencing and control- adult transition more rapidly (Modell, et al., ling the activity of members within the

496 JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY August 1981 household and in the larger community. obvious from all that is known about the Industrialization removed the productive interplay of work and family, including the function from households, but families imperatives, options, and priorities of each continued to regulate the economic activity of domain and their mutual consequences. Yet members. Household considerations shaped their discovery in the course of industrial- whether, when, and even where women and ization has radically altered how the children would obtain paid employment in questions on the interplay of economic and 19th century America. Drawing upon a broad family change are framed. Some constants range of historical materials and studies in have become variables. Systematic compari- France and England, Tilly and Scott (1978) son of mining and textile communities in the identify three general stages of women's work United States underscores Raymond Grew's and the family economy (see also Young and (1980:769) reminder that "only comparison Wilmott, 1973) that seem to apply as well to establishes that there is something to be the lower strata in the United States: explained." With greater appreciation for industrial issues the Stage I: The flmily economy of the pre-industrial variations, regarding family's role world in which all members of the household as agent or outcome of larger changes are worked at productive tasks. "High fertility, high quickly transformed into the task of mortality, and a small-scale household organi- specifying circumstances which favor the zation of production and limited resources role of the or the meant that women's time was spent primarily agent family dependent, in productive activity" (Tilly and Scott, 1978: reactive pattern. This step might lead to 227). questions concerning the industrial conse- Stage II: The family wage economy.4 Working- quences of family agency, as in textile class families relied upon the earnings of older communities. For children and women. The woman example, in the case of predominant textile worker was single and a daughter of the working communities, did particularistic values class, though married women did enter the that typify family relations lead to behavior labor force under pressure of family needs. and choices that conflicted with mill policy During the late 19th century, older children and trade union interests? What industrial ranked next to the male head as the principal source of family income (Haines, 1979a and b). developments placed family and kindred in a Stage III: The family consumer economy. 5 House- more dependent position, and how were these holds became more specialized units on matters changes expressed in short-term and of long- reproduction and consumption. In this stage, term family adaptations? Questions of this there was the growth of tertiary sector employ- ment for women and the institutionalization of sort have special relevance to the steel and child-labor constraints on children. mining cities of Pittsburgh (Kleinberg, in process) and Scranton (Haines, 1979a), Pennsylvania during the peak years of Family transitions and economies highlight industrial growth. connections between the multiple pathways of Textile communities provide substantial urban-industrial change and family units. historical documentation of family agency Communities that followed the path of and control over the work process. Compared "metals and mining" and those that acquired to areas of heavy industry and mining textile mills were at the leading edge of (Haines, 1979a) or even to commercial industrialization, yet their evolving econo- centers (Katz, 1975), family and work mies formed markedly different relationships remained more a part of the same world for to the family (Tilly, 1976; Katz et al., 1981). mill families throughout the 19th century and The existence of such differences now seems into the 20th century. Initially the incor- poration of family units into the labor force of textile mills symbolized an early phase of 4John Modell (1979:119) refers to these "cooperative industrialization (Smelser, 1959), though family economies" as a response to the pervasive state of studies have found a continuation "externally imposed uncertainty." subsequent of this practice to the postwar era. 5William Ogburn focused scholarly attention on this Yans-McLaughlin (1977:216) describes silk- emergent stage in his 1929 address to the American weaving firms around 1900 who hired entire Sociological Society, entitled "The Changing Family." family units from local Italian communities,

August 1981 JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 497 and Hareven (1981) refers to French- Susan Kleinberg's (in process) The Shadow of Canadian kin in the Amoskeag mill the Mill, an historical account of family life community of Manchester, New Hampshire and steel mills in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (circa 1900-1930) who played the role of Steel workers around the turn of the century broker between individuals and the factory could expect a short, nasty worklife marked system. Kin recruited family members from by the very real prospect of disabling or Quebec for jobs in the Amoskeag, helped to life-threatening accidents. Judging from the mediate when work problems arose, and prevailing early marriage pattern, the typical occasionally filled the slots of ailing relatives. housewife in the steel community of A large percentage of the Amoskeag Pittsburgh was much younger and far less employees worked with relatives in the same assertive than her spouse. She knew little mill room. Family ties, ethnicity, and religion about the world of work through either formed the basis of communal groups within personal experience or the experiences of her the Amoskeag.6 mate, she managed the burden of many The formative or adult transition in family children on very scarce resources and lacked development represents one of the most employment as an option should misfortune important contrasts between the working befall her spouse. class of textile and heavy industry or mining Vulnerability seems to apply to much of communities. In the textile community, there working-class life during the 19th and early existed a distinctive pattern of early work for 20th century. This is also true for the mill girls, a continuation of employment during families of New England up until the 1900s the '20s, relatively late marriage, and (Dublin, 1979). But the Amoskeag mill time-out for childbearing mixed with work families, as a group, show a level of mastery re-entry for reasons of family need (Dublin, and command on matters of survival that 1979; Hareven, 1981). With employment seldom appears in other sectors of the opportunities for both young women and working class. Prolonged work and delayed men, textile communities attracted rural marriage among the French-Canadian wom- migrants who did not create an age-sex en suggest a life in which married women had structure that favored early marriage for strong ties in the community, exercised women-a surplus of young men. However, substantial power or control on family and rural-to-urban migration did produce such a personal matters, and enjoyed some chance marriage market in mining and heavy for a measure of economic independence industry communities (Haines, 1979a). This after the husband's death. If the uniqueness market and few job opportunities for women of Manchester and Pittsburgh handicaps any partly accounted for a generalized pattern of comparison, the available facts at least early marriage, rare female employment indicate the possibilities of more precise before and after marriage, and unusually studies of industrial and family change. high marital fertility. Whatever the path of industrial change, The structure of work and family in the new historical studies support a concept communities based on mining or heavy of family interdependence, communication, industry placed working-class women in a and geographic mobility between rural and highly vulnerable and dependent position. urban populations. Streams of family units This life situation is depicted most vividly in and people between Beech Creek, Kentucky and southern Ohio during World War II and the postwar years led Schwarzweller and associates (1971) to think of donor and 6Hareven is able to show the variable career of family units as of a social and control over recipient part larger agency matters of work and earnings by with bonds formed following mill families and individual workers from system largely by Amoskeag prosperity during the early 1900s to a major family-kinship ties. The "parental home," as labor strike in 1922 and then to the beginning of the end one Ohio migrant put it, "is a place to go if that finally arrived for the textile firm in the mid-1930s. things get rough out here" (Schwarzweller et Though mill families were subordinated to the Amos- Frederic keag's powerful interests at all times, their relative influ- al., 1971:92). Drawing upon ence was far greater during the growth period than dur- LePlay's concept of the stem family, this ing the years of decline and scarcity. study depicts migration as a system-

