Full download test bank at ebook ebookmass.

com

Canadian Families Today Fourth

Edition Patrizia Albanese

CLICK LINK TO DOWLOAD

https://ebookmass.com/product/canadian-
families-today-fourth-edition-patrizia-
albanese/

ebookmass.com
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

Corrections Today 4th Edition, (Ebook PDF)

https://ebookmass.com/product/corrections-today-4th-edition-
ebook-pdf/

(eBook PDF) Canadian Criminology 4th Fourth Edition

https://ebookmass.com/product/ebook-pdf-canadian-criminology-4th-
fourth-edition/

(eBook PDF) Canadian Politics Today Democracy,

Diversity, and Good Government

https://ebookmass.com/product/ebook-pdf-canadian-politics-today-
democracy-diversity-and-good-government/

Psychology Around Us, 4th Canadian Edition Nancy Ogden

https://ebookmass.com/product/psychology-around-us-4th-canadian-
edition-nancy-ogden/
(eBook PDF) Looking Out, Looking In 4th Canadian
Edition

https://ebookmass.com/product/ebook-pdf-looking-out-looking-
in-4th-canadian-edition/

(eTextbook PDF) for MKTG 4th Canadian Edition by

Charles W. Lamb

https://ebookmass.com/product/etextbook-pdf-for-mktg-4th-
canadian-edition-by-charles-w-lamb/

Canadian Business & Society: Ethics, Responsibilities

and Sustainability 4th Edition Robert Sexty

https://ebookmass.com/product/canadian-business-society-ethics-
responsibilities-and-sustainability-4th-edition-robert-sexty/

Biology: Exploring the Diversity of Life 4th Canadian

Edition Edition Peter Russell

https://ebookmass.com/product/biology-exploring-the-diversity-of-
life-4th-canadian-edition-edition-peter-russell/

Lilleys Pharmacology for Canadian Health Care Practice

4e 4th Edition Kara Sealock

https://ebookmass.com/product/lilleys-pharmacology-for-canadian-
health-care-practice-4e-4th-edition-kara-sealock/
OXFORD Fourth Edition

Cana©feo Famofes wdlif

New Perspectives
,——

Edited by
Patrizia Albanese
 Fourth Edition

Canadian Families Today

New Perspectives

Edited by
Patrizia Albanese

OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
 OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford

It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of
Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries.

Published in Canada by
Oxford University Press
8 Sampson Mews. Suite 204,
Don Mills. Ontario M3C 0II5 Canada
vvxvxv.oupcanada.com

Copyright © Oxford University Press Canada 2018

Ihe moral rights of the author have been asserted

Database right Oxford University Press (maker'

First Edition published in 2007

Second edition published in 2010
Third edition published in 2014

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
by law, by licence, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics
rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the
above should be sent to the Permissions Department at the address above
or through the following url: vvxvxv.oupcanada.com/pcrmission/pcrmission_rcquest php
Every effort has been made to determine and contact copyright holders
In the case of any omissions, the publisher w ill be pleased to make
suitable acknowledgement in future editions.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Canadian families today : new perspectives / edited by Patrizia Albanese
—Fourth edition.

Third edition edited by David Cheal and Patnzia Albanese

Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-19-902576-3 (softcover)

1. Families—Canada—Textbooks. 2. Family policy—Canada—Textbooks.

3. Families—Economic aspects—Canada—lextbooks. 4. Textbooks. 1. Albanese,
Patrizia, editor

HQ560.C3586 2018 306.850971 C2017-905536-4

Oxford University Press is committed to our environment.

This book is printed on Forest Stewardship Council8 certified paper
and comes from responsible sources.

Cover images: Circles vector: ©creativika/!23RF. Photos (clockwise from top left). © warrcngoldswain/
123RF. ©Jan Mikat/l23RF, © sjennerl3/!23RF. ©Cathy Yeulel/l23RF, © Scott Griesscl/l23RF,
©raywoo/l23RF, ©Cathy Yeulet/l23RF,© Ramzi Hachicho/123RF, © Maria Sbytova/123RF.
Cover dcsign:Sherill Chapman
Interior design: Sherill Chapman

Printed and bound in Canada

7 89 - 23 22 21

MIX
Paper from
raepeneMe aouraee
FSC
F8C“ C103667
Contents
Contributors V
Preface ix

I © Conceptualizing Families, Past and Present 1

1 introduction to Diversity in Canada's Families: Variation in Forms, Definitions,
and Theories 2
Patrizia Albanese
2 Canada's Families: Historical and Contemporary Variations 25
Cynthia Comacchio

3 Same-sex Marriage in Canada 51

Doreen M. Fumia

ll • The Life Course 71

4 intimacy, Commitment, and Family Formation 73
Melanie Heath
5 Parenting Young Children: Decisions and Realities 95
Amber Gazso

6 Separation and Divorce: Fragmentation and Renewal of Families 115

Craig McKie
7 Families in Middle and Later Life: Patterns and Dynamics of Living Longer,
Aging Together 139
Karen M. Kobayashi and Anne Martin-Matthews

III o Family Issues 161

8 Marriage and Death Rituals 163
Deborah K. van den Hoonaard
9 Paid and unpaid Work: Connecting Households, Workplaces, State Polices,
and Communities 183
Andrea Doucet
10 Family Poverty in Canada: Correlates, coping Strategies, and
Consequences 201
Don Kerr and Joseph H. Michalski

11 The Settlement of Refugee Families in Canada: Pre-migration and

Post-migration Trajectories and Location in Canadian Society 225
Amal Madibbo and James S. Frideres
Iv Contents

12 indigenous Families 245

Vanessa Watts

13 Lack of Support: Canadian Families and Disability 267

Michelle Owen

IV • Problems, Policies, and Predictions 291

14 violence in Families 293
Catherine Holtmann

15 investing in Families and Children: Family Policies in Canada 313

Catherine Krull and Mushira Mohsin Khan

16 The Past of the Future and the Future of the Family 341
Margrit Eichler

References 363
index 411
Contributors
Patrizia Albanese is Professor of Sociology, Chair of the Ryerson University Research
Ethics Board, Chair of the Local Organizing Committee for the 2018 International
Sociological Association World Congress of Sociology in Toronto, and a past president
o( the Canadian Sociological Association. She is a book series co-editor with Lome
Tepperman (Oxford University Press); co-editor of Sociology: A Canadian Perspective
(Oxford, 2016); and co-author of Making Sense: A Student's Guide to Research and
Writing—Social Sciences (Oxford, 2017), Growing Up in Armyville (with D. Harrison;
Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2016), and Caring for Children: Social Movements and
Public Policy in Canada (with R. Langford and S. Prentice, UBC Press, 2017). She is the
author of Child Poverty in Canada (Oxford. 2010), Children in Canada Today (Oxford,
2016), and Mothers of the Nation (UoFf Press, 2006). She has been working on a number
of research projects that share a focus on understanding family policies in Canada.

Cynthia Coinacchio, Professor, Department of History, Wilfrid Laurier University,

has a PhD in Canadian history from the University of Guelph. Her research focuses
on Canadian social and cultural history, especially the history of childhood, youth, and
family. She has published three books on those subjects, most recently The Dominion
of Youth: Adolescence and the Making of Modern Canada. 1920—1950 (Wilfrid Laurier
University Press, 2006), which received the Canadian History of Education Association’s
Founders Award for best English-language monograph. She is currently collaborating
with Neil Sutherland on Ring Around the Maple: A Sociocultural History of Children and
Childhood in Canada, 19th and 20th Centuries, for WLU Press.

Andrea Doucet is the Canada Research Chair in Gender, Work, and Care and
Professor of Sociology and Women’s 8c Gender Studies at Brock University. She has
published widely on themes of gender and care work, fatherhood, masculinities, parental
leave policies, embodiment, reflexivity, and feminist approaches to methodologies and
epistemologies. Her book Do Men Mother? (UofT Press, 2006) was awarded the John
Porter Tradition of Excellence Book Award from the Canadian Sociology Association.
She is also co-author of Gender Relations: Intersectionality and Beyond (with J. Siltanen,
Oxford, 2008). She is currently completing two long-standing book projects—one
on breadwinning mothers and caregiving fathers and a second book on reflexive and
relational knowing (with N. Mauthner).

Margrit Eichler is Professor Emerita of the University of Toronto/Ontario Institute

for Studies in Education. She has published widely in the areas of family policy, biases
in research that derive from social hierarchies (e.g. sexism, racism, ableism), women’s
studies, and sustainability and social justice. She is a member of the Royal Society of
Canada and the European Academy of Sciences.

James S. Frideres is Professor Emeritus at the University of Calgary. He was the director
of the International Indigenous Studies program and held the Chair of Ethnic Studies.
His recent publications include International Perspectives: Integration and Inclusion with
vl Contributors

]. Biles (McGill Queens) (which is on the Hill Times List of lop 100 books for 2012) and
the ninth edition of Aboriginal People in Canada with R. Gadacz (Pearson, 2012).

Doreen M. Fumia is Associate Professor of Sociology and the Jack Layton Chair al Ryerson
University. Her work examines lesbians and aging, identities, anti-poverty activism, and
neighbourhood belonging in Toronto. She has published in the areas of lesbian motherhood,
non-traditional families, informal learning, and same-sex marriage debates.

Amber Gazso is Associate Professor of Sociology at York University. She completed her
PhD in Sociology at the University of Alberta in 2006. Her current research interests
include citizenship, family and gender relations, poverty, research methods, and social
policy and the welfare state. Her recent journal publications focus on low-income mothers
on social assistance. She is currently working on two major research projects funded by
SSHRC. In one project she is exploring how diverse families make ends meet by piecing
together networks of social support that include both government programs (e.g., social
assistance) and community supports, and informal relations within families and with
friends and neighbours. Another comparative project explores the relationship between
health and income inequality among Canadians and Americans in mid-life.

Melanie Heath is Assistant Professor of Sociology at McMaster University. She is the

author of One Marriage Under God: The Campaign to Promote Marriage in America (NYU
Press, 2012). She has published articles in Gender & Society and Qualitatwe Sociology.
Her current project on “Harm or Right? Polygamy's Contested Terrain Within and Across
Borders” is funded by a five-year SSHRC Insight Grant.

Catherine Holtmann is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of New

Brunswick and Director of the Muriel McQueen Fergusson Centre for Family Violence
Research. Her research focuses on gender and religion, domestic violence, immigrant
women, and social action. She is the lead investigator for the SSHRC-funded AfterGrad
NB project team, which explores barriers to post-secondary education for high school
graduates.

Don Kerr is Professor of Sociology at King’s University College at Western University.

His areas of interest are population studies and Canadian demography. His research
has focused on social demography, population estimates and projections, environmental
demography, the Indigenous population, and family demography.

Mushira Mohsin Khan is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology and a

Student Affiliate with the Institute on Aging and Lifelong Health at the University of
Victoria. Her research focuses on transnational ties and intergenerational relationships
within mid- to later-life diasporic South Asian families, ethnicity and immigration,
aging, and health and social care. Her work has been published in a collection on health
care equity for ethnic minority older adults (SFU, 2015), the Population Change and
Lifecourse Strategic Knowledge Cluster Discussion Paper Series (2015), and in Current
Sociology (2016), and the International Journal of Migration, Health, and Social Care
 Contributors vil

(forthcoming). She is the recipient of the SSI-1RC-Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canadian

Doctoral Scholarship (2015-18).

Karen M. Kobayashi is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and the

Centre on Aging at the University of Victoria. Fler research interests include the economic
and health dimensions of ethnic inequality in Canada, intergenerational relationships and
social support in mid-to-later life families, and the socio-cultural dimensions of dementia
and personhood. I ler current research programs focus on the relationship between social
isolation and health care utilization among older adults, access to health and social care
among older visible minority immigrants, living-apart-together (LAI’) relationships in
adulthood, and an evaluation of quality of care in residential long-term care facilities.
Recent work has been published in the Journal of Aging Studies, Ethnicity and Health,
Canadian Review of Sociology, and the Journal of Aging and Health.

Catherine Krull is Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Professor in the
Department of Sociology at the University of Victoria. Prior to her arrival at UVic, she
was a professor at Queen’s University. She has served as editor of Cuban Studies as well as
editor-in-chief of the Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies. Book
publications include Cuba in Global Context: International Relations, Internationalism
and Transnationalism (2014); Rereading Women and the Cuban Revolution (with
J. Stubbs, 2011); A Measure of a Revolution: Cuba, 1959—2009 (with S. Castro, 2010)
and New World Coming: The 1960s and the Shaping of Global Consciousness (with
Dubinsky et al., 2009). She has held research fellowships at the Institute for Advanced
Studies (University of London), the Institute of Latin American Studies (University of
Florida), the Institute of Latin American Studies (David Rockefeller Center, Harvard
University), the Department of Sociology (Boston University), and the Centre for
International Studies (London School of Economics). Currently, she is working on
two monographs, one on the Cuban Diaspora in Canada and Europe (with J. Stubbs,
University of London), and Entangled US/Cuban Terrains: Memories of Guantanamo
(with A. McKercher, McMaster University).