498 JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY August 1981 maintaining process involving exchange Diverse paths of urban-industrial develop- between stem families and the network of ment raise serious questions about any branch units. Stem families facilitated general theory that links overall change to migration according to economic opportunity family change. They push simple themes on and provided "havens of safety." Something social breakdown or innovation during akin to this dynamic system of transactions industrialization into a broader context that between rural and urban families is seen in suggests multiple and even contradictory Anderson's (1971) study of families in 19th outcomes. The once prominent thesis of century Lancashire and in Hareven's (1981) "social breakdown" depicts industrial change Amoskeag research. as a demoralizing force, leading to family These and other studies of family, kinship, disorganization, loss of kin support and ties, and migration provide a more differentiated the decline of paternal authority and parental understanding of social change in family supervision of the young, and the early development. Unlike notions of a clearly "forced" departure of children from the marked transition from rural to urban, recent home. The danger in critiques of the research stresses the intersection of these disorganization theme is that they frequently diverse worlds and their interaction within bring to mind another myth, that of the the kin system. Rural migrants selectively "over-integrated, ever resilient family." In a drew upon and modified customary modes of perceptive critique of working-class studies, adaptation in accordance with the demands Jonathan Prude (1976:424) correctly notes of the new situation. The old ways that research has fallen short of compre- determined or shaped the meaning of the new hending that "a family could be both affected conditions. In study after study (see Glasco, by and effective in its milieu, that it could be 1978), family and kinship are seen as less the simultaneously unsuccessful in resisting casualty of migration than as the primary changes in its own traditions and successful mechanism by which 19th century migrants in aiding its members to cope with the world worked out adjustments to the city environ- in which they found themselves." This ment. Migration selectively strained and thoughtful statement deserves attention by all strengthened family ties. Ties were strength- investigators of race and ethnicity in family ened through the mobilization of kin life. Victimized and victorious are not resources, but always at a cost. The price mutually exclusive terms in referring to a paid for this aid is a neglected feature of family's adaptations and outcomes. kinship. Much of what has been discussed under the The distinctive focal point of this work is heading of "discovery of complexity" in the family and household as domestic units family organization concerns the influence of or groups which are embedded in specific research on social theory, a theme given times, community contexts, and life trajec- special significance in Robert Merton's tories. The behavioral thrust illustrates a (1968) Social Theory and Social Structure. general shift from purely structural analyses Following Merton's analysis, it is clear that that exclude people, groups, and their historical research has pressed for a careers. Behavioral research that also attends substantial "recasting" of theories or con- to social trends and forces has produced a ceptual schemes on social change and the greater sense of the agency and complexity of family. It has also generated new theoretical families in past time. Linear models of family interests within this domain. Merton (1968: change, a monolithic version of functional 162) refers to the "repeated observation of decline, the social breakdown of family life hitherto neglected facts" as a prime mover of among rural migrants in the city, static conceptual reformulations. Such facts have concepts of family organization-these and appeared throughout the field of modern- other perspectives are now widely recognized ization. An important type of reformulation as incomplete, misleading or erroneous, or involves problem statements. New thinking simply inadequate. Structural differentiation about old problems may well qualify in the represents a central element of family end as the most influential theoretical change, as are the decisions and actions of development from the early studies of people and groups. families in historical time.

August 1981 JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 499 SOCIAL CHANGE AND FAMILY ADAPTATION adaptation of Italian immigrants in Buffalo that "constructed an As historical turned to the behavior by noting they inquiry interpreted their social reality in terms of past of fatmilies, it did so with remarkably little Without their from studies experience. taking perceptions guidance seemingly appropriate into account, we cannot understand in the literature, such as Thomas properly sociological them or their history." In this version of the and Znaniecki's (1974) The Polish Peasant in Thomas Theorem ("If men define situations Amierica. A of the LErope antId project early as real, they are real in their consequences."), 1900s, The Polish Peasant shed light on an families to situations in terms of historical of respond process extraordinary signifi- their meanings, and such meanings are cance for the family: the rural-to-urban beliefs and values. of Polish to urban shaped by customary migration peasants centers Hareven's stresses the in and the United States. (1981) Amoskeag study Poland, Germany, selective of old in new In this and other Thomas advanced persistence ways writings, situations. kin associations a view of the and Pre-migration dynamic family individual and values served as resources and in and commonly changing historically specific times, a assumed different forms in the mill town of that an on the broader perspective kept eye Manchester. Scott and (1975) and their concrete manifestations. Similarly, Tilly changes argue for a model of family change in which According to Thomas, a family's behavior is behavior is more a of old influenced product ways by what it brings to new situa- in new situations than of new tions, the demands and or constraints operating options beliefs per se. Despite such of the situation, and situational correspondence interpreta- with Thomas's approach, these studies make tions. no or detailed reference to his One explicit might say that Thomas followed a The same conclusion to the middle writings. applies synthetic course between William literature. Studies of the Graham Sumner's sociological family cultural determinism of in the Great and in World War II behavior and historical events in new Depression had much to from Thomas's work, situations Park, 1931) and extreme gain yet (cf/ none of the major studies followed this situational interpretations of Frederick model. Jackson Turner's "frontier thesis" on Amer- Views of Thomas as a ican In proponent of the history. Thomas's view, neither model of cultural nor the disorganization family change may legacies imperatives of new account for some of this situations are sufficient to neglect, especially explain lines of social historians who observed a more families and among adaptation among individuals. differentiated of A similar of families pattern family adaptation. response to the same Thomas and Znaniecki con- event or influence is when enter (1974:1134) unlikely they cluded from their materials that the situation with different histories. Com- "emigration of individual members abroad and mon histories and different situations family of whole families from the likewise families who tend to follow emigration country identify to the are the two main factors of familial different careers. Thomas's interaction city pers- disorganization." However, they also point pective on family and situation depicts the out that this generalization is too vague and family as both product and producer of its superficial to be anything more than a point career (in Volkart, 1951). These concepts also to the of departure for research. Indeed, social apply reciprocal process between the in Thomas's is as a social and its disorganization analysis only family group members. one of a lead to phase change process that may According Thomas, family units influence to The Polish Peasant exam- members and are reorganization. constructed and recon- ines and structed them the life family "disorganization reorganiza- by along span. Shared tion" in Poland and in the United States.7 E. definitions of the situation illustrate one Franklin Frazier's (1966) study of black Chi- outcome of this social dynamic. Some elements of this approach to the family appear in studies by social historians 7Though much analysis in the old Chicago school of utilizing research strategies ranging from the sociology seems bound by the "disorganization" theme, quantitative to the including Thomas's own work in The Polish Peasant, I case-biographical ap- believe this bias partly reflects the blinders of cross- proach (Sklar, 1979; Brumberg, 1980). sectional research designs. When applied to transitions, Yans-McLaughlin (1977:217) refers to the a cross-sectional design is likely to be especially sensitive 500 JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY August 1981 cago migrants between 1915 and 1940 docu- ness (Furby, 1978; Baum and Singer, 1980). ments both the disorganization phase in Personal and family control may be expressed Thomas's formulation and the conditions as ideologies that incorporate causal per- under which black family life on the South spectives and in definitions of the situation, Side was strengthened. behavior patterns, and explanations or The analytic task is to specify circum- accounts. On the individual level, sense of stances that increase the likelihood of certain control is consistently associated with health- outcomes from the initial stage of disorga- ful or developmental outcomes. Concerning nization or adaptation. Elizabeth Pleck future developments, Amitai Etzioni (1968: (1979) used this approach across successive 39) predicts that "the concept of control may generations in her study of black migration to well one day provide the elusive key to a Boston in the late 19th century. On the basis unified behavioral science." of three sets of comparisons (northern- and The basic human problem for W.I. southern-born blacks, blacks and Irish in Thomas is that of achieving, retaining, and Boston, and black Bostonians with blacks in restoring control over desired outcomes. One other cities), Pleck argues that contradictions such outcome in the family is cooperative or between newly acquired values and low, concerted action. From this perspective, unstable income over a long phase of city life family disorganization constitutes a process sharply increased marital separations and in which existing family rules lose at least desertions, producing greater dependence on some of their influence over the behavior of kin and friends for ways of coping with individual members. To use the Polish poverty. The full destructive impact of the peasant example, new settlers in urban city was not experienced initially, owing in centers were exposed to individualistic part to the collective "needs of the migrants, sentiments that weakened the moral force of the pattern of chain migration, and the collective interests. Changes of this sort continued hostility from outsiders" (Pleck, occurred between husband and wife and 1979:203). As racially imposed deprivations between the generations. Disorganizing in the second generation weakened married forces in family life were countered at times life and the traditional values of church and by efforts to reorganize or reconstruct. Novel community, the cultural pattern shifted schemes of control and adaptation were toward "middle-class, secular values, a devised to meet the new situation. Issues of pronounced racial pride, and a willingness to control emerged through the building up and protest against discrimination" (Pleck, 1979: the breaking down of group life among 202). In research design and findings, this families. Linkages between the family and the study and Frazier's early research show many individual are essential in any effort to specify similarities and instructive differences. the psychological effects of socioeconomic The central idea in Thomas's model of change on family members, and The Polish change is that of control over the environ- Peasant (Thomas and Znaniecki, 1974) made ment, a concept that identifies through some headway toward filling this gap. Family diverse meanings a rapidly expanding body of disorganization could lead to personal research across the social sciences and disorganization by preventing individual humanities. It would be difficult to find members from organizing their life for the another concept that has broader relevance to efficient and continuous satisfaction of the human situation or that has served as the fundamental interests. Life organization is focal point of more thinking, writing, and structured by self-other concepts, principles research. Problem foci range from the effects of action, and situational schemes that apply of ownership and possessions on family to an experienced and anticipated career. patterns (Modell, 1979) to psychological The historical actor makes his life as he representations such as feelings of personal projects it ahead of him; "he formulates control, self-efficacy, and learned helpless- principles of action and organizes his life in ways which seem likely to further his life aim" (Park, 1931:171). Thomas's concept of life to symptoms of disorganization, to the attention-getting resembles a as elements of family change. Thomas insisted on organization "project," longitudinal studies and a temporal perspective in family Robert Park (1931:171) once put it; a project and individual studies more than 50 years ago. that undergoes revision throughout life

August 1981 JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 501 whenever new experience cannot be assim- heim's (1951:248) analysis of "the malady of ilated. unlimited aspiration." During periods of Disorganization and reorganization are rapid economic growth, material aspirations only two of a number of processes or potential are likely to rise faster than real income. A factors that influence the control a family or good many Depression families experienced individual exercises over its environment. this strain after living with hardship for most Disorganized families, in the sense of weak of the 1930s. As in The Polish Peasant, the normative regulation, would be handicapped discontinuity model is best illustrated by the in any situation that requires coordinated or emigration experience in which new claims cooperative efforts. The rearing of children is (e.g., self versus family interests) are paired a case in point. However, degree of with resources that are suited to an agrarian organization may have little to do with the world. economic welfare of families, especially above Nonhistorical events can also generate a minimal level. For a broader conceptual- adaptive problems that resemble those ization of the change process, the organi- associated with economic depression, pros- zation themes of The Polish Peasant must be perity, and discontinuity. Normative events in left and an essay by Thomas that was pub- the life span, such as retirement, often bring lished in 1909 must be turned to instead. less control for the individual. The same is In this short manuscript, Thomas viewed true of idiosyncratic events, those which control of desired outcomes as a function of follow no particular timetable over the life the changing relation between claims and span. The latter is best illustrated by an resources. Control is achieved when resources automobile accident. Thomas briefly men- enable the fulfillment of claims. Goals or tions the destabilizing effect of such events, standards are specified in a situation by though historical change is the primary family claims, whether values, beliefs, impetus for family change in his account. The expectations, or attitudes. Examples include nature of this change depends on the a family's preferred standard of living or adaptational course of the family in efforts to quality of life. Another example comes from regain or restore control. Economic depri- May's (1980) analysis of divorce records vation might lead to multiple earners, the between 1890 and 1920. She concludes that pooling of resources among relatives, or the the marital claims of women in Los Angeles sharp reduction of expenditures. Each shifted from an attitude of sacrificial response and general configuration charts a investment during the late 19th century to an different path of family change and expectation of personal fulfillment. In development. Thomas's formulation, resources include all Family decisions on types of response vary potential means to the satisfaction of claims, by the type of problem or crisis and by the both psychological and socioeconomic. resources families bring to the new situation. Family organization, emotional support, and Both influences appear in a study that draws income are all resources, though perhaps for upon the conceptualizations of W.I. Thomas, different targets of control. the Oakland research on Depression families "Disturbances of habit" arise when an and their adolescent offspring (Elder, 1974). event or process widens the gap between With older children at home during the claims and resources. Three historical models 1930s, the Oakland mothers were more illustrate different forms of this gap and call available for paid employment than were for different types of adaptation'; economic younger mothers. Type of employment or job depression, prosperity, and social discon- depended on the educational level of women tinuity. In the depression model, heavy and their past work experience. Within the income loss produces a disparity between family economy, these working mothers of claims and resources. An Oakland (Cali- the 1930s could rely upon the household fornia) study of Depression families (Elder, assistance and modest earnings of their 1974) recorded two major responses to this adolescent offspring. loss of control: the generation of additional Beyond the issues raised thus far, sources of income, as through maternal Thomas's behavioral approach to family employment, and the reduction of expendi- change is limited in four general respects. tures. The prosperity model follows Durk- First, the changing balance of control over

502 JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY August 1981 desired outcomes refers to only one of the refers to them as indications of social more prominent dimensions of change ambivalence. The core type of ambivalence processes in families and the larger envi- confronts the occupant of a single status with ronment. Second, study of the adaptational contradictory demands. Other types include process of families in new situations should conflicts between roles that are linked to a be coupled with awareness of the behavioral status (such as the role conflicts experienced constraints or structured options in that by married women in the household); the situation. Available options are historically conflicting values held by a person or family; structured, a point clearly seen in The Polish the gap between cultural goals and legitimate Peasant but not adequately developed in means; and the marginal position of a person theory. Third, lines of family action or who remains committed to the life style of two adaptation in a changing situation entail cultural worlds, the case perhaps of Polish consequences, and these consequences give peasants in urban Germany. structure to the evolving life course of family Some of these types of ambivalence bear units. The fourth and last point centers on directly upon the ability of individuals and the temporal limitations of Thomas's theo- families to control their environment, though retical framework, on the deficient concept of control and ambivalence refer to largely family change across the life span and on its independent aspects of social and family use of generational analysis in the "timeless change. In Children of the Great Depression realm of the abstract." The first three points (Elder, 1974), it is pointed out that family shall be addressed by drawing upon the linkages between drastic income loss and the writings of Robert Merton. The last point lives of family members generally involved brings us to the sociology of age and the life control adaptations and social ambivalence. course. Adjustments through a changing division of In Social Structure and Social Theory, labor (such as maternal employment or house- Merton (1968) expands upon Thomas's ideas hold chores of children) and modifications of on various topics. Thus Thomas's definition family authority and affection have much to of the situation serves as a point of departure do with processes of losing, gaining, and for analyzing the social implications of restoring control over outcomes. Economic Merton's self-fulfilling prophecies: the false pressures were also expressed through social definitions which elicit behavior that even- strains, the social ambivalence of conflicting tually make the definition come true. Family expectations, status inconsistency, atid con- definitions of this sort in periods of change flicts along generational and marital lines. can be viewed as means of controlling social In the writings of Merton and Thomas, reality. More basic to our purposes is the social ambivalence and loss of control have relation between the means-end perspectives their psychological counterparts. In many of Thomas and Merton that link crises or cases, inconsistent or contradictory feelings pressures to adaptations in established and arise from situations that are structurally changing situations. Merton's (1976) concept ambivalent or contradictory in expectations. of sociological ambivalence nicely supple- The greater family influence of women in the ments Thomas's view of crises and loss of 1930s undoubtedly increased the emotional control, and his modes of adaptation ambivalence of marriage, as did the addition represent options that are not developed in of a grandmother to hardpressed households. Thomas's approach. Merton gives more The wife's mother placed men in the midst of emphasis to structured options, to the in- cross-pressures as to the behavior of son and tended and unintended consequences of ac- husband. A good many examples of social tion, and to temporal considerations (Sorokin and psychological control also come to mind. and Merton, 1937). Each of these distinctions Loss of social control through prolonged suggest points of elaboration in subsequent unemployment often meant despair and a work on processes of family change. sense of utter helplessness. Conceptual relations of this sort provide a fruitful base Social Ambivalence and Change from which to assess the interacting trajectories of family and individual. Pressures embedded in social structure appear throughout Merton's writings and he