Amal Madibbo is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Calgary. Her

research focuses on immigration, ethnic relations, globalization, and international
development. She has special interest in race and anti-racism, Black francophone
immigration to Canada, and race and ethnicity in sub-Saharan Africa.

Anne Martin-Matthews is Professor of Sociology at the University of British Columbia.

Her current research focuses on two areas of inquiry in the sociology of aging. The first
examines the provision of health and social care to elderly people, examined from the
perspectives of agency providers, home care workers, elderly clients, and family carers.
Her second area is on widowhood in later life. She is working on CI HR-funded research
on home care in Canada.

Craig McKie is a retired professor of Sociology. He taught at the University of Western

Ontario for several years, spent more than a decade working for Statistics Canada in
vlll Contributors

Ottawa. latterly as editor-in-chief of Canadian Social Trends, and most recently, from
1990 until retirement, he taught in the Department of Sociology al Carleton University.

Joseph H. Michalski is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology.

Kings University College at Western University. His current theoretical work and research
focus is on the geometry ot social space in relation to behaviours as diverse as intimate
partner violence, welfare, and knowledge production.

Michelle Owen is Associate Professor of Sociology and the Disability Studies Advisory
Committee Chair at the University of Winnipeg. She is the director of the Global College
Institute for Health and Human Potential and was given the 2011 Marsha Hanen Award
for Excellence in Creating Community Awareness. She is working on two disability-
related research projects: on how Canadian academics with multiple sclerosis negotiate
the workplace, and the experience of intimate partner violence in the lives of women
with disabilities.

Deborah K. van den Hoonaard is Professor ol Gerontology and Canada Research

Chair in Qualitative Research and Analysis at St Thomas University in Fredericton. New
Brunswick. She is the author of Qualitative Research in Action: A Canadian Primer (OL I’.
2015), B) Himself: The Older Man's Experience of Widowhood (U IP, 2010), The Widowed
Self The Older Woman’s Journey Through Widowhood (WLU Press, 2001), and co-author
(with W.C. van den Hoonaard) of Essentials of Thinking Ethically in Qualitative Research
(Left Coast Press, 2013).

Vanessa Watts is Academic Director, Indigenous Studies at McMaster University. She

is Mohawk and Anishinaabe and is of the Bear Clan. She is currently in the process of
completing her PhD in Sociology at Queen’s University. Her undergraduate degree is
from Trent University in Native Studies and her Master’s Degree was in the Indigenous
Governance Program at the University of Victoria.
Preface
The fourth edition of Canadian Families Today is an introduction to the sociology of
family life that draws on a wide range of materials. In 16 chapters, 20 experts in the field
cover a wide range of topics that introduce you to families in a Canadian context. Several
important updates for this edition reflect the real-word changes experienced by Canadian
families, and the way that focuses of study within the sociology of family life have adapted
and shifted in turn. Chapters throughout the text have been updated wherever possible
with the latest Statistics Canada data—the results of the 2016 Census. Several new au­
thors have been added, including Vanessa Watts, who authors an entirely new chapter on
Indigenous families, reviewing the topic in a broad way through the lens of assimilationist
stale objectives towards the absorption of Indigenous families in Canada.
1'he book is organized into four parts, reflecting its main themes. Part 1 contains the
introductory chapter by Patrizia Albanese, which discusses the diversity of family forms
existing in Canada today, reviews dilferent definitions of the family, and considers how
the changing definition of this concept has had policy implications for access to programs
and privileges or status within society. In Chapter 2, Cynthia Comacchio reviews the
major changes and continuities in the history of Canadian families over the past two cen­
turies. In Chapter 3, Doreen Fumia discusses same-sex marriage in Canada and changes
in marriage law in the form of Bill C-38—the Civil Marriages Act. She explores how
concepts of ‘‘normal" and “abnormal" sexuality continue to demarcate relationships and
thus persist in relegating many Canadians to a position as “other.”
Part 2 provides information about various stages and events in the life course. In
Chapter 4, Melanie Heath focuses on how people form relationships. Heath discusses
technological innovations that have been affecting dating and sexual relationships in
recent years. Amber Gazso, in Chapter 5, focuses on becoming and being a parent of
young children. She outlines some of the activities of parenting, with emphasis on how
everyday practices of parenting are textured by ideological discourses in our society.
In Chapter 6, Craig McKie focuses on how families fragment through separation
or divorce, but often reformulate within the context of a new union. McKie discusses
post-separation hardships, but also concludes that these must be weighed against the real
risks of physical and emotional trauma in relationships that are full of conflict, risks that
are greatly diminished by separation.
Middle age and “old age,” two other stages of the life course, are considered in Chap­
ter 7. Karen Kobayashi and Anne Martin-Matthews focus on the transitions that mark
middle age (e.g., the “empty nest,” caregiving) that are triggered by life events in families
including adult children leaving home or care for aging parents. Chapter 7 also highlights
the central role that families play in the lives of older adults.
Part 3 of Canadian Families Today focuses on some of the many challenges, deci­
sions, and strategies that families face in light of the shifting social, economic, and polit­
ical contexts. In Chapter 8 Deborah K. van den Hoonaard focuses special attention on the
rituals associated with marriage and death. She considers how rituals have evolved over
time, and notes that individuals now exercise greater scope in their choices about how
to conduct rituals. In Chapter 9, Andrea Doucet describes patterns of paid and unpaid
x Preface

work in families by looking at the relationship between gender and paid work. Doucet also
examines the relationship between state policies and paid and unpaid work.
Don Kerr and Joseph H. Michalski, in Chapter 10. focus on recent poverty trends af­
fecting families today, while also considering some of the broader structural shifts in the
Canadian economy and in government policies. They examine the high rates of poverty
among female-headed lone-parent families and among recent immigrants, and discuss
the coping strategies that these families use to survive. In Chapter 11. Amal Madibbo
and James Frideres discuss the pre- and post-migration experiences of refugee families.
Among other things, they explore the social and economic position of visible minority
refugee families in Canadian society and its impact on family structure and family ex­
periences. Michelle Watts, in Chapter 12, presents past and recent trends in family life
among Indigenous people in Canada. She traces the impact of devastating colonial poli­
cies on family life and the resilience that has come to characterize many Indigenous
families. In Chapter 13, Michelle Owen writes about the impact that disability has on
families. She begins by discussing the problem of defining disability, and then aims to
show that disabled Canadians and their families, like racialized families discussed in
Chapter 11, continue to be marginalized in our society.
Finally, Part 4 of the book looks at issues that, if not unique to families, are often
central and those with which many contemporary families must grapple violence, shifts
in public policy, and questions regarding the future. Chapter 14, by Catherine 1 loltmann,
analyzes how power differences in the family can lead to mental, physical, or sexual abuse.
At the same time, she argues that the powerlessness and dependency cycles in families
that make children, women, and aged persons vulnerable can be broken. Catherine Krull
and Mushira Mohsin Khan, in Chapter 15, discuss government policies affecting families
in Canada, which they believe have a great impact on family life. The authors point out
that Canada lacks a comprehensive national family policy, unlike some other countries
around the world. In the concluding chapter, Margrit Eichler discusses the extensive
history of predictions for and about the future of the family, pointing out that in the past
there have been a number of spectacular misprognoses about the future of families. She
concludes with predictions of her own.

Acknowledgments
Statistics Canada information is used with the permission of Statistics Canada. Users
are forbidden to copy the data and disseminate them, in original or modified form, for
commercial purposes, without permission from Statistics Canada. Information on the
availability of the wide range of data from Statistics Canada can be obtained from www
.statcan.gc.ca.
Patrizia Albanese
January, 2017
PART I
QJ
Conceptualizing Families,
Past and Present
“["he first three chapters of this book provide an introduction to the study of family life in
I Canada. They present some of the changes in the study of families, with a special focus on
Canada, while presenting an overview of historical diversity in family life. Multiple perspectives
on understanding families are presented, and the complexity of family life is stressed.
In Chapter 1, Patrizia Albanese discusses the diversity of family forms existing in Canada
today, reviews different definitions of the family, and considers how the changing definition
of this concept has had policy implications for access to programs and privileges or status
within society. Albanese also introduces some of the different theories of family life and
discusses the influence that theoretical assumptions have on ways of seeing the world. She
examines recent changes in family life in Canada and concludes the chapter by noting that
today, as in the past, Canadian families take on a number of diverse forms. The changing
definition of family simply reflects a reality that change has been, and continues to be, a
normal part of family life.
In Chapter 2, Cynthia Comacchio reviews the major changes and continuities in the history
of Canadian families over the past two centuries. She discusses how in the past, as is the case
today, "the family" as a social construct is an idealization that reinforces hierarchies of class,
"race," gender, and age. Throughout the chapter, she underscores the fact that, despite pre­
vailing ideas about what properly constitutes "the family" at various points in time, Canadian
families are and have been in constant flux. Comacchio makes it clear that the importance of
families to both individuals and to society is a constant, both in ideal and in practice; at the
same time, the form and experience of actual families have always been diverse.
Chapter 3, by Doreen M. Fumia, examines same-sex marriage in Canada. She walks us
through changes in marriage law in Canada in the form of Bill C-38—the Civil Marriages
Act—which shifted the definitions about which couples could legally marry. She argues that
while social acceptance of this change is ongoing, social stigmas remain. She goes on to
present two arguments: one that advocates for the inclusion of same-sex couples into the
institution of marriage, as an avenue towards equal rights and full citizenship participation.
The other argument insists that the institution of marriage is still exclusionary and calls for its
total dismantling. Through this debate, she challenges readers to decide for themselves who
marriage is for.
Introduction to Diversity
in Canada's Families
Variations in Forms, Definitions, and Theories
PATRIZIA ALBANESE

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
• To gain an overview of some changing Canadian demographic trends
• To discover that Canadian families have taken, and continue to take, diverse forms
• To see that definitions of family have changed over time, and continue to evolve
• To recognize the implications of defining family in certain ways—restricting who has
access to programs, policies, and privileges and who does not
• To learn about some of the theories that guide our understanding of families
• To understand that theoretical orientations guide what we study and how we study it
\________________________________

introduction
On August 23, 2016, about 200 Indigenous people gathered in Toronto to protest the
Sixties Scoop, a period in the 1960s and 1970s during which Indigenous children were
removed from their families as part of the work of “child protection services” and placed
“in care” with non-Indigenous families. The demonstration by surviving family members
took place outside of a courthouse in Toronto where a judge was hearing a class action
lawsuit against the federal government over the practice. Among the 200 were Thomas
Norton and his sister Karen Rae, who he had just met for the first time. They explained
that Karen had been taken from their parents’ home on the Sagueen First Nation before
Thomas was born. Decades later, as adults, this family was reunited. Thomas Norton
shared with the media that he “had no idea what she was doing in her life and she had no
idea what I was doing.” He added, “you need to build the relationship and gather strength
from that as a family” (CBC News 2016: online).
This case reminds us of the meaning, vulnerability, tenacity, and importance of family
ties that many in Canada experience, and that some of us, at times, take for granted. It
hints at just how diverse in form and experience Canadian families are, and at some of the
 1 I Albanese: introduction to Diversity in Canada's Families 3

government policies and practices that shape and constrain who and what a family has
been allowed to include or involve. Above all, it reminds us of how powerful and deeply
rooted our family ties are to our sense of self and our sense of belonging.
We begin this chapter with an overview of some recent trends in family life as they
are captured by broad-sweeping national statistics. We will see that Statistics Canada
data capture a considerable amount of change and diversity in family forms, though we
must keep in mind that the data may actually mask variations, fluctuations, and “oddities”
that encompass everyday life for the millions of people who make up families in Canada
today.
Following a review of recent trends in family forms, we assess various definitions of
family, to determine which ones, if any, reflect the diversity that we see and experience
around us. Following that, we review theories used to help us understand and explain
what is happening to, with, and in family life. We see, through the trends, definitions, and
theories covered in this chapter, that change and diversity are the norm when it comes to
understanding families. We will—throughout this chapter and the rest of the book—see
that Statistics Canada data, while they offer evidence of change to family structures over
time, fail to accurately depict the full breadth of complex, lived experiences of Canadians.