August 1981 JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 503 Structured Options tion, the innovative response applies to a Merton's analysis shifts attention from the broad range of partial solutions to family life history influences that are so prominent hardship in the 1930s. A good many in Thomas's account of family adaptation to innovative responses entailed the use of old or the range of established or institutionalized traditional practices in modified ways-the alternatives they encounter in the new taking in of boarders and lodgers, the pooling situation. While Thomas stresses the process of kin resources, movement back to rural by which families and individuals work out areas, and subsistence farming. adaptations to the times that find meaning in Both Thomas and Merton refer to the the past and present, Merton underscores the lowering of claims or goals as an adaptation social givens that make certain lines of to structured disparities between means and adaptation and their consequences more ends. As the disparity increases, "expecting probable than others. Such givens or options less" becomes a more compelling solution to as financial credit, paid jobs for women, and the strain. In this category we find Merton's public assistance have differentiated the ritual and retreatist adaptation. The "ritu- historical times of deprived families, as well alist" lowers goals as well as perhaps the as their course of action in specific settings. investment while maintaining a commitment Alternatives of this sort are socially struc- to established means. This outlook has much tured because they entail important institu- in common with the "security-conscious" tional consequences (Stinchcombe, 1975). ethos of the 1930s. In rejecting both goals and Specific historical examples include pro- means, the "retreatist" is viewed by Merton grams for the unemployed or social security as following an uncommon solution (1968: in the 1930s, as well as the massive 207): "defeatism, quietism and resignation recruitment of women workers during World are manifested in escape mechanisms which War II (Campbell, 1979) and the institutional ultimately enable one to avoid the require- support of child-care centers. ments of society." In the 1930s, both the re- Established alternatives and their variation jection and neutralization of success goals by social location represent an important among families and their members took the theoretical supplement to Thomas's more form of heavy drinking, social withdrawal, behavioral approach. But the usefulness of and psychological immobilization. this a more perspective requires precise The Action specification of family location. Families are Consequences of Family positioned according to the social structure Family action in constructing the life and the ecology of historical time and place. course, as seen in Thomas's approach, Thus, established lines of choice on social depicts a cumulative sequence of strain, roles for married women differed sharply adaptation, and consequence. From the point between prewar and postwar America, of drastic change or crisis, initial lines of between the middle and working class, and action produce consequences that generate between large and small communities from other actions which in turn have conse- one region to another. Social change is quences for a new round of interaction prominent in Merton's account of structured between adaptation and situation. Merton's choices. distinction between manifest and latent The innovative adaptation in Merton's functions brings valuable insights to such scheme (accept goal, select other means) has interactions. Consider the persistence of special relevance for understanding family family strategy which has more to do with its careers whenever social change sharply latent consequences or benefits than with the diminishes control over outcomes. With manifest purpose of restoring family well- established or routine solutions no longer being. Women's employment in the 1930s working, the times press for new ways of was prompted in large measure by family achieving family stability or mere survival. need, and yet its other consequences provided Family innovations of the 1930s included incentives for continuing this line of activity those of sterilization and abortion efforts to regardless of family circumstances (Bennett control fertility as well as the single status and Elder, 1979). The working mother took a "masquerade" of married women who were more central role in making family decisions, seeking jobs. Without its deviant connota- acquired more independence on matters of

504 JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY August 1981 family support, and increased labor demands for individuals and groups, institutional that brought older daughters into household patterns specify "a determined frame of responsibilites. Economic pressure initiated organized activities which involves in advance family change through the medium of a general succession of influences-early maternal employment. family education, beginning of a definite Any review of Thomas's approach to family career with determined openings, marriage, change must deal with the temporal issues etc." (in Volkart, 1951:152). This observa- that make it distinctive and limited. In par- tion clearly refers to age-graded influences ticular, there are the two temporal dimen- and more generally to age differentiation in sions that are now portrayed in theory and social structure and the human biography. At research as interrelated-historical time the time, anthropological studies of age and and life or family time. Families simul- sex represented a valuable source for taneously move along the two temporal theoretical accounts of families and indi- dimensions. Change in family time is coupled viduals over the life span. However, Thomas with change in historical time. Historical left no record of such exploration or influence influences are thus present in any temporal despite mastery of the literature on primitive contrast of family structure and process. societies. Even Margaret Mead's (1928) Despite this interdependence, historical cross-cultural studies of the age-patterned life contrasts still occasionally ignore matters of course do not appear in Thomas's writings on family time, and historical pressures seldom life records. The study of social age had not appear in accounts of differences between yet become a vital part of the study of families older and younger families. Thomas tends to and individuals across the life span. err in the former direction by presenting There is much irony in this limitation since historical accounts that were poorly informed no sociologist at the time even approached by considerations of family time or lifetime. Thomas's sensitivity to matters of life-span and Thomas W. I. AGE AND development family dynamics. THOMAS, CONCEPTS, was far ahead of his in for THE LIFE COURSE time calling longitudinal samples and analyses of indi- The Polish Peasant does not portray family vidual and group development and in units and members at different stages of the proposing temporal concepts, such as life life course and their differential response to organization and lines of development. Over the experience of mass emigration from 50 years ago, Thomas (in Volkart, 1951:93) Europe and settlement in urban America. urged that priority be given to "the The study treats immigrant adaptations in longitudinal approach to life history." the new environment as a function of what Research should investigate "many types of families brought to this situation but fails to individuals with regard to their experiences develop the adaptive implications of family and various past periods of life in different position. No reference is made to the develop- situations" and follow "groups of individuals mental cycle of families, such as stages of into the future, getting a continuous record of parenthood, and their relation to economic experiences as they occur." Unfortunately, well-being and options. Instead of linking this methodological directive never led to a historical and family time in the life course, conceptual model of the stream of experience sequences of family disorganization and so recorded, whether that of families or of reorganization-of loss and then partial individuals. recovery of control-are viewed across Additional limitations from Thomas's historical transitions and situations. Thom- neglect of age involve the concept of historical as's thinking on family history and lives had age, as generally indexed by birth year. some distance to go in order to establish People are located in the historical process explicit connections with the historical according to birth year; with age mates, they record. are exposed to a particular range of historical An explicit theory of how family or experience along trajectories from birth to individual careers are structured cannot be death. Events, circumstances, and trends found in Thomas's writings, apart from brief shape this experience, along with the size and general statements regarding the imprint of social composition of the cohort. This mean- institutional arrangements. He wrote that, ing of age can be traced to European social