Changing Trends in the Diversity of Family Forms

In 2016 there were 9,519,945 families in Canada, up from 9,389,700 only five years before
(Statistics Canada 2012a; Statistics Canada 2017a). According to Canadian Census data,
today, there are proportionally fewer households than in the past composed of a “mother,
father and children”; with more people living alone, as couples without children, or as
multi-generational families. The 2016 Census revealed that married couples remained
the dominant family form, but as in past Census years, this number is declining over
time in relation to other family forms. For example, since the 2006 Census, the number
of common-law couples has risen, as has the number of lone-parent families and indi­
viduals living alone (Statistics Canada 2017b). The growth in the number of individuals
living alone—28.2 percent of households in Canada—was especially striking (Statistics
Canada 2017b).
In 2016, there were 72,880 same-sex couples in Canada, representing 0.9 per cent
of all couples. One-third, or 33.4 per cent of these same-sex couples were married, with
the rest living common-law. About 12 percent of all same-sex couples that were counted
had children living with them at the time of the 2016 Census, (Statistics Canada 2017c).
Those numbers reflect a long journey—after decades of political mobilizing and many
legal battles, same-sex families in Canada have gone from a time when homosexuality
was illegal, to being invisible, to fully recognized marriages and families for the first
time in the 2006 Canadian census (see Chapter 3).1 Increasingly, we
also have come to acknowledge the existence, reality, and complexity of For more on legal changes
to same-sex marriage in
trans families and families with transgender members of all ages (see Canada, see "Passing Bill
Box 1.1). Clearly, as a result of social change, including changes in the C-38: The Civil Marriage
way we define and count families, Canadian families today come in a Act" in Chapter 3,
plurality of forms, with no one family portrait capturing the incredibly pp. 58-9.
rich diversity.
PART I conceptualizing Families, Past and Present

Dally Life for a 12-year-old Transgender Girl

Alexis Knox was assigned male at birth, but at 12 years old, identifies as a transgender girl.
She came out to her parents, Amanda and Mark Knox, and her two brothers, in 2014, start­
ing with an email to her father.
Alexis told CBC journalist, Hallie Cotnam, on the Ottawa Morning show:
"I was pretty scared. I didn't know what to say, or what to do."
"With email, you can type out and erase, and you can type it out in a new way. You can
just kind of get it all out in the perfect way. I just didn't know what else to do. I knew I didn't
want to live my life that way."
Her father, Mark Knox, said that when he received the email he was shocked, but not
surprised, recalling:
"She says, 'More than anything, I feel like a girl. I want to be a girl.'"
"After I got over the initial reaction to it, it was a special day. We gained a daughter."
Since the email, the family has made some adjustments. Alexis is on puberty blocking
medication and is being home-schooled while she adjusts to her new life.
Alexis described the year since coming out to her family as "definitely more challen­
ging," but she notes that it is better than it used to be:
"I’m happier. I'm not just sitting in my room playing Minecraft eight hours a day, every
day.”
The family's next challenge has been to prepare for the reactions of others as people
outside their close circle begin to see and understand the transition Alexis has been going
through. As part of this, in a post on her blog, Amanda Knox introduced her readers to her
daughter Alexis.
Alexis wants to be more public and to advocate for herself.
Source: CBC News. "Family of transgender girl, 12, opens up about first year." Apr 14, 2015. cbc Licensing.

Questions for Critical Thought

Imagine that a beloved member of your family is transgender. What kinds of chal­
lenges do you expect they would encounter? What could you do to support your loved
one through some of the challenges?

With time, official measures like the Canadian Census have evolved to capture more
of the diversity that makes up everyday life. Blended families, often called “stepfamilies,”
are those consisting of parents and their children from this and any previous relationships,
and are increasingly common. Its only recently, since the 2011 Census, that they have
been officially counted. But even before official counting, we have known that following
divorces and other break-ups, many second and subsequent unions take place, in the form
of remarriages and common-law unions. Not surprising then, to capture changing reality,
 I
1 I Albanese: introduction to Diversity in Canada's Families 5

for the first time in 2011 the Census was changed to include and count stepfamilies. The
2016 Census found that among the 5.8 million children under the age of 14, 69.7 per
cent were living with both of their biological or adoptive parents, and no step-siblings or
half-siblings; while 30 per cent were living in a lone-parent family, in a stepfamily; or in a
family without their parents but with grandparents, with other relatives or as foster chil­
dren (Statistics Canada, 2017 d). This is increased from the 12.6 per cent of all families in
Canada that were stepfamilies in 2011 (Statistics Canada 2012a). In 2016, 62.8 per cent of
children in stepfamilies were living with one of their biological or adoptive parents and a
step-parent. Just over half of these children had no half-siblings or step-siblings (were in a
simple stepfamily). Just under half were in complex stepfamilies where they lived with at
least one half-sibling or step-sibling (Statistics Canada 2017d). In 2016, 62.8 per cent of
children in stepfamilies were living with one of their biological or adoptive parents and a
step-parent. Just over half of these children had no half-siblings or step-siblings (were in
a simple stepfamily). Just under half were in complex stepfamilies where they lived with
at least one half-sibling or step-sibling (Statistics Canada 2017d). The other 37.2 per cent
of children in stepfamilies (3.6 per cent of all children aged 0 to 14) had both of their
biological or adoptive parents present. Children in this situation had at least one brother
or sister with whom they had only one parent in common: a half-sibling.
Many step-parents face a number of unique challenges and experiences. At the same
time, they have much in common with some other families today.
Other types of families we recognize today include transnational families, which have
been around a long time, certainly, but have been invisible to most. Recent years have
seen an increase in interest, research, and information on transnational, multi-local
families (Beiser et al. 2014, Bernhard et al. 2006; Burholt 2004; Dhar 2011; Waters
2001). Interest in transnational families has been sparked by the growing awareness of
some of the challenges faced by immigrant families, refugee claimants, foreign domestic

Table 1.1 Distribution (Number and Percentage) and Percentage Change of

Census Families by Family Structure, Canada, 2001-2011
Census family 2001 2006 2011 Percentage change

Total census families 8,371,020 8,896,840 9,389,700 5.5

Couple families 7,059,830 7,482,775 7,861,860 5.1

(84.3%) (84.1%) (83.7%)
Married 5,901,420 6,105,910 6,293,950 3.1
(70.5%) (68.6%) (67.0%)
Common-law 1,158,410 1,376,865 1,567,910 13.9
(13.8%) (15.5%) (16.7%)
Lone-parent families 1,311,190 1,414,060 1,527,840 8.0
(15.7%) (15.9%) (16.3%)
Female parents 1,065,360 1,132,290 1,200,295 6.0
(12.7%) (12.7%) (12.8%)
Male parents 245,825 281,775 327,545 16.2
(2.9%) (3.2%) (3.5%)
Source: Statistics Canada, 2017 and 2012a, p. 5 (Table 1), available at (www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2O11/
as-sa/98-312-x/98-312-x2011001-eng.pdf).
6 PART I Conceptualizing Families, Past and Present

Total private households

14,072,080 (100.0%)

I 1
Non-census-family Census family
households households
4,552,135 (32.3%) 9,519,945 (67.7%)

1
One-person
households
1 Non-census-family
households of two
Couples without
children
Couples with
children
Lone-parent
families
or more persons
3.969,795 (28.2%) 3,627,185 (25.8%) 3,728,375 (26.5%) 1,250,190 (8.9%)
582,345(4.1%)

Multigenerational Other family

households households
403,810 (2.9%) 510,380 (3.6%)

Figure 1.1 Overview of Household Types, Canada, 2016

Source: Statistics Canada, Census of Population, 2016.

workers from the Caribbean and Philippines, migrant workers, visa students, and individ­
uals and families with “less-than-full” legal status.
Thousands of people living in Canada currently find themselves tem­
For more on the challenges
porarily separated from their children and spouses as part of a strategy to
refugee families face,
see “Family issues" in secure a better economic future and opportunities for their family. Some
Chapter 11, pp. 231-3. have been called satellite families or satellite children, a term first used
in the 1980s to describe Chinese children whose parents immigrated to
North America, usually from Hong Kong or Taiwan, but returned to their country of
origin leaving children, and sometimes spouses, in Canada (Newendorp 2008; Tsang
et al. 2003). Researchers studying transnational families have been documenting the
changes and challenges that arise from parent-child separations (for more on parenting,
see Chapter 5), long-distance relationships, extended family networks providing child
care, and the often emotionally charged reunifications that follow from multi-local family
arrangements (Beiser et al. 2014; Bernhard et al. 2006a; Burholt 2004; Dhar 2011; Tsang
et al. 2003; Waters 2001).
In 2011, just over 7.2 million people living in Canada (22.0 per cent of the popula­
tion) were first generation, born in one of over 200 countries around the globe (Dobson,
Maheux, and Chui 2013). Nearly half of them arrived in Canada after 1985. In 2014
alone, 260,404 people arrived as permanent residents (C1C 2015).
 1 I Albanese: introduction to Diversity in Canada's Families 7

Most newcomers, like other Canadians, lived in nuclear families; however, family sizes
tended to be larger tor immigrant families (Belanger 2006). Partners in recent-immigrant
households were more likely to be legally married, rather than living common-law.
Recent-immigrant families were also less likely to be headed by single-parents compared
to other Canadian families, and were more likely than others to live in overcrowded hous­
ing (CIC 2007).
Newcomers today are much more likely than earlier immigrants or those who are
Canadian-born to live in families with incomes below the median family income in
Canada (income that falls in the middle of the income range or spectrum in a society).
Recent reports reveal that racialized immigrants make up 54 per cent
of all immigrants in Canada. However, they make up 71 percent of all im­ For more on family poverty,
migrants living in poverty (National Council of Welfare 2013). Further­ see "Economic well-being
more, 90 per cent of racialized persons living in poverty are first-generation Among indigenous and
immigrants (National Council of Welfare 2013). The factors behind these Racialized Communities"
rates include an over-representation of racialized groups in low-paying in Chapter 10, p 214.
jobs, labour market failure to recognize international work experience/
credentials, and ‘‘racial" discrimination in employment (Campaign 2000 2007). In con­
trast, children of immigrants who came to Canada before 1981 and had below-average
earnings in the first generation were found to have surpassed their parents in the second
generation, and were more educated and earned more on average than Canadians of
similar age whose parents were born in Canada (Statistics Canada 2005). A great many
factors have changed the social and economic landscape affecting immigrant families
more recently, as they have affected all Canadian families (see Duffy, Corman, and Pupo
2015) . For example, because of economic shifts, many younger Canadians today find
themselves increasingly unable to leave their parental homes and establish independent
households.
In 1981, about 28 per cent of Canadians between the ages of 20 to 29 lived with their
parents. By 2011, this increased to 41 per cent (Beaujot 2004; Milan 2016). In 2011, four
in 10 young people either remained in or returned to live in their parental home (Milan
2016) . Because of changing economic circumstances and difficulty finding stable, long­
term, decent-paying work, coupled with an increasing demand for post-secondary edu­
cation and large debt loads, researchers have seen the postponement of home-leaving or
delayed child launch. Linked with this trend is an increase in the number of “boomerang
children” or “velcro kids" (Beaupre, Turcotte, and Milan 2006; Milan
For more on work and
2016; Mitchell 1998a; Mitchell 1998b; Tyyska 2001)—young adults who
families, see "The Rise of
leave their parental homes for work or school, only to return due to large Non-standard Employment"
debt loads, shifting employment prospects, or changing marital status (for in Chapter 9, pp. 185-6.
more on unions and breakups, see Chapter 4 and Chapter 6).
While many young people today don’t expect to live with their parents or in-laws into
their thirties and forties (though, as mentioned above, increasingly many will turn out
to be wrong about that), for many new immigrants to Canada (as noted
above), older Canadians, or Canadians with disabilities, the extended For more on aging families,
see Chapter 7; for more on
family model and the pooling of family resources in multi-generational living with disabilities, see
households is nothing new, unexpected, or alarming (Che-Alford and Chapter 13.
Flamm 1999; Milan, LaFlamme, and Wong 2015; Sun 2008).
8 PART I Conceptualizing Families, Past and Present