August 1981 JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 505 thought of the 19th century, though its most same historical event or change, leaving what systematic formulation is found in Karl Modell (1975) has called a "multi-layered" Mannheim's classic essay on "The Problem imprint. of the Generations" (1952), an essay com- the 1920s. Families and Children in the pleted during Great Mannheim emphasized the process by Depression which historical forces give rise to distinctive In Children of the Great Depression, the mentalities in birth cohorts and their timing of family and individual careers subgroups. Each cohort in succession makes proved crucial to understanding hard times "fresh contact" with the historical world and and its lasting effects. The central figures works it up in ways that stratify collective were born in 1920-1921 and thus encountered experience and outlook. A cohort perspective family deprivations during the transition of this type offers a degree of precision in from childhood to adolescence. They were locating people in historical time that cannot beyond the critical early years of development be matched by a generational approach, as in and largely escaped the painful experience of The Polish Peasant. With an age spread of at job seeking when jobs were not available. least 30 years, members of a generation are However, the parents were more directly not placed in history so that particular events involved in hard times and became the can be traced to specific families, people, and primary link between economic loss and the actions. Historical variation within a genera- lives of their offspring. The Depression tion may exceed the largest intergenerational experience of the young depended on whether difference. The limitations of generational their families lost income, the degree of loss, and lifetime analysis may not have troubled and the nature of their response. Thomas's study of mass migration and family Thomas's adaptational model offered some change, but they could not be ignored when guidance in conceptualizing modes of family studying the Great Depression in family and adaptation such as the simultaneous and life experience (Elder, 1974). The multiple successive family responses to problems of distinctions of age provided a way to think economic hardship and recovery. One line of about changes in the family during the De- adaptation involved change in the division of pression. labor, such as the employment of women and Age differentiation is expressed in his- children; another took the form of change in torical placement through birth year and family influence and decision making; and a cohort membership and in age expectations, third dealt with social and psychological options, and turning points. Both forms of strains of one sort or another. The age differentiation, historical and socio- consequences of such responses for families cultural, depict connections between age and and individuals over time led to questions time which are crucial to any study of about the structure of careers and lives. historical change and the family. Age By what process might early life changes information enables the analyst to specify during the 1930s influence developmental where families are positioned in relation to paths in adulthood? Are security priorities in particular historical times and transforma- childhood likely to persist in the lives of tions, such as economic declines, mass adults regardless of their career experiences? migration, and institutional reform or Any effort to link the Depression experience expansion. From this vantage point, family to the middle years of postwar Americans change is seen as an outcome of the relation called for knowledge of the sequence of between concrete forms of general change events, activities, and contexts that defined processes (economic, demographic, and their intervening careers. institutional) and families in different career Some assistance along this line came from stages. The precise meaning and consequence the literature on age grading-on the of such change depends on one's social hierarchy of age divisions and transitions, age position or career stage at the time. Families beliefs and norms-but this cultural pers- at each stage or stratum bring different pective slighted the problematic relation resources and options to the same situation. between age-graded careers and the actual As such, variations in family location behavioral careers of individuals. Some differentiate the meanings and effects of the people and families follow the normative

506 JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY August 1981 script, while others do not. Over a decade the offspring from more affluent homes. Their ago, Bernice Neugarten introduced the useful schedule differed from the normative time- distinction between on-time and off-time table. events. With Moore and Lowe (1968:23-24), A complete analysis of the Depression's she wrote that effect on tasks in the life span would identify two analytical models and their hypothetical there exists what might be called a prescriptive interaction: time-table for the ordering of major life events: a time in the life when men and women are ex- span 1. An historical model which estimates to a time to raise children, a time to simply the pected marry, effect of on task distribu- retire. . . . Men and women are aware not only of Depression hardship the social clocks that in various areas of tions across the 1930s, such as the yearly per- operated of females. their lives, but they are aware also of their own centage gainfully employed 2. A cultural model which the established timing and readily describe themselves as depicts 'early,' of tasks across the life course. 'late,' or 'on time' with regard to family and occu- arrangement 3. Interaction effects, the interac- pational events. hypothetical tions of the historical and cultural models, as This and social expressed in behavioral trajectories or life pat- perspective plus demographic terns. research on age variations offered insights on differentiation and the life age course that The historical model between cultural and simplifies reality by distinguished behav- life-course variations before the ioral versions of life course. ignoring while the cultural The of Depression decade, model drastic change the Depression era the of historical to mind the for ignores complications change brought potential restruc- the decade.8 A the usual throughout conceptualization turing course of regimes by which of their interaction much the are brings needed young socialized-the established to the outcomes that cultural model-an analytical sensitivity are impact which seemed from the most possible interplay of social change plausibly expressed through the eco- and life In the Great and stages. Depression, nomic, role, emotional alterations of income loss units. models heavy prolonged the economic family Anthropological of on their of of dependency young couples (Goldfrank, 1945) sequences childhood accelerated the economic from to weak parents, depen- socialization, strong discipline of families on the of or the had to about dency margin survival, opposite, nothing say the and reversed the usual life course for older of economic adaptational requirements sur- men who were forced to return to a state of vival. In Children the Great of Depression, after of both cultural and behavioral distinctions dependency many years self-support. These trajectories are coupled with different were applied to an of the investigation histories, options, and consequences relative hypothesis that Depression hard times led to to the downward extension of adult-like tasks family change. and experiences. According to this theory, hardship in the 8Explicit connections between history and the life enhanced for the course represent a small but noteworthy advance beyond family economy pressures research that once centered on a to earn while labor-intensive single domain. For young money example, Wight Bakke's (1940) 5-stage model of family operations increased the household demand adaptation in the working class of the 1930s completely for children's labor. These historical effects ignores the adaptive implications of career stage before a cultural model of the Depression. Well-established and young families challenged age-graded seem tasks, the notion that children to follow the same pathway. The family career specifically begins with "momentum stability" in which savings, and younger adolescents are not expected to credit, and income are sufficient to maintain family stan- carry major household or economic responsi- dards and then shifts to an unstable state followed by bilities. The study found that economic loss disorganization, experimental reorganizaton, and markedly increased the of permanent readjustment. Bakke's neglect of life-stage prospects gainful considerations is matched by Ruth Benedict's (1938) employment among boys and girls, as well as neglect of history in her classic account of the cultural the involvement of girls in household life course. Reflecting an emphasis on primitive cultures, operations. These changes accelerated social- Benedict's essay conveys a sense of permanence and ization and attachments to the adult world. invariance in life structure. Ironically, Benedict stressed In word and children from the irresponsibility of youth at a time that placed heavy deed, hardpressed demands on young people in the household and com- families tended to grow up more rapidly than munity.

August 1981 JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 507 Leslie Tentler's (1979) account of working- disorder to this residential concept of the life class women between 1900 and the Great course. Judging from scattered evidence, a Depression provides a normative backdrop good many families ended up off-time and for some historical effects of the subsequent out-of-order on matters of residence. Severe decades on women's work. She writes that income losses meant that some couples had "women moved from school through employ- little choice but to continue to share the ment and into marriage, much as their crowded home of parents, while other families mothers and grandmothers had passed were pressed to give up their own home for a through a domestic apprenticeship on their rented flat or apartment. The meaning of way to husbands and child-bearing" (Tentler, such losses depended on the family's career 1979:8). From all we know about the stage, but all instances of residential altera- Depression and World War II on the tions from the normative pattern had conse- homefront, this "bust and boom" shattered quences for decisions and options. the predominance of such life paths. The proposed strategy in linking history Wartime pressures lured some women into and the family necessarily works from causes marriage at an early age, followed by home to outcomes, thus centering attention on the leaving and full-time employment (Campbell, explication of change. Elsewhere I have 1979). Others entered the labor force while referredto this design as an "invertedtunnel," living at home and married after setting up narrow at the outset and broad at the end an independent household. Dependence from (Elder, 1974). What is the process by which home may have led to full-time work or to historical trends and forces are expressed in marriage. In these and other ways, drastic family organization and functioning? To change ruptured the correspondence between identify and understand potential outcomes, norms and behavior. one must specify the proximal and more A vivid example of the complexities that distal implications of historical change. arise from interaction between cultural Within a broad temporal design, initial scripts and historical realities comes from the outcomes become antecedents in the next idea of a preferred residential ladder of life phase. The focus on causal factors generates and Depression pressures. Residential his- knowledge of the change process that extends tories and evaluations about people who rent well beyond the insights one might gain from and own suggest a cultural model of the life an investigation of the determinants of a course that specifies how families should single outcome. order their career on of residence: from place The renting an apartment and possible moves to Life-Course Perspective better quality rentals during the early years of Studies of age and the life course have singlehood and childless marriage to home- brought greater attention to temporal ownership before or during the childbearing connections between history and family and and rearing stage (Perin, 1977; Dillman to a research emphasis long favored in Robert et al., 1979). The script reflects the usual Merton's middle-range theory. The objective schedule of family events with an appropriate is to study expressions of the general course of time for renting and for owning. From change in particular settings; to represent the interviews with housing specialists, Perin process of how and under what conditions (1977:34-35) obtained a colorful age-graded families have changed over the life course and portrait of the residential ladder. The renter in historical time. The historical and social is "young," "just keeping afloat," "could be facts of age place families and households in gone tomorrow," and "not saving"; while the precise contexts defined by historical time owner is characterized as "independent," and cohort, ecology, and the life course.9 The "nontransient," "proud of residence," and to take "better care of likely property." 9Three concepts have been used to refer to a temporal Perin refers to homeownership as a perspective on the individual and family: life span, life transition to full personhood or citizenship. cycle, and life course. I have discussed the relation be- Ownership subjects the family to greater tween a life-course and family-cycle perspective in social control "Family History and the Life Course" (1978a). Other through mortgage debt, while discussions be found in Vinovskis its control over may (1977) and Hare- enhancing living conditions. ven (1978a). As a concept, life span merely establishes The Depression brought disruption and the temporal scope of interest or study. This scope may

508 JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY August 1981 explanatory requirements of linking histo- How are family agreements made and rical and family change call for an approach changed? How are relationships formed and that shifts research from the aggregate level dissolved? of whole cohorts and large-scale institutions Throughout the lifespan, family units are to variation within successive cohorts. In this socially constructed and reconstructed, often framework, the effects of historical events in response to the addition or departure of a and processes are traced over time through member or to external social change. evolving family structures and generational Emergent patterns of family interaction are relations within successive cohorts. The foci of analysis. Much like an interactionist, comparison of whole cohorts restricts what we the life-course analyst moves back and forth can learn about social change in families and between the individual and group level. The lives by obscuring historical variations within resulting portrait depicts "family in people cohorts. and people in family." Life-course analysis A life-course approach to the family views keeps in view the collective aspects of family the individual as the elementary unit, thus and household, the actions and lives of reflecting some defining facts and meanings members, and their interplay, placing all of of age. The developmental meaning of age this in relation to macro trends and their local refers to the position of individuals in the expressions. To paraphrase Georg Simmel, aging process, social age concerns the social the researcher is led to ask how families, timing and structure of lives, and historical households, and kindred are possible as age places people in historical context groups, networks, and cultures. The family through membership in specific birth cohorts as a social unit becomes an achievement, not (Elder, 1975). All three dimensions locate a given. Age and the individual unit in people and through them their families, e.g., life-course research bring a dynamic or a family is placed historically in terms of the process perspective to the study of families. head's birth year. The individual as focal The formation of a marital relationship point does not steer analysis away from the entails the development of shared rules, collective nature of family and kinship, understandings, and modes of discourse. In though it does make this nature problematic. Berger and Kellner's (1970) analysis, a Emphasis centers on the formation, mainte- shared world or reality evolves through nance, and breakdown of domestic units.10 conversation and is sustained thereby. The same sharing that occurs in the day-to-day world also extends into the "The two indeed lead to a body of research knowledge, concepts, past. and principles that differs sharply from age-specific distinct biographies, as subjectively appre- fields of inquiry, as seen in the rapidly expanding hended by the two individuals who have lived domain of life-span developmental psychology (Baltes et through them, are overruled and reinter- al., 1980). Though life cycle is commonly used to refer to in the course of their conversation. the life span of an individual or family unit, it refers to preted processes that occur in populations: to sexual reproduc- . . .The couple thus constructs not only tion and mortality, to social reproduction or socializa- present reality but reconstructs past reality as tion, and to material transfers. Life-cycle processes are well, fabricating a common memory that intergenerational. In my usage, the concept of life course the recollections of the two refers to age-structured pathways across settings from integrates birth to death. The life-course perspective is rooted in the individuals' pasts" (Berger and Kellner, sociology and anthropology of age. 1970:62). Shared definitions and meanings form the basis of the '?Choice of the individual as unit of analysis is fre- coordinating multiple quently interpreted as ruling out analysis of group- careers of husband and wife, and for working level phenomena (Watkins, 1980), but this assumption out the problems of interdependent careers in ignores emergent processes and social forms. In family strategy and planning, timing and synchroni- studies as in the study of small groups generally, research zation. The task of a first must come to grips with emergent forms, i.e., with the establishing construction (a marital bond, etc.), alteration, and destruction (divorce, etc.) of social forms. Emergent Consistent with the discussion of Thomas's adaptations forms link the individual and group levels of analysis. and Merton's structural options, the life course is struc- Unlike structural approaches to the family, the life- tured by institutional arrangements and by the actions of course perspective represents a behavioral approach to individuals and family units. Particular attention is given emergent forms and social disintegration. There is much to the interaction of family or individual action with in common here with the old Chicago school sequence of structured pathways that offer particular options and organization - disorganization -t reorganization. constraints.