Table 1.2 Counting Census Families

Census Family type, number,
year and/or per cent Historical context; changes in census enumeration
1921 1.8 million Census families First World War; large number of war widows; first Census to distinguish
between households and families
1931 86.4% married; Great Depression; marriage and fertility rates decline; reference to food,
13.6% lone parent shared tables, and housekeeping are dropped from Census, eradicating
hints of women's domestic labour (Bradbury 2000), single-parent heads of
households counted for the first time
1941 87.8% married; Second World War; women at work in factories: 1942 Dominion-Provincial
12.2% lone parent Wartime Day Nurseries Agreement, funding daycare services in Ontario,
Quebec, and Alberta
1951 90.1% married; Baby Boom (1946-65); fertility rates increase; first Census to clearly allow
9.9% lone parent for single parents with children living with other families to be separately
counted
1956 91.4% married; High marriage rates; high fertility rates; low death rates; rates of single
8.6% lone parent parenthood at their lowest
1961 91.6% married; High marriage rates; high fertility rates; low death rates, rates of single
8.4% lone parent parenthood remain low
1966 91.8% married; Mass marketing of birth control pill; contraception is legalized in 1969,
8.2% lone parent changes in Divorce Act. 1968
1971 90.6% married; Last Census year in which fertility was at "replacement level" of 2:1; lone
9.4% lone parent parents due to divorce now outnumber those due to widowhood
1976 90.2% married; Mass (re)entry of women into labour force
9.8% lone parent
1981 83.1% married; Common-law unions first enumerated
5.6% common-law;
11.3% lone parent
1986 80.2% married; Changes to Divorce Act; divorce rates peak in 1987
7.2% common-law;
12.7% lone parent
1991 77.3% married; Married-couple families make up an increasingly smaller proportion of all
9.8% common-law; families in Canada
13% lone parent
1996 73.7% married; Number of stepfamilies sharply on the rise; number of hours spent doing
11.7% common-law; unpaid housework asked for the first time
14.5% lone parent
2001 70.5% married; Same-sex common-law unions enumerated for the first time; parental
13.8% common-law; leave extended
15.7% lone parent
2006 68.6% married; Same-sex marriages enumerated for the first time
15.5% common-law;
15.9% lone parent
2011 67.0% married; Stepfamilies and foster children enumerated for the first time
16.7% common-law,
16.3% lone parent
 1 I Albanese: Introduction to Diversity in Canada's Families 9

Table 1.2 (Continued)

Census Family type, number,
year and/or per cent IHistorical context; changes in census enumeration
2016 28.2% One-person households
25.8% Couples without children
26.5 % Couples with children
8.9% lone-parent families
2.9 % multigenerational
households
3.6% other family households
Outlining the recent historical evolution of the Canadian Census family (which masks more than it reveals) shows that what we
know better reflects how, what, and when we counted, as opposed to exactly who and what we were.
Source Bradbury 2000, 2011, Statistics Canada 2012b, Statistics Canada 2017a

A considerable amount of pooling of resources and care work happens across genera­
tions, households, even continents, especially by women, in a complex web of exchanges
and support (Connidis and Kemp 2008; Dhar 2011; Eichler and Albanese 2007; Lang­
ford, Prentice and Albanese 2017). And while how some of this care work happens (for
example, over the internet) may be different, what is done, by whom, and/or whom, may
not actually be new. In fact, many of Canada’s “new” family forms have always existed,
if in the margins, in the shadows, or during specific historical and economic contexts.
For example, lone-parent families and stepfamilies/remarriages are not new on the
Canadian landscape (see Figure 1.2). Nor are same-sex families or transnational families,

Never married Divorced or separated1 ■ Widowed

100

90

80

70

a> 60

5 50
w
o
40

30

20

10

0
Year

Figure 1.2 Distribution (in percentage) of the Legal Marital Status of Lone Parents,
Canada, 1961 to 2011
Note: 1. Divorced or separated category includes “married, spouse absent."
Source: Statistics Canada, 2012b, p. 3
10 PART I Conceptualizing Families, Past and Present

for that matter. Many of these family forms simply went uncounted (Bradbury 2000; see
Table 1.2). While diversity seems to best characterize Canadian families today, diversity,
adaptability, conflict, and change have always—past and present—been a fact of life for
Canadian families.

Contemporary Canadian Family Studies

Studying Canadian families requires students and researchers to stay on top of legal, pol­
itical, social, and economic changes at the community, sub-national/provincial. national,
and international levels. As you will see throughout this book, studying Canadian fam
ilies often includes understanding and studying aspects of the Canadian economy,
policy shifts, changes to health care and longevity, the internet, poverty, immigration,
environmental issues, globalization, war/genocide/ethnic conflict, violence, taxation, legal
changes, and human rights issues. And much of this has been sparked by what some
have called the “big bang" (Cheal 1991) in family theorizing. Before exploring the "big
bang" let us first turn to what we mean by family and how the changing definition oi this
concept has had profound implications on access to programs, policies, and privilege in
this country.

Changing Definitions of Family

The definition of family is in a constant state of flux (Holtzman 20ll) (see Box 1.1)
and even judicial uses of family definitions—which we would assume to be the most
comprehensive—tend to “be inconsistent, unpredictable . . ." and not always “effective”
(Holtzman 2011:620). Today we would have a difficult time identifying a single overarch­
ing definition of family accepted within and across academic research and disciplines,
and formal or informal organizations. This is why we so often use adjectives to qualify
family, adjectives that allow us to more easily focus in on different incarnations of the
family. For example, most agree on the definition of a nuclear family, which typically
includes a couple and their children, sharing the same household, but may also define
one parent and his/her child(ren) (Ambert 2006). Today, with divorce and remarriages,
we are also seeing an increase in the number of bi-nuclear families—where children of
divorced parents move and live across households. For children, the family they "belong
to” or originate in is called their “family of origin” or “orientation” (Ambert 2006). There is
also the extended family, mentioned briefly above, in which several generations or sets
of kin—grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins—share a household. This has also come to
be called a multi-generational household. Similarly, terms like household, a set of related
and unrelated individuals who share a dwelling, are also relatively easily defined.
At the individual level, there are likely as many definitions offamily as there are fam­
ilies in this country, because the lived reality of “the family" is quite different from the re­
ality privileged through Canadian law and social policy. At the same time, individual level
explanations, like some more formal definitions such as the ones in Box 1.1, tend to stress
the structural or compositional definition of the family (Eichler 1983; Gazso 2009). These
 1 I Albanese: introduction to Diversity in Canada's Families 11

BOX 1.1
What Is a Family? Evolving Definitions of Family—Is
Everyone Accounted For?
Do any of the following definitions exclude your own family? Who else is excluded from the
following definitions? Can you spot any other similarities, differences, or problems with these
definitions?

Murdock (1949): ... a social group characterized by common residence, economic

co-operation, and reproduction. It includes adults of both sexes, at least two of whom
maintain a socially approved sexual relationship, and one or more children, own or
adopted, of the sexually cohabiting adults.
Stephens (1963): ... a social arrangement based on marriage and the marriage
contract, including recognition of the rights and duties of parents, common residence
for husband, wife, and children and reciprocal economic obligations between husband
and wife.
Coser (1974): . . .a group manifesting the following organizational attributes: it
finds its origin in marriage; it consists of husband, wife, and children born in their wed­
lock, though other relatives may find their place close to this nuclear group, and the
group is united by moral, legal, economic, religious, and social rights and obligations.
Eichler (1983): A family is a social group which may or may not include adults of both
sexes (e.g., lone-parent families), may or may not include one or more children (e.g.,
childless couples), who may or may not have been born in their wedlock (e.g., adopted
children, or children by one adult partner of a previous union). The relationship of the
adults may or may not have its origin in marriage (e.g., common-law couples), they may
or may not share a common residence (e.g., commuting couples). The adults may or may
not cohabit sexually, and the relationship may or may not involve such socially patterned
feelings as love, attraction, and awe.
Goode (1995): Doubtless the following list is not comprehensive, but it [family] in­
cludes most of those relationships: (1) At least two adult persons of opposite sex reside
together. (2) They engage in some kind of division of labor; that is, they do not both per­
form exactly the same tasks. (3) They engage in many types of economic and social ex­
changes; that is, they do things for one another. (4) They share many things in common,
such as food, sex, residence, and both goods and social activities. (5) The adults have
parental relations with their children, as their children have filial relations with them;
the parents have some authority over children, and share with one another, while also
assuming some obligations for protection, co-operation, and nurturance. (6) There are
sibling relations among the children themselves, with, once more, a range of obligations
to share, protect, and help one another.
Census Family (1996): Refers to a now-married couple (with or without never-
married sons and/or daughters of either or both spouses), a couple living common-law
(with or without never-married sons and/or daughters of either or both partners), or a

continued
12 PART I Conceptualizing Families, Past and Present

lone parent of any marital status, with at least one never-married son or daughter living
in the same dwelling.
Mandell and Duffy (2000): ... a social ideal, generally referring to a unit of eco­
nomic co-operation, typically thought to include only those related by blood, but re­
vised by feminists to include those forming an economically co-operative, residential
unit bound by feelings of common ties and strong emotions.
Census Family (2001): Refers to a married couple (with or without children of either
or both spouses), a couple living common-law (with or without children of either or
both partners), or a lone parent of any marital status with at least one child living in the
same dwelling. A couple living common-law may be of opposite or same sex. "Chil­
dren" in a census family include grandchildren living with their grandparent(s) but with
no parents present.
Census Family (2006): Refers to a married couple (with or without children of either
dr both spouses), a couple living common-law (with or without children of either or
both partners) or a lone parent of any marital status, with at least one child living in the
same dwelling. A couple may be of opposite or same sex. "Children" in a census family
include grandchildren living with their grandparent(s) but with no parents present.
Census Family (2011): ... is composed of a married or common-law couple, with or
without children, or of a lone parent living with at least one child in the same dwelling.
Vanier Institute of the Family (2012): . . . any combination of two or more persons
who are bound together over time by ties of mutual consent, birth and/or adoption or
placement and who, together, assume responsibilities for variant combinations of some
of the following:

• Physical maintenance and care of group members;

• Addition of new members through procreation or adoption;
• Socialization of children;
• Social control of members;
• Production, consumption, distribution of goods and services; and
• Affective nurturance—love.

Census Family (2016). "Census family" is defined as a married couple and the chil­
dren, if any, of either and/or both spouses; a couple living common law and the children,
if any, of either and/or both partners; or a lone parent of any marital status with at least
one child living in the same dwelling and that child or those children. All members of
a particular census family live in the same dwelling. A couple may be of opposite or
same sex. Children may be children by birth, marriage, common-law union, or adoption
regardless of their age or marital status as long as they live in the dwelling and do not
have their own married spouse, common-law partner, or child living in the dwelling.
Grandchildren living with their grandparent(s) but with no parents present also consti­
tute a census family.

Census Family Sources: Statistics Canada, at www.statcan.ca. Census Dictionary 1996, Census Dictionary 2001;
Statistics Canada 2010, Census Dictionary 2006; and Statistics Canada 2012c; Statistics Canada, 2017a.
 1 I Albanese: introduction to Diversity in Canada's Families 13

definitions do little more than answer the question: “who makes up a/the/your family”?
Family researchers, beginning with key feminists like Margrit Eichler (1983), have long
stressed the importance of rethinking our definitions of "the family,” to instead focus on
questions like "what makes a family?” And the Vanier Institute of the Family definition,
above, tries to do some of this.
Gazso (2009:157), like Eichler, has highlighted the importance of including
"process-based approaches” to "doing family" (much like West and Zimmerman’s “doing
gender,” which assumes gender is “performative”). This type of approach stresses the rela­
tions. processes, and activities that individuals share and do together—the totality of sets of
fluid practices—that make them a family (also see McDaniel and Tepper man 2007; Morgan
1996). This can and likely often does include parenting, intimacy, sharing resources, div­
iding household work and care work, making important decisions, etc. Similarly, Widmer
(2010) treats families as dynamic systems of interdependencies that exist in shifting re­
lational contexts. This allows for the analysis of ever-present tensions and conflicts, and
recognizes the fluxes and flows in who is seen to make up a family at any given time.
Gazso (2009) explains that these process-based approaches to defining and under­
standing families (“doing family") offer the potential to transcend heteronormative, patri­
archal. and Eurocentric assumptions about family life, and help capture the diversity and
structural constraints embedded in cultural expectations. That said, she recognizes some
of the shortcomings of this approach, noting that this approach runs “the risk of embra­
cing individualism and agency to the point of neglecting to consider how agentic choices
are shaped by social structure” (Gazso 2009:158). She also reminds us that the structural/
compositional definitions of the family, for better and worse, continue to inform eligibility
and administration of social policies and programs, and service delivery (Gazso 2009:158).
Eichler, writing on the definition of family, noted that “who is included in the defin­
ition of family is an issue of great importance as well as great consequence,” because who
we include in our definition will determine who is eligible to claim tax benefits, spon­
sor family members in immigration, claim insurance benefits, claim Indian status, etc.
Eichler challenges us to move beyond “who” definitions of family, which focus on group
membership and family structure (a mom and a dad and their children, for example), to­
wards a “what" definition of family, which focuses on the services and supports provided
by various members. In accepting a “what" definition of family, we would then recognize,
reward, and legitimize families for what they do together and for each other, rather than
recognize and privilege only those who take the “proper” form, regardless of what happens
behind closed doors.
All this said, there remains a disconnect between how individuals themselves,
family sociologists, and social policies and policy makers define the idea of family. It also
reminds us that legal/formal definitions, like the Census family, social definitions found
within different organizations and social groups, and personal definitions of families have
been created for different purposes and in different contexts, and so typically remain far
apart and distinct.
How we definehas profound implications for who is actually counted as a family.
Census data, for example, reflect and are constrained by which families are measured and
how. As a result, we only know about the types of families we have legally accepted, de­
fined, asked about, and counted. Quantitative studies typically mask the actual existence
of all other family forms that inevitably exist (see Case in Point box, p. 14).
14 PART 1 Conceptualizing Families, Past and Present

In sum, when we try to define the idea of family, what is clear and constant is the
variability of definitions. This tells us that family is a changing social construct that re­
flects variations in how states, institutions, and individuals understand, experience, and
interact within it. Cheal (2008:14) noted that family is “a term whose relevance is defined
in social interaction and its referents vary according to the nature of that interaction."
Social scientific definitions of family change about as rapidly as other definitions, and
often reflect both formal and informal or subjective uses of the term (sec Cheal 2008). As
you will see, each of the social scientific and theoretical approaches that follow adopts a
somewhat different definition and set of assumptions about families, which in turn shape
our understanding of it.