August 1981 JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 509 marriage is multiplied by an unknown factor Cohort studies of the life course show pro- in the case of remarriage. As Furstenberg jected trends to 1990 in the United States (1981) notes, entry into a second marriage that give even more incentive to the life- joins two processes of life-course formation: course study of individuals and their coresi- the construction of a new marital reality and dential situations. The evidence assembled a reworking of the worlds on which the past by Cherlin (1981) and Masnick and Bane marriages were based. Interactions among (1980) forecasts an increasingly more di- these operations may alter self, others, and verse residential world among Americans of immediate family relations. The restruc- the same age and across the life span. turing of conjugal relations in the second Projections describe cohabitation as a more marriage may bring discontinuities as well as common initial stage of conjugal relations in greater kinship complexity. the future and document a continuing decline When followed over time, households in the survival prospect of first marriages. present analytical problems that have much Households of the future will include fewer in common with these features of the people and more workers on the average. By life-course perspective (Vinovskis, 1977). the time American youth reach the 1990s, Consider, for example, the Panel Study of estimates suggest that a majority will have Income Dynamics at the University of experienced either marital disruption in the Michigan. Over the past 12 years, a team of parental family or divorce in their own social scientists headed by James Morgan marriage. Cherlin (1981:28) argues that "one (Duncan and Morgan, 1980) has been can no longer define 'the family' or 'the following a large, nationwide sample of Amer- immediate family' except in relation to a ican families. From the earliest phase of this particular person." study, the problem of tracking ever-changing The processual thrust of life-course domestic units made the individual the most analysis has strengthened the trend toward feasible unit of study and data collection. panel or longitudinal studies, with their Some original households spawned new units, challenging requirements for data collection, others subdivided, and still others moved management, and analysis (Masnick, 1980). back and forth between different social Problems of assessing change-personal, structures, but none of these complexities social, or family-represent one part of the handicapped the longitudinal study of in- cutting edge of life-course research. New dividuals, their life course across diverse fam- developments along this line include ad- ilies, households, and settings. To study vances in causal modeling (Rogosa, 1980), household change in the panel design, one the dynamic analysis of event histories (Tuma could not rely upon households as the unit of and Hannan, 1979), and microsimulation. analysis. On the conceptual front, life-course research A similar conclusion comes from an has called for a shift from static to more historical study of households in Northern temporal concepts that represent family and Italy. Kertzer and Schiaffino (1979; also individual change. With few exceptions, Kertzer, in press) argue that "the focus on sociological concepts depict states rather than the household over time utilizes a unit of process, and in some cases a measure of a study which is ill-suited for diachronic state, such as socioeconomic status (Dun- analysis; only in abstract, reified terms can can's SEI), is used to index a temporal the household be seen processually." Their concept, e.g., a person's career stage. The preferred alternative is one that centers on professional classification of a couple, based the life course of actors, their choices and on occupation of husband and wife, does not lines of actions that structure the form and indicate where that couple is in terms of course of marital, family, and household career stage and advancement. units. Estimates of the prevalence of specific Beyond the global concept of career, how family forms are most useful when calculated can activities and relationships be repre- in terms of probabilities for the individual life sented in process terms? Harold Wilensky course. Instead of cross-section or point (1960) was one of the first sociologists to estimates, what is needed are estimates of broaden and differentiate conceptual think- exposure across the life span, e.g., the ing about careers-family, work, and leisure, probability of residence in a stem family. and their interlocking temporal pattern.

510 JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY August 1981 More recently, Robert Kahn (1979) has ation of complex societies, e.g., the multiple provided an example of the direction such careers of individuals and their various work might follow in his concept of the timetables. The full significance of single "convoy of social support": a person's events involves their relation to other events network of significant others through life who and career lines. From the work of Dennis give and receive social support. Network Hogan (1981) and others (Modell et al., properties also apply to the convoys of 1976; Winsborough, 1979), more has been individuals and families, i.e., their size, learned about the transition to adulthood homogeneity, stability, and internal and than about any other transition across the external connectedness. Explicit linkages male life course. Compared to cohorts in the between individual aging and social relations late 19th century, males now encounter a would seem to distinguish the convoy idea more compressed set of familial and from the static concept of network or role set. nonfamilial events enroute to full adult Family and kin relationships are continually status. Military service in World War II and subject to modification as people advance in in the Korean War introduced a measure of years and in the course of aging. Kahn has disorder to the transition. Veterans were not as yet elaborated this feature of the con- most likely to marry before the completion of voy perspective. schooling and labor-force entry, a nonnor- Attention to social process and timing in mative sequence that has consequences for families and lives adds up to a revealing way career mobility. of thinking about their social position and Increased understanding of the cognitive welfare. From a temporal perspective, the and normative character of the life course class or socioeconomic history of a family has suggests that transitions, and their ante- particular relevance to the meaning of its cedents, circumstances, and consequences, current status, as does the time or date of this vary according to when they occur. Some life attainment. An early advance is not events are age-graded in the sense that they comparable to a later advance for the usually follow an established or normative well-being of a family. Related to this timetable (grade school, exit, marriage, observation is some new work on the family departure of children), while others are more economy which investigates the changing erratic or unpredictable, e.g., an automobile relation between income and household accident, death of a child, or acute illness. composition (Katz et a., 1981). As a rule, the Age-graded events enhance the moderating peak economic needs of a household, usually influence of anticipatory conditioning and during the early years of childbearing and social support, processes that are less likely child rearing, do not correspond with the when an age-graded event occurs off-time or highest years of earning for the head out of sequence (e.g., early death of (Oppenheimer, 1974). The poor match is husband). The unpredictable or nonnor- directly affected by the timetable of mative event tends to be most stressful (Brim childbearing and the number of dependents; and Ryff, 1980) or disruptive to families and for example, the younger the start of lives. childbearing, the stronger were the economic Whether life events vary by age or not, they pressure and privation among working-class are likely to be age-graded as to antecedents, families during the late 19th century. Strate- effects, and overall meaning. All too gies of production, reproduction, and con- frequently, especially in the recent past, sumption are played out in the timing and analysts have proceeded to study the effects of allocation decisions of individuals and fam- life change and status inconsistency (Elder ilies. and Rockwell, 1979) with no apparent Some of these strategies, with their inter- recognition that they vary by life phase or that dependent decisions and plans, are expressed the life course is socially structured. in the patterning of life transitions, in the Widowhood, for example, is more traumatic scheduling and arrangement of events. Tran- for the young women than for the older sition refers to both the single event, to cir- woman. Likewise the meaning of status cumstances before, during, and after, and incongruence (e.g., education above occu- to concurrent or multiple events and career pation), depends on where people are located changes. Life-course models stress the latter in the life course. A job that is not equal in