CASE IN POINT//^^^

Diversity as the Norm? Mixed Unions in Canada

In July 2014, Maclean's magazine featured an editorial with the title "Canada is leading the
pack in mixed unions—Why we're setting the global standard for multicultural acceptance and
integration." The article boastfully noted that "Our country ... is a Metis nation—and getting
more so" (Maclean's 2014). The editorial was reporting on the release of data from the 2011
National Household Survey that showed that just over 360,000 couples reported that they
were in a mixed union or in a relationship where one partner is "a member of a visible minor­
ity" (a term that continues to be used by Statistics Canada) or racialized, while the other is not.
or reported being in a relationship where the partners are from different racialized groups.
Maclean's noted that the numbers reveal continued growth in this trend. Statistics
Canada (2014) reported a steady trend upwards, with the proportion of mixed unions in­
creasing from 2.6 per cent of all couples in 1991, to 3.1 per cent in 2001, to 4.6 per cent
in 2011. The National Household Survey (Statistics Canada 2014) also found that most mixed
unions involved partners who were born in different countries. About 20 per cent were
unions where both partners were foreign-born, from different countries. Almost half of all
mixed couples had one partner who was born in Canada and the other born outside Canada
(Statistics Canada 2014).
Interestingly, just over half of mixed unions (52.8 per cent) involved partners from the
same religious background—for example, both partners reported being Christian or both
were Muslim. Just over 20 per cent of mixed unions reported having no religious affiliation
and just over a quarter were of different religious affiliations (compared with only 9.8 per
cent of all other couples in Canada; Statistics Canada 2014).
Maclean's (2014) reminded us that mixed unions "are no longer unusual, nor an excuse
for cultural conflict or bigotry." They are instead "a commonplace feature of life as it is lived
in Canada."
The magazine claimed that we are "setting the global standard for multicultural accept­
ance and integration." Do you agree?
 1 I Albanese: introduction to Diversity in Canada's Families 15

Questions for Critical Thought

What do you think accounts for the increase in mixed unions? Do you see it as a sign of in­
creased acceptance of diversity in our society? Why? Why not?

Theoretical and Methodological Approaches to

Studying Families
Theories are not fixed, complete, or "once and for all” explanations of how things work or
are expected to work. They neither emerge as "complete theories,” nor remain the same
because theory and research are intertwined (Ingoldsby et al. 2004:2). As our under­
standing or theory changes, so do our research questions. Likewise, as we do research
and come up with new observations that run counter to existing theories, our theories
change. Even the seemingly unchanging or indisputable theories in the natural sciences
are constructed in cultural contexts and so are influenced by social change. For example,
Galileo challenged the widely accepted idea that the earth was flat, to the profound dis­
approval of the Catholic Church, ultimately resulting in his arrest. This shows us that
we often accept things to be theoretically sound or "true,” frequently despite evidence
to the contrary or in the absence of adequate evidence, because of the social climate in
which we live.
Paradigm shifts, or radical changes in scientific view's, occur after significant data
have been collected that do not fit the existing theory, to the extent that a new theory is
needed to fit the data. This is clearly the case in theorizing on/about families, as family
theories have undergone a number of significant shifts and modifications, resulting from
challenges and social change.
Theories provide us with a lens through which w'e look at the social world. With
a shift in theory, we take on a different lens with which we try to understand the
social w'orld in general and families in particular. Theories then suggest what we
look at and how, because each theory contains underlying assumptions about how
the social world works—which in turn guide our research questions and methods.
For example, some assume human behaviour is biologically based, and so things like
the gender division of labour are not only justified, but deemed natural, inevitable,
and unchanging or unalterable. Others assume our behaviour is learned and so can
be unlearned, relearned, or learned differently as products of the culture in which
we live; and therefore patterns of behaviour can be constructed to support specific
groups and interests, at the expense of others. For the first group of theorists, certain
kinds of social change are viewed as problematic or dysfunctional, and so they seek to
preserve particular existing structures and relations. Others, like those in the second
group, recognize power struggles and inequities in existing structures and relations,
and so seek change.
Although some approaches seemingly lend themselves to certain methods, as we
will see below, it is important to note that sociologists and other family researchers
16 PART I Conceptualizing Families, Past and Present

within each theoretical tradition can and do use multiple types of methods—both quali­
tative and quantitative—at limes, such that theories and methods do not always line up
exactly.
Researchers may use seemingly similar methods but with different theoretical
approaches, and so come to very different results. For example, anthropologists have
been studying families in cross-cultural contexts, and comparative case studies, for
a relatively long time. Within the discipline there has also been considerable varia­
tion in theorizing. For example, George Murdock (1949). who surveyed 250 human
societies, concluded that the nuclear family was universal and served four basic social
functions: sexual, economic, reproductive, and educational. According to Murdock, a
man and woman constitute an efficient co-operating unit, whereby a mans "superior
physical strength" and ability to “range further afield" to hunt and trade, complements
a woman’s “lighter tasks" performed in or near the home. He claimed that all known
societies work this way because of innate and inevitable biological facts and diflerences
(Murdock 1949:7).
In contrast, Margaret Mead’s comparative ethnographic research done in the South
Pacific at approximately the same time is qualitative and descriptive in nature. Mead
identified considerable variation across cultures and stressed that the division ol labour
in every known society rests firmly on learned behaviour and not simply on biological dif­
ferences. For example, she noted that if men went away to work in the city, women were
left behind to do the farm labour, which, by Murdock s biological explanation, would be
considered heavy male labour requiring “superior male strength." She did not dismiss or
even minimize biology, but instead argued that “human beings have learned, laboriously,
to be human" (Mead 1949:198).
Clearly, two seemingly similar cross-cultural studies of societies from around the
world came to different conclusions about family life because of differing theoretical
orientations. Let us explore some of these theoretical differences.

Functionalism
In general, structural functionalist theories are based on the idea of organic ontology,
which assumes that society is like a living organism or body, made up of a series ol
interrelated parts working together for the good of the whole. Each social institution or
subsystem, like parts of the organism/body, serves specific functions, keeping society in
a state of equilibrium. Individuals within the institutions, like cells in a body, fill specific
and prescribed roles, again, for the proper functioning of the institution and society. From
a functionalist point of view, families are institutions that serve specific functions in
society, and family members are expected to fill prescribed roles within the institution for
the good of society as a whole. Social change, or a challenge to the existing order, is then
undesirable, at best.
Murdock’s work exemplifies this approach. He believed we can best understand the
family by examining what it does and how it functions for and within society. Talcott Par­
sons (1955) also studied the functions of family by looking at the roles men and women
fill within them. According to Parsons, men are biologically better suited to fulfill instru­
mental functions, that is, tasks that needed to be performed to ensure a family’s physical
 1 I Albanese: introduction to Diversity in Canada's Families 17

survival, including providing lor material needs by earning an income (Parsons and Bales
1955). He believed women are better suited to performing expressive functions—the tasks
involved in building emotionally supportive relationships among family members—that
arc needed to foster psychological well-being. In other words, women were expected to
fill the nurturing role.
Researchers who begin with a functionalist theoretical orientation are likely to look
for cultural universals and aspects of dominant family forms and ask "What purpose do
they serve?" They are also likely to look negatively upon rapid social change that could
challenge or disrupt the existing social order. Much of this has been criticized, as you will
sec in the following discussion. More recent neo-functionalist approaches have also tried
to address some of the critiques (see Swenson 2008; White and Klein 2008).

Marxism
The functionalist approach to the study of families was particularly popular in North
America throughout the 1940s and 1950s. However, competing views also existed and
some researchers studying families turned to the earlier work of Friedrich Engels, who
provided a very different explanation and approach to the study of families in Origin of
the Family, Prii>ate Property and the State (1972 [1884]). Engels, with Marx, argued that
a number of distinct phases in human history shape, alter, and constrain human rela­
tions. He explained that the mode of production, or the way we organize economic life—
whether hunting and gathering (foraging) in primitive communism, land-based (agrarian)
feudalism, or modern industry and profit-driven capitalism—affects the way we organize
social life and experience family relations. He claimed that in a period of primitive com­
munism, characterized by a foraging/nomadic existence, the notion of private ownership
was absent and there was relative equality between the sexes. Then, with land-based
feudalism came a reorganization and privatization of family life and a change in power
relations between the sexes. With the advent of the notion of private ownership and male
control of land and other property, women lost power and control both within and outside
of families. Ideally, for Marxists, the social goal is to abolish private property, re-establish
communism, and return to more equitable relations between the sexes. Thus, unlike
functionalists, for Marxists, gender differences in power and status, and the domination
of men over women, within and outside families, is neither natural nor inevitable but
rather is a product of the (re)organization of economic life. This approach, again unlike
functionalism, implies that social change is a normal, and at times desirable, part of social
life. For family researchers who embrace a Marxist approach, a likely goal would be to
identify power relations within the home and connect them to inequities in economic
relations outside it.

Symbolic Interactionism
While Marxists looked outside of families to economic forms and relationships in order to
understand what was happening within them, others have looked instead within families
at social relations and interactions. That is, while Marxists saw economic forces acting
on individuals and families, others, like George Herbert Mead, assumed that individuals
18 PART I Conceptualizing Families, Past and Present

were active agents or “doers” of social life. In other words, if you want to understand social
life in general and family life in particular, you should examine how individuals construct
meaning through their daily interactions with others. For example, according to Mead,
understanding family involves understanding parent-child relations and 'the relationship
between the sexes” (Mead 1967 [1934]:238). Exchanges or interactions between them
lead to the organization of the family and society. That is, he explained that all such
larger units or forms of human social organization as the clan or the slate are ultimately
based upon, and whether directly or indirectly arc developments from or extensions of.
the family” (Mead 1967 [1934]:229). Therefore, in contrast to Marxism, this approach
implies that the individuals and interactions within families shape the organization ol
family life, which in turn helps shape larger organizations like the state. Thus. research
ers using this theoretical approach, would likely conduct in-depth, qualitative interviews
with family members and/or observe individuals and interactions within families as they
happen. At the same time, a researcher would seek to uncover the rich and complex
underlying meanings of interactions and relations, often from the point of view of the
individuals involved in the exchanges.

Exchange Theory
Social exchange theory is a broad theoretical framework used to examine relational pro­
cesses within families. It borrows from psychology, sociology, and economics, as it seeks
to explain the development, maintenance (including the maintenance of power differ­
ences), and decay of “exchange relationships" (Nakonezny and Denton 2008). It focuses
on understanding the balance between the costs and rewards that marital partners obtain
when choosing to be and remain within a conjugal relationship. In this approach, marital
exchange relationships are conceptualized as transactions between partners for valued
resources—including love and affection—which culminate in individual or family-level
profit or losses. The theory maintains that partners seek positive outcomes based on
rewards and costs, but each partner must value the other’s activities for relational soli­
darity to be sustained. It purports that couples who receive favourable reward/cost out­
comes from each other—where the distribution of rewards and costs is perceived to be
fair (enough)—are more likely to develop solidarity and be more satisfied with their mar­
riage (Homans 1974). These are then the families that are most likely to remain together.
Each partner’s satisfaction with the relationship is assumed to correlate directly with
the perceived rewards of the marital relationship and inversely with the perceived costs
(Nakonezny and Denton 2008).
A major risk factor for a relationship’s stability is at least one partner’s low level
of satisfaction with the distribution of costs and benefits. But satisfaction alone is not
enough. The theory goes on to explain that the rewards and punishments that individual
actors “administer to each other is a key source of marital power (Nakonezny and Denton
2008). The balance of power generally belongs to that partner who contributes the greater
resources to the marriage. Inevitably then “resource differentials” produce “relationship
asymmetry, which can then result in exploitation in the marital relationship (Blau 1964).
While interesting and seemingly logical, because of its emphasis on micro-level exchan­
ges and their outcomes, this theoretical approach tends to overlook the broader social and
cultural contexts that shape, constrain, and alter family life.
 1 I Albanese: introduction to Diversity in Canada's Families 19

Family Systems Theory

Influenced by symbolic interactionism, family systems theory assumes that a family is a
relatively closed system of social interactions, or a site of interacting personalities. Accord­
ing to this theory, which happens to be especially popular among family therapists and
social workers, an individual’s problems and behaviour are best understood in the context
of families because it is believed that the locus of pathology is not within the person but
in a system dysfunction. In other words, the family is more than a collection of individuals
or interactions, it is a natural social system, “with its own rules, roles, communication
patterns, and power structure” (Ingoldsby et al. 2004:168).
Urie Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory of human development uses a systems
approach to understanding family life by looking at how the home environment, or micro­
system, affects child development. Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model, however, explains
child development as a multi-level interactive process, requiring multi-level analysis of a
number of interconnected systems. His bioecological paradigm stresses the importance of
reciprocal interactions between individuals and their micro- (family environment), meso-
(e.g., school), exo- (institutions beyond a child’s immediate environment, like a parent's
workplace), and macro systems (customs, values, and laws of the culture in which we
live) on developmental and socio-emotional outcomes (Bronfenbrenner 1977). Bronfen-
brenner argued that a child's immediate family environment, larger social environment,
other systems, and institutions shape development. All of these interacting systems, taken
together, provided an understanding of child development.
Doing research from this theoretical perspective would require the researcher to
study interactions at multiple levels, modelled like a series of circles, one inside the other.
A researcher may first study a child’s interactions within the home, the first and smallest
circle; then the child’s interactions at school, the next and slightly larger circle; then the
child’s neighbourhood, the next and larger circle, etc. The aim would be to try to under­
stand how the child is affected by and affects relations within each environment or circle.

Developmental Theories
In the 1940s, some family researchers noted that, like individuals, families were influ­
enced by developmental processes, or experienced life cycles, with clearly delineated
stages (Ingoldsby et al. 2004). In a report created for the “First National Conference
on the Family” established by US president Truman, Duvall and Hill (1948) outlined
a relatively new and interdisciplinary approach to the study of families. Evelyn Millis
Duvall, a specialist in human development, teamed up with Reuben Hill, a family soci­
ologist, to create the family development theory. Using Freud’s work on psychosexual
development, Erikson’s research on psychosocial development, Piaget’s theories on cog­
nitive development, and Kohlberg’s ideas on moral development, along with demographic
and longitudinal research on families, Duvall and Hill argued that families go through a
series of eight sequential or developmental stages in the family life cycle (Duvall and Hill
1988). At each life stage—marriage, child-bearing, preschool, school, teen, launching
centre, middle-aged, and aging—family members, depending on their physical matura­
tion, are challenged by different developmental tasks and normative events, which can, at
times, result in stress, crises, and critical transitions.
20 PART I Conceptualizing Families, Past and Present

Duvall noted that “although the timing and duration of family life cycle stages vary
widely, families everywhere try to conform to norms present in all societies in what is
expected at each life cycle’s stage" (Duvall 1988:130). She explained that the family
development theory was unique among theoretical frameworks because:

(a) its family life cycle dimension provides the basis for study of families over time.
(b) of its emphasis on the developmental tasks of individual family members and ol fam­
ilies at every stage of their development,
(c) of its built-in recognition of family stress at critical periods in development .
(d) of its recognition ever since 1947 of the need for services, supports, and programs lor
families throughout their life cycles. (Duvall 1988:133)

More recent research (Cooke and Gazso 2009) using a life-course approach has
attempted to capture life-course complexity and gender-specific experiences and trajec­
tories, which were somewhat lacking in the original approach (see Kruger and I .evy 2001).

Biases in Traditional Approaches/Theorizing

Within many of the family theories popular throughout the first half of the twentieth cen­
tury, the family was conceptualized as an important but relatively isolated unit whose
internal structures resulted mainly from negotiated action of adult members" (Kruger and
Levy 2001:149). Most of these theories tended to treat all or most families as homogeneous,
and questions about gender differences affecting experiences within families, and inequal­
ity, generally remained unasked and unanswered. Writing about this, Eichler (1997) noted
that, in fact, a great deal of theorizing about families in the past contained a number of
hidden assumptions and biases. She identified seven biases in past family literature and
theorizing: monolithic, conservative, sexist, ageist, micro-structural, racist, and hetero­
sexist. Thus, theories tended to treat family as a monolithic structure by emphasizing uni­
formity of experience and universality of functions—monolithic bias. In other words, they
tended to under-represent the diversity of family forms that actually existed in any given
society. She identified a conservative bias, where theorists tended to provide only a roman­
ticized view of the nuclear family and regarded recent changes as ephemeral. A sexist bias
was manifested in a number of ways, including the assumption that there is a "natural
division of functions between the sexes. Theorists also almost exclusively talked about fam­
ilies as involving exchanges between two middle-aged adults, largely excluding children and
the elderly in their analysis, producing an ageist bias. She identified a microstructural bias,
a tendency to treat families as encapsulated units, typically ignoring extraneous/external
factors. Theories also often devalued or outright ignored families of culturally or ethnically
non-dominant groups—racist bias—and treated the heterosexual family as “natural,” deny­
ing family status to lesbian and gay families—heterosexist bias. A large number of these
biases have since been addressed by feminist theorizing on families.

The "Big Bang"—Feminist Theories

Feminism is not a new paradigm, and in fact has existed for as long as, if not longer
than, sociology itself (for example, see Mary Wollstonecraft, 1759-1797). But what was
 1 I Albanese: introduction to Diversity in Canada's Families 21

novel was the force with which feminism was able to challenge existing family theories in
the period following the 1960s—a period that David Cheal (1991) called “the big bang.”
Since then, feminist scholarship and feminist questions have charted a different course
lor theorizing families. Feminism “is not only an academic school of thought, it is also
a broad movement for change" (Cheal 1991:9). Feminism took what, for
For more on feminist
a long lime, had been considered intimate or private matters—sexuality, theories, see "Definitions
violence, child-rearing and care, domestic division of labour, etc.—and of Domestic Violence" in
made them public, social, and political issues. Issues not only worthy of Chapter 14, pp. 294-6.
study, but in need of change.
Feminist theorizing on families generally challenges the apparently gender-neutral
assumptions about family life and roles—often found in other family theories—that mask
or ignore inequalities and result in negative outcomes for women. Feminists typically seek
to determine who does what, for whom, and with what consequences, often assessing the
differential distribution of activities, resources, and power (see Saul 2003). Additionally,
feminists believe that gender relations in the home and in other institutions are neither
natural nor immutable, but rather historical and socio-cultural products, subject to re­
construction (Elliot and Mandel 1998). Typically, feminists subject marriage and family
to a series of profound and critical questions, challenge myths about women’s roles and
abilities, and advocate for change.
Having said this, there is considerable variation within feminism, as feminists them­
selves depart from or have developed in response to different intellectual traditions, for
example, Marxism, symbolic interactionism, phenomenology, and psychoanalysis. These
traditional approaches were “sooner or later all reflected in feminist analysis of family
life, and they were in turn transformed by it" (Cheal 1991:2). As a result, within femin­
ism there are liberal feminists, Marxist feminists, radical feminists, socialist feminists,
psychoanalytic feminists, post-structural feminists, post-colonial feminists, anti-racist
feminists, etc. Each focuses on a somewhat different aspect of inequality, often iden­
tifying a different source of the problem or problems, and therefore proposing differ­
ent solutions. The authors of the chapters that follow reflect some of this diversity. One
prominent Canadian example of feminist theorizing on families, discussed in this book,
focuses on the notion of social reproduction (see Bezanson, Doucet, and Albanese
2015; Luxton 2015). This approach draws on Marxist and socialist feminism to shed light
on power and household relations in capitalist economies like ours.
Gazso (2009) points out that for many feminist scholars the theoretical framework of
social reproduction offers a sharp focus on both micro-level relations and activities that
make up families, and the broader social processes that constrain them. This theoretical
approach begins by pointing out that while men’s paid work in the public sphere has been
historically viewed as productive and socially valuable, the unpaid work so often carried
out by women, which meets the care and economic needs to maintain life on a daily basis
and contributes to the reproduction of labour in capitalist societies, has for the most part
been undervalued and ignored (Bezanson 2006b; Bezanson and Luxton 2006; Fox 2015;
Fox and Luxton 2001; Gazso 2009; Luxton 2001).
Researchers embracing this theoretical approach focus their attention on women’s care
behaviours and relations and work to highlight how women socially reproduce daily life for
family members, making it possible to, among other things, allow men to engage in paid
work (Fox and Luxton 2001; Luxton 2015). Gazso (2009) notes that social reproduction
22 PART I Conceptualizing Families, Past and Present

includes various kinds of work—mental, manual, and emotional—aimed at providing the

socially variable care necessary to maintain life and to reproduce the next generation This
theoretical approach, while keenly in tune with the resistance and agenev of women from
various racialized groups and class backgrounds, has been critiqued for not having done
enough to analyze and recognize the experiences of those growing up in LGBTQ families.
Queer theory has provided some additional stimulus in rethinking family theories,
because most feminist approaches, as noted above, have been criticized for failing to pro­
vide an adequate analysis of lesbian and gay family experiences. For example, while fem­
inists have done important work on family violence and on the subordination of women of
different "races,” classes, and of other diverse backgrounds, most have failed to note that
for lesbian families, “it is not their powerlessness within the familv that marks their sub­
ordination, but rather their denial of access to a legitimate and sociallv instituted sphere
of family, marriage, and parenting" (Calhoun 2000:139). This more critical theorizing
and activism has resulted in legal and altitudinal changes, yet much remains to be done.

Conclusion
Today, as in the past. Canadian families exist in a number of diverse forms, which, in rela­
tion to other social institutions, both aid and constrain individual family members. That is.
while a variety of family forms have existed in the past, our changing definitions of family
are now making it possible for us to identify, count, and validate a variety of diverse forms.
At the same time, our current definitions, theories, and measurement tools are likely to
miss or mask a number of family forms that actually exist but remain unrecognized and
uncounted, and these family forms may become part of future definitions of family.
Our current and shifting definitions reflect changing social attitudes, economic trends,
laws, and policies. At the same time, changing economic trends and social attitudes have
changed the age of first marriage; the duration of a marriage; whether marriage occurs at
all; family size; the sequence and spacing of life-cycle events; where families live, whether
they live together or apart, or across households and/or borders; and how they live.
With changing definitions and trends there have been shifts in how family theorists and
researchers study and try to understand family life. Some are critical of change, while others
actively seek it. Some look within families to understand them, some look outside them, and
still others look at a variety of contexts. Some take a qualitative and descriptive approach,
some a quantitative one, and others use both. The chapters that follow will reflect some of
this diversity in approaches, as they map out and critically assess some of the trends and
changes that are part of the complex collage that makes up Canadian family life.

Study Questions
1. Create a collage of photos of people who you currently see as making up your family. Would
all of them be considered part of your family by Statistics Canada's definition of family? How is
your definition similar? How is it different?
 1 I Albanese: introduction to Diversity in Canada's Families 23

2. If you were asked to develop the official definition of family for this country, what would
it be?
3. What do you see as the next type of family that the Canadian Census will begin to count in
the near future? Why? Has it always existed? Why do you think we have failed to include it
thus far?
4. Why do you think Canadians are postponing marriage and childbirth? What do you think is an
ideal age (if any) to marry? To have children? Why?
5. If you wanted to study the domestic division of labour within families, how would you study it?
Which theoretical orientation would best suit/guide your approach?