August 1981 JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 511 prestige to educational level is common individual life course. The aim is to arrive at during the early phase of professional career generalizations from an understanding of the development. Such placement at midlife is empirical facts of family change and stability. more likely to signify personal failure or The developmental invariance theme is discriminatory barriers. consistent in some respects with the Life transitions are commonly perceived as family-cycle concept of parenthood stages isolated events. The passage of young people (Elder, 1978a). The temporal structure of to adulthood is somehow unrelated to the childbearing and the inevitable march of entry of parents into middle age; schedules of aging establish a predictable developmental starting out in life have no bearing upon the sequence. timetable of later life. Life-course studies Twenty years ago C. Wright Mills (1959) have begun to challenge this view through proposed an orienting concept of social attention to timing and adaptational consid- science that centered on the life course of erations. Off-time events during the early individuals and families, a concept well- years of adulthood (e.g., from job entry and suited to the "sociological imagination" school leaving to family events) frequently through its representation of the interplay of mean a continuation of this pattern during history and social structure in human the middle years. A late start in family trajectories. Today the social sciences seem building may require some delay on decisions more fragmented than ever, though integra- to retire. Within the family environment, tive forces are at work across certain prob- such interdependence is played out in lem areas, such as the life course. This multi- complex ways across the generations (see disciplinary field is distinguished by the Rossi, 1980). Connections of this sort bring models and designs of various disciplines. 1 up the task of specifying how effects are In some cases, the same problem is analyzed channeled and expressed across time. What in terms of contrasting disciplinary models or are the causal linkages and chains? With the the territory is divided according to special- outpouring of research on life events showing ties and expertise. An analytical framework no end, a point has been reached that calls for the study of age owes much to the for more general approaches to life-course pioneering sociological work of Matilda Riley transitions (see Clausen, 1972), their ante- (see Age and Society, 1972); the social cedents, character, and consequences. psychology of age and adult development, to The life course as a theoretical orientation the influential essays of psychologist Bernice has much in common with family- Neugarten (with Hagestad, 1976); and the development theory, as Hill and Mattessich evolution of life-span developmental psychol- (1979) point out in a lengthy essay. Future ogy, to Paul Baltes (with Reese and Lipsitt, theoretical developments may well eliminate 1980), a developmental psychologist.12 a good many of the basic points of These strands have converged to some differentiation, though one fundamental extent in applications and in theoretical difference seems likely to remain. Hill and work. The need for such convergence in my Mattessich (1979:190) argue that study of Depression families stemmed from the requirements of viewing families in if the developmental perspective is to have utility, then whatever intervenes between these two time and end of the "Theodore Hershberg's (1981) thoughtful account of points (the beginning develop- Social "an mental should in some be similar for the Philadelphia History Project, experiment course) way and all added). ... Do in collaborative, multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary families (italics life-cycle regu- and discussed all scholars larities exist of historical context? The research," should be read by regardless in studies who value work. central challenge is to sift invariances on the family cross-disciplinary individual and levels from family developmental '2Erik Erikson is identified as a main in- the and of cohorts on the occasionally peculiarities uniqueness tellectual one scholar concludes that the historical level. source; indeed, life-course concept is "clearly derived from Erik Erik- son's idea on life stages and identity-forming crises" Such cohort variation represents a primary (Rebel, 1978:26). Erikson's ideas concern psychosocial of for life-course development, not the social course of families and lives. target investigation analysts Erikson offers no theory as to how the life course of who focus on the description and explanation families and individuals is structured, a problem that is of historical variations in the family and fundamental to the domain of life-course research.

512 JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY August 1981 historical context, of relating historical Within this school of sociological analysis, change to family patterns and lives, and of family studies gained new discipline from linking family and individual development. more precise question formulation, sounder As expressed in Children of the Great research design, and empirical observations. Depression, the life-course perspective rep- Much less an end in itself, social theory on resented an effort to deal with these problem the family became a modest aid for foci. A subsequent essay, entitled "Age systematic inquiry and explanation. Research Differentiation and the Life Course" (Elder, problems were identified and specified from 1975), attempted to clarify the theoretical observations and theoretical premises so as to strands and convergences in these perspective permit measurement and empirical tests. and to establish a point of departure for new This creative interplay of theory and research research. Increased exchange with social in family studies during the Chicago era historians at this stage soon led to essays on largely disappeared in postwar America as the life course and family cycle (1978a) and Parsonian theory and quantitative surveys on the life course as an approach to social and went their separate ways. Efforts to put an family change (1978b). A central theme end to this strange divorce, between theory across this work is the interaction of family and research, were expressed in a good many and individual development and its relation essays of the 1950s, from C.W. Mills' The to historical change and specific contexts. Sociological Imagination to Robert Merton's This emphasis has been extended in more eloquent call for "middle-level theory." creative ways be a number of social historians The broad terrain of family studies since (Hareven, 1978; Modell, 1979), demo- 1960 displays the accentuated features of two graphers (Sweet, 1977), and anthropologists contrasting and equally basic activities. One (Kertzer, in press). Linking history and the field has a convergent emphasis through new family requires a synthetic approach that perspectives and questions and the codifi- crosses disciplinary boundaries. cation and consolidation of knowledge, the other a more orientation OVERVIEW divergent through the of new and The critical thrust of the new and emergence perspectives history the reformulation of conventional the has much in common with an questions, family issues, and of earlier time of the 20th empirical critiques accepted appraisal, early The of in that the knowledge. discovery complexity century. During period, noted historical research will Franz was hard at work eventually play a anthropologist, Boas, substantial role in Historical in a critical assessment of evolutionist recasting theory. studies have borrowed from the theories of to extensively family development. Referring models of social science the base of information on the conceptual and, in sketchy family turn, theoretical in past time, Boas (1948) laid bare the challenge understandings tortured undocumented and through new and unanticipated findings. As logic, assertions, common of links that models of products the past decade, both missing typified grand and societal and family evolution at the time. family history systematic theory building should profit from more effective cross- Consistent with the discovery of complexity in the new Boas stressed the fertilization. family history, theories of the of Single have not proven adequate to variety history, multiplicity the task of outcomes from a event or and historical research. Whether single change, structural or interactional, or greater attention to the causal process or developmental field studies. The exchange, a given theory generally covers only sequence through pursuit a small of he should be part of the research territory. Thus general laws, claimed, the in facts and the research County Clare study of the Irish farm grounded empirical offers a view of structured process. A similar break from the wide family penetrating but not of social and expanse of time to the concrete relationships process setting behavioral variation. Likewise, Smelser's appears in the problem foci and research style of the early Chicago school of sociology and its behavioral approach to the family.13 1960s-1970s on critical shifts in analytic perspectives. A good beginning is provided by Edward Kain's (1979) 13What is needed is a thorough examination of the essay on the early evolutionary perspectives and their intellectual parallels between the 1920s-1930s and the broader implications. August 1981 JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 513 structural assessment of industrial change sity has produced new unknowns as well as and family patterns is unable to trace the greater insight concerning the actual process effect of change to behavior. By comparison, of social change. theoretical concerns cut across historical time The remarkable growth of historical work and levels of analysis in The Polish Peasant. on the family has brought matters of social The study defies satisfactory classification by change to the forefront of social science. conventional frameworks. At various points These include greater awareness of the bond and in different combinations, the project between age and time in the life course which draws upon the principles of normative the- sensitizes analysis to connections between age ory, interactionism, structure-function anal- differentiation in historical and social time, ysis, developmental perspectives, and phe- the conceptual task of thinking about the nomenology. By returning to this classic work family in a temporal framework, and the as an exemplar of historical research on the methodological challenge of studying change family, this present paper has stressed what processes. I believe that historians will one might be gained from applications of day view such trends and activities as Thomas's adaptational approach and its symptomatic of a time when social scientists extension with ideas from Merton's structural began to confront both the problems and theory and the literature on age, time, and promise of studying change in society, family, the life course. and lives. The starting point in family history should be the originating question and problem statement, not theory, method, or the data archive. Matters of theory, research design, and analysis are specified in terms of the problem at hand. Historians of the family in REFERENCES the quantitative school tend to follow this at least when to script, compared sociologists Anderson, M. who use historical facts to test a theory. 1971 Family Structure in Nineteenth Century Lan- History in family studies has focused overdue cashire. 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CORRECTION

Due to a printing error, part of a sentence was omitted from the article, "The Structure of Families' Ties to their Kin: The Shaping Role of Social Constructions," by Mary Ellen Oliveri and David Reiss (JMF 43, 2, May 1981, pp. 391-407). On page 398, top of the right-hand column, third line down, the sentence beginning "Of the three. . . " should read "Of the three, coordination comes closest to tapping a global property; closure is comprised of a mixture of analytical and global mea- sures; the measures of configuration are the most exclusively analytical, but their ability to tap more global family properties has been supported in previous studies by showing associations with other theoretically pertinent variables measured in more truly global ways (Costell et al, in press; Reiss et al., 1980; Reiss et a/., in press)."

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