Further Readings
Allen, K., and A. Jaramillo-Sierra. 2015. "Feminist Theory and Research on Family Relationships:
Pluralism and Complexity." Sex Roles 73(3-4): 93-9. This article acts as the introduction for a
special series of three consecutive issues of the journal Sex Roles, committed to showcasing
feminist approaches to the study of families. It launches a collection of theoretical and empirical
articles that include critical analyses, case studies, quantitative studies, and qualitative studies
that focus on a wide array of substantive topics in the examination of families.
Bezanson, Kate, Andrea Doucet, and Patrizia Albanese. 2015. "Introduction: Critical Feminist
Sociologies of Families, Work, and Care." Canadian Review of Sociology 52(2): 201-3. This is
a brief introduction to a collection of articles in the Canadian Review of Sociology, committed
to showcasing the strong history of feminist approaches to critical sociologies of families,
work, and care. The collection draws together an esteemed set of Canadian voices that have
made foundational contributions to feminist and critical family sociologies: Ann Duffy, Margrit
Eichler, Bonnie Fox, and Meg Luxton.
Eichler, Margrit. 1997. Family Shifts: Families, Policies, and Gender Equality. Toronto: Oxford Uni­
versity Press. This classic text has proven to be a major contribution to the study of Canadian
families because it both traces shifts in Canadian family composition and gender roles, and
identifies important theoretical and policy implications.
Harrison, Deborah, and Patrizia Albanese. 2016. Growing Up inArmyville: Canada's Military Families
during the Afghanistan Mission. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Based on a survey
of all youth attending a high school on a Canadian military base and on in-depth interviews
with 61 youth from Canadian Armed Forces families, this book assesses the human costs to
CAF families resulting from their enforced participation in the volatile overseas missions of the
twenty-first century.
Trovato, Frank. 2012. Population and Society: Essential Readings. Toronto: Oxford University Press.
This text examines, among other things, the relationship between individual action and demo­
graphic phenomena including family processes like fertility, marriage, and migration.
Widmer, Eric. 2010. Family Configurations: A Structural Approach to Family Diversity. Burlington,
VT: Ashgate. This book takes a "configurational approach" to understanding families, which
focuses on the complexities and richness of familial relationships and interdependencies within
families.
24 PART I Conceptualizing Families, Past and Present

Key Terms
Bi-nuclear family A family consisting of children and their parents who live in two households,
usually following a divorce.
Case studies/case study research A qualitative method of inquiry that investigates a contempor­
ary phenomenon within its real-life context; it helps provide in-depth or detailed contextual
analysis of a limited number of events or relationships.
Child launch Refers to one of the "early adult transitions,” the point at which children leave their
parental home. This has been increasingly delayed over the past decade or so, resulting in
"cluttered" or "crowded" nests rather than the "empty nests” of the past.
Extended family Takes in both the household and the wider family circle, including km such as
cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. A combination of these family members may share a
household, but the extended family does not necessarily reside together
Household A group of people who occupy the same dwelling or housing unit.
Longitudinal studies/research A study that shows changes over time, usually by tracking a par­
ticular group of people or by taking snapshots of different groups at different points m time.
Nuclear family A family that consists of parent(s) and child(ren); also known as the conjugal family
unit, this family type includes at most a mother, father, and their dependent children.
Qualitative studies/research A non-numeric analysis of data intended to discover underlying
meaning and explore relationships.
Quantitative studies/research A set of statistical analyses intended to discover patterns and
trends in data, and causal relationships between variables.
Social reproduction A term taken up by Marxist and socialist feminists to refer to the paid
and unpaid processes of reproduction and maintenance of human life that are most often
performed by women. This includes activities, emotions, and responsibilities that maintain
relationships.
Transgender Individuals who have a gender identity, or gender expression, that differs from their
assigned sex.
Transnational, multi-local/satellite family A family that finds itself (temporarily) separated and
living across borders, in multiple locations.

Notes
1. The Civil Marriage Act (Bill C-38), adopted on July 20, 2005, made Canada the third country in
the world after the Netherlands (2000) and Belgium (2003) to legalize same-sex marriage.

www^ Interested in finding out more? Visit www.oupcanada.com/Albanese4e for

access to a list of recommended websites for this chapter.
Canada's Families
Historical and Contemporary Variations
CYNTHIA COMACCHIO

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
• To review the major changes and continuities in the history of Canadian families over
the past two centuries
• To discuss how the patriarchal family reinforces hierarchies of class, "race," gender,
and age
• To reflect on "the family" as a social construction deriving from the dominant social
group's anxieties and objectives at particular historical moments
• To understand that families have always varied in form and composition, despite the
force of prevailing ideas about what properly constitutes "the family"

Introduction
Most people throughout history have spent at least some part of their lives in a family or a
family setting. Despite common reference to “the family” as though one model and experi­
ence are universal across time and place, Canadian families have always been diverse in
form and composition. Other chapters in this text will detail how twenty-first century fam­
ilies represent such recent trends as later first marriages and child-bearing; lone-parenting
and childlessness by choice; common-law, same-sex, and mixed unions; multiple divorces,
remarriages, and family reconstitutions. But some of the characteristics that we associate
with contemporary families, such as lone-parent, blended, or multi-generational house­
holds, have long existed in both settler and Indigenous communities.
The history of the family was one of the earliest offshoots of the “new social
history” that emerged in universities during the turbulent 1960s. Given the historic
identification of the family as the basis of an orderly society, it is impossible to con­
sider their histories separately. The shared purpose of historians of either camp was
to explore the lives of ordinary people—the majority in any time and place—and to
26 PART I Conceptualizing Families, Past and Present

bring to light the experiences of social groups identified, and frequently marginalized,
by “race,” gender, class, culture, and age. These lived experiences had previously been
rarely mentioned, even ignored, because traditional analyses focused on the tiny per­
centile of those—largely men—who held political and economic power. It is evident,
however, that even in histories about monarchs and prime ministers and church lead­
ers, family backgrounds and family networks figured strongly, because families have
always played a central role in social formation, political and economic systems, and
culture. Family, in short, was an “absent presence" in earlier studies, which family
historians, frequently borrowing conceptually and methodologically from social scien­
tists, have attempted to recover. In doing so, they inevitably touch upon the dilTerences
that have always existed, and that remain, between what family means and what family
is (Comacchio 2000:177-8).
In keeping with the focus of this collection on Canadian families in their plural­
istic contemporary forms, this chapter emphasizes the simple fact that there arc many
forms and meanings of family in any historical moment. The constant, however, is that
no matter what we take to signify “family." families have always been, and remain, im­
portant to our individual, social, and national identities. Even as they change over time,
as the historical and sociological literature indicates, families persist. They are elemental
to self-formation as well as to social formation. Just as family is central to sell-identity,
class, gender, region, “race,” ethnicity, religion, and age are fundamental to experiences of
family, past and present.

Families as Historical Actors

Even within the broad range of family experiences that has been documented lor the
past several centuries, additional variations are found in communities distinguished by
“race” and culture: First Nations families, M6tis, and Inuit families; francophone Cath­
olic families in Quebec; and immigrant families of diverse religious backgrounds from
all parts of the globe. Families adapt to, and also initiate, larger demographic, economic,
cultural, and political trends. They are historical actors and not merely passive recipi­
ents of changing ideas and practices. Moreover, the emotional elements of family are as
important to self and society as are the socio-economic and cultural functions. Families
are, and have ever been, at once supportive and restrictive, nurturing and oppressive,
protective and abusive, innovative and conservative, liberating and entrapping. Finally,
it is important to note that while the form and function of real historical families are
adaptive, the symbolic power ascribed to “the family”—a power embedded in culture and
memory—has remarkable endurance. The family as an ideal is socially constructed and
reconstructed to meet the larger social needs and objectives that are defined by the dom­
inant class, and upheld by the state, in any given time. Until recently, the ideal was the
patriarchal, heterosexual male-breadwinner family of white Euro-Canadian middle-class
background. This particular social construction of family retains many adherents, even
while many contemporary Canadians do not live in families resembling that model. Not­
withstanding the public force of the ideal, as well as nostalgia for some “golden age” of the
family, many Canadians never have.
 2 | comacchio: Canada's Families 27

BOX 2.1
Family Sociology in Canada
The Canadian Conference on the Family, convened by Governor General Georges Vanier in
1964, led to the founding of The Vanier Institute of the Family, which continues to be an
important agency for family research and policy. University of Montreal sociologist Frederick
Elkin (1918-2011) was charged with preparing the nation's first "state of the art" family
survey, published as The Family in Canada: An Account of Present Knowledge and Gaps in
Knowledge about Canadian Families (1964). Elkin observed that the nation's history, geog­
raphy, and social structure made it "much too heterogeneous" to have "one or ten or twenty
distinctive family types" (Elkin 1964:31-2).
Change is a key concept for any family analyst. The family, with its crucial functions,
does not expire, it changes. In varying ways, it adapts and bends and of course, in turn, it
influences. (Elkin 1964:8)

The historic centrality of families derives from their vital social functions: repro­
duction, production, socialization, maintenance, and regulation. Indigenous families in
pre-contact times were the basis of all economic, political, and spiritual organization,
in varying ways for different peoples and regions, but always functioning collectively to
sustain their members and the larger community. The Europeans who arrived in the
seventeenth century shared this understanding of family function. The North American
colonies were focused on trade with their European mother countries. This economic
purpose, as well as the colonists’ own need to sustain themselves through agriculture,
meant that the familial duties of production and reproduction were also transplanted.
The colonization process necessitated certain adaptations to “New World” conditions.
Nineteenth-century family theorists contended that the stem family or extended
family, forms that characterized traditional agrarian communities in Europe, were im­
ported intact to the New World. The abundance of cheap land in North America, how­
ever, meant that the nuclear family form was not the outcome of industrialization as
theorized, but actually preceded the growth of the factory system. In the sparsely settled
and isolated colonies, the absence of any effective regulatory or policing agency made the
family’s role as social monitor, alongside the Church and the courts, even more important
than in Europe (Dechene 1992:238—9).
The vital economic role of families as units of production, the importance of land
ownership to family fortunes, and the mutual reliance of family members across genera­
tions, characterized colonial family life as much as that of the mother countries. A11 family
members were expected to work in some capacity, according to age and gender, from
childhood until they “came into their own.” Adulthood was signified by early marriage
and family formation, usually in separate households, although often on land allotted to
sons who had worked for their families without wages since childhood. In this setting,
the best possible outcome for the family as a whole required that each member sacrifice
self-interest for the good of all. These expectations were embedded in the meanings of
I
28 PART I Conceptualizing Families, Past and Present

family, and reinforced by Church and law. Women were expected Lo get pregnant shortly
after marrying, and could look forward to new babies at regular two- or three-year inter­
vals until at least their mid-forties. Families with a dozen children, ranging Irom in­
fancy to young adulthood, were not the average experience but were certainly not unusual
(Errington 1995:25—6). Childlessness was considered a tragedy and an economic hard­
ship. Adoption, often within family and kin circles, and often without the death of both
parents, was commonplace (Strong-Boag 2006, 2011). In a society without social welfare
networks, survival depended on family. Few could manage without family ties.
By mid-nineteenth century, the British North American colonics were undergoing
a profound structural transformation that would greatly affect their resident families.
Stemming from these fundamental economic and demographic changes were political
concerns that led to Confederation of the Dominion of Canada in 1867. Production
moved out of the artisanal workshop, usually in the home, lo ever-larger "manufactor­
ies.” Work and domestic life were increasingly separated. Within the urban middle class,
anglophone and francophone, Protestant and Catholic, family life became less con­
cerned with economic subsistence, and more with maintaining certain living standards
in the interests of “respectability." This model of family life was further encouraged
by a “cult of domesticity,” inspired by Queen Victoria and her growing family, which
emphasized separate spheres for men and women. While retaining their traditional
patriarchal authority, men belonged to the public sphere of wage labour, business, and
politics. Women, newly glorified in their traditional domestic roles, were expected to
use their “innate” care-giving skills to make home and family a “haven in a heartless
world." More than ever before, mothers were uniquely responsible for children's up­
bringing in this haven, protected from the external threats posed by the new industrial
order (Errington 1995:53).
Because the processes are so entwined, there is no simple way to chart the rela­
tionship of structural and familial change through time. What we can identify is the
transformative impact of the modernization process. Modernization was augmented
and accelerated by such transportation and communication advances as canals, railways,
and telegraph lines, all of which facilitated the vision of a nation “from sea unto sea’
that was realized by the first decade of the twentieth century. In central Canada, the
industrialization and urbanization in cities were both further intensified by out-migration
from rural areas, where inexpensive land was increasingly scarce, making it difficult to
sustain the familial custom of outfitting adult sons with land to settle their own families
(Baskerville and Sager 2007).
Unprecedented waves of immigration from Europe also spurred the process. Fre­
quently utilizing the familial practice of chain migration, some three million newcom­
ers arrived in Canada between 1896 and 1914. In the decade between the Dominion
Census of 1901 and that of 1911, the population grew by 43 per cent, the “foreign-born”
then accounting for 22 per cent of all Canadians. Many newcomers were intent on re­
settling families, kin, and even entire villages, complete with their social institutions, on
the prairies. Enticed by the promise of free land, opportunity, and religious tolerance,
these families were critical to the vision of a prosperous modern Canada. Others, espe­
cially male migrant workers, joined the expanding urban proletariat to make money for
their families overseas, perhaps to bring them to Canada after establishing themselves
(Knowles 1997:123-4).
 2 I Comacchio: Canada's Families 29

Modernization also saw such traditional family functions as educating children and
caring for the sick and the elderly gradually transferred out of the household to public
institutions, usually funded by churches or charity, and eventually taken over by the state.
The first transfer of functions to the state was schooling. Beginning with Ontario in
1871, most provinces enacted compulsory schooling legislation that specified the ages of
attendance, generally from age 7 to age 14, as well as the number of days per year that
children would be in the classroom. Because needy families could not aspire to a child­
hood in which school rather than work was the common experience, many children were
obliged to keep earning. As a result, during this early stage of public schooling the usual
pattern was an erratic school attendance with occasional “time out” to earn wages, help
at home, or work on family farms (Sutherland 2000:159—60). The “factory laws” enacted
to protect women and children in most provinces at this time reinforced the middle-class
male breadwinner family ideal. However well-intentioned, their effect was to take away
jobs from women and children for whom personal and family need allowed few options
other than wage-earning, whatever the pay and conditions. In the absence of social sup­
port networks, the family’s material situation, not the law, determined who had to work
(Sutherland 2000:24-5; Ursel 1992:97-9).
There is much historical evidence to indicate that working-class families were bear­
ing the brunt of exploitation and deprivation in the midst of these rapid socio-economic
changes. In 1900, infant, child, and maternal mortality, orphanhood, and early widow­
hood disrupted between 35 and 40 per cent of all Canadian families. Rough estimates
suggest that as many as one in five babies lost their lives before their first birthdays. The
children of the poor were particularly vulnerable to impure water and milk, contagion fos­
tered by crowded living conditions, and the expense of medical care. For women of child­
bearing age, maternal mortality was the second-ranked threat to life (Comacchio 1993).
As the twentieth century opened, an organized response to the dislocations
brought about by modernizing forces was taking form in the urban-based, Protestant,
middle-class reform movement known as the Social Gospel. Its many
campaigns were inspired by the traditional Christian commitment to For more on the notion
of the male breadwinner
help the needy, but also by mounting middle-class anxieties about slums, and the "male model of
public health threats, alcoholism, infant mortality, prostitution, “racial employment," see "Paid
degeneration,” and other horrors, real and imagined, that modernization work" in Chapter 9,
seemed to have unleashed (Allen 1971; Valverde 1991). Among the move- PP- 184-5
ment’s members was a growing contingent of women who contended that
their “innate” maternal capacity qualified them to conduct the necessary “clean up,”
material and moral, that the situation demanded. They used such maternal feminist
arguments to pressure governments to address the problems of poor families, especially
those affecting children.
Structural changes, legislation, and new ideas about “the family” effectively re­
classified women and children as the non-working dependents of male providers. Work
came to be considered exclusively in terms of the wage labour of men functioning
as the primary supporters of families. Because this was far from attainable for many
families, much work, productive and reproductive, waged and unwaged, remained in
the home.
Many women and children continued to contribute to family sustenance, often in
ways that were neither paid nor enumerated. On farms, they worked many hours in
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 Leaves folded upward, ovate or long-oval, peach-like, one and seven-
eighths inches across, five inches long, thin; upper surface smooth and
glossy, with a grooved midrib; lower surface sparingly pubescent; apex
acuminate, base abrupt, margin unevenly serrate, glandular; petiole one
inch long, slender, pubescent along one side, with a tinge of red, with from
one to five very small, globose, brownish glands usually on the stalk.
Blooming season late and long; flowers appearing after the leaves,
thirteen-sixteenths inch across, white, with disagreeable odor; borne in
clusters on lateral buds and spurs, in threes, fours or fives; pedicels
fifteen-sixteenths inch long, very slender, glabrous, green; calyx-tube
greenish, narrowly campanulate, glabrous; calyx-lobes narrow, acute,
erect, lightly pubescent within, serrate and with dark-colored glands;
petals ovate or oval, irregularly crenate, tapering into long, narrow claws
with hairy margins; anthers yellowish; filaments three-eighths inch long;
pistil glabrous, shorter than the stamens.
Fruit very late, season long; one and one-eighth inches by one inch in
size, roundish-ovate narrowing somewhat toward the stem, conical,
slightly compressed, halves equal; cavity medium to deep, narrow, abrupt;
suture usually very shallow and wide, often a distinct line; apex pointed;
color dark currant-red, with inconspicuous, thin bloom; dots numerous,
small to medium, conspicuous, densely clustered about the apex; stem
very slender, five-eighths inch long, glabrous, not adhering to the fruit; skin
thick, tough, clinging but slightly; flesh attractive light yellow; moderately
juicy, coarse, fibrous, rather tender, mildly sweet next the skin but
astringent towards the pit; fair to good; stone clinging, five-eighths inch by
three-eighths inch in size, long-oval, somewhat elongated at the base and
apex, turgid, with rough and pitted surfaces; ventral suture wide, blunt,
faintly ridged; dorsal suture acute, with a narrow, indistinct groove.

WEAVER
Prunus americana

1. Mich. Pom. Soc. Rpt. 267. 1874. 2. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 44. 1883. 3.
Mich. Hort. Soc. Rpt. 268. 1885. 4. Minn. Sta. Bul. 5:36, 37 fig. 1889. 5.
Cornell Sta. Bul. 38:45, 86. 1892. 6. Can. Hort. 16:409, Pl. 1893. 7. Mich.
Sta. Bul. 123:21. 1895. 8. Wis. Sta. Bul. 63:24, 62. 1897. 9. Colo. Sta. Bul.
50:46. 1898. 10. Ia. Sta. Bul. 46:291. 1900. 11. Waugh Plum Cult. 166 fig.
1901. 12. Budd-Hansen Am. Hort. Man. 302. 1903. 13. Can. Exp. Farm
 Bul. 43:32. 1903. 14. Ga. Sta. Bul. 67:283. 1904. 15. S. Dak. Sta. Bul.
93:41. 1905.

Weaver is an old and well-known Americana, once one of the

most popular of its species because of its hardiness and
productiveness. It is still listed by many nurserymen and is widely
distributed throughout the country but it is now rapidly passing out of
cultivation, being superseded by sorts producing larger and better
colored fruits.
This variety was found growing wild on the Cedar River, in Iowa,
by a Mr. Weaver. In 1873, Ennis and Patten, Charles City, Iowa,
began its sale to fruit-growers. The American Pomological Society
placed the Weaver on its fruit catalog list in 1883, dropped it in 1891,
and replaced it in 1897. The following description is partly compiled.

Tree large, vigorous, well formed, upright-spreading, unusually hardy,

productive; branches long, slender; branchlets slender, long, with short
internodes, reddish-brown, glabrous, with numerous, conspicuous
lenticels of medium size; leaf-buds small, conical, of average length.
Leaves falling late, four and one-half inches long, two and one-half
inches wide, obovate or oval, firm, thick, leathery; upper surface dark
green, slightly roughened, glabrous, with narrow midrib; lower surface pale
green, pubescent on the midrib and larger veins; apex acuminate, base
somewhat acute, margin deeply and coarsely serrate; petiole five-eighths
inch long, stout, reddish, slightly pubescent along one side, usually with
two large, globose, reddish-brown glands on the stem.
Flowers large, prominently stalked; calyx-lobes conspicuously glandular,
lightly pubescent within.
Fruit mid-season or later; one inch by three-quarters inch in size, large
for a native, oval or roundish-oblong, compressed, halves unequal; cavity
medium to shallow, narrow, rather abrupt; suture shallow, distinct; apex
roundish or depressed; color not uniform, yellowish overlaid with purplish-
red, mottled, covered with thin bloom; dots numerous, small, often
purplish, inconspicuous; skin thick, very tough, astringent, adhering to the
pulp; flesh deep yellow, juicy, firm and meaty, sweet, mild; fair to good;
stone variable in adhesion, three-quarters inch by three-eighths inch in
size, long and narrow, somewhat oval, flattened, obscurely pointed at the
base and apex, smooth.
WHITE BULLACE

WHITE BULLACE

Prunus insititia
 1. Parkinson Par. Ter. 576. 1629. 2. Abercrombie Gard. Ass’t 13. 1786.
3. Forsyth Fr. Trees Am. 21. 1803. 4. Lond. Hort. Soc. Cat. 344. 1831. 5.
Prince Pom. Man. 2:105. 1832. 6. Floy-Lindley Guide Orch. Gard. 300,
383. 1846. 7. Hogg Fruit Man. 385. 1866. 8. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 952.
1869. 9. Thompson Gard. Ass’t 4:160, 161 fig. 960. 1901. 10. Can. Exp.
Farms Rpt. 481. 1904.
Bullace 5. Bullace 7. White Bulleis 1.

The origin of this old sort is unknown. It was cultivated more than
three hundred years ago for Parkinson described it as common in his
time. He says of it “The White and the blacke Bulleis are common in
most Countries, being small round, lesser than Damsons, sharper in
taste, and later ripe.” It is probably one of the first of the cultivated
plums. White Bullace is illustrated and described in full in The Plums
of New York chiefly as a means of comparison between the plums of
three centuries ago and those of the present. It has little value now
for any purpose, though the Europeans still grow it rather commonly
and from seeds, cions or suckers as convenience may dictate.

Tree of medium size and vigor, upright-spreading, dense-topped, hardy,

unproductive; branches ash-gray, nearly smooth, with numerous, small,
inconspicuous lenticels; branchlets thick, above medium in length, with
short internodes, greenish-red changing to dark brownish-red, dull, with
thick pubescence throughout the season, with few, small lenticels; leaf-
buds small, short, stubby, obtuse, strongly appressed.
Leaves flattened, obovate, one and five-eighths inches wide, two and
three-eighths inches long, thick; upper surface dark green, rugose, with
few hairs along the narrow, grooved midrib; lower surface silvery green,
pubescent; apex abruptly pointed or acute, base acute, margin doubly
serrate, eglandular; petiole one-half inch long, green, pubescent,
glandless or with one or two small, globose, greenish-yellow glands
variable in position.
Blooming season medium to late, of average length; flowers appearing
after the leaves, three-quarters inch across, white, scattered on lateral
spurs; usually borne singly; pedicels one-quarter inch long, thick, densely
covered with short hairs, green; calyx-tube reddish-green, campanulate,
glabrous; calyx-lobes acute, lightly pubescent on both surfaces, glandular-
serrate, reflexed; petals obovate, entire, with short, broad claws; anthers
 yellow with red tinge; filaments five-sixteenths inch long; pistil glabrous,
nearly equal to the stamens in length.
Fruit late, ripening season of medium length; about one inch in
diameter, roundish, compressed, truncate at the base; cavity rather deep
and wide, abrupt; suture a line; apex flattened or depressed; color deep
amber-yellow, sometimes with faint pink blush on the exposed cheek,
overspread with moderately thick bloom; dots numerous, white,
inconspicuous; stem one-half inch long, covered with scant pubescence,
adhering strongly to the fruit; skin thin, astringent, slightly adhering; flesh
deep golden-yellow, juicy, coarse, fibrous, firm, sour; poor in quality; stone
clinging, five-eighths inch by one-half inch in size, ovate, turgid, blunt at
the base, acute at the apex, slightly roughened; ventral suture broad,
blunt, shallowly furrowed; dorsal suture with a wide, shallow groove.

WHITE DAMSON
Prunus insititia

1. Parkinson Par. Ter. 578. 1629. 2. Quintinye Com. Gard. 67, 69. 1699.
3. M’Mahon Am. Gard. Cal. 588. 1806. 4. Coxe Cult. Fr. Trees 238, fig. 15.
1817. 5. Lond. Hort. Soc. Cat. 146. 1831. 6. Prince Pom. Man. 2:88. 1832.
7. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 287. 1845. 8. Floy-Lindley Guide Orch. Gard.
300. 1846. 9. Thomas Am. Fruit Cult. 334. 1849. 10. Elliott Fr. Book 430.
1854. 11. Am. Pom. Soc. Rpt. 190, 214. 1856. 12. Hogg Fruit Man. 385.
1866. 13. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 952. 1869. 14. Waugh Plum Cult. 131.
1901.
Frost Plum 6, 13. Late Cluster 6, 13. Late White Damson 6. Late Yellow
Damson 7, 9, 10, 13. Shailer’s White Damson 7, 10, 12, 13. Shailer’s
White Damson 5. Small Round Damson 5. White Damascene 4. White
Damascene 6, 7, 10, 13. White Damask 2. White Damson 6. White Prune
Damson 7, 8, 10, 13. White Winter Damson 6, 13. White Winter Damson
3. Winter Damson 6. Yellow Damson 9.

This old plum, known since the beginning of the Seventeenth

Century, is chiefly of historic interest. Downing thought this a very
desirable addition to our list of plums but nearly all other pomologists
who have seen the fruit of the variety think it of small importance.
Unfortunately it is not in the collection at this Station and can be
neither recommended nor condemned from first hand knowledge.
This plum was first noted in America by M’Mahon in 1806, and fifty
years later it was added to the American Pomological Society list of
promising varieties. For some reason, perhaps for its color, it has
never become so well known as the purple Damsons. Perhaps from
the division of Prunus insititia made in The Plums of New York, this
variety should be known as a Mirabelle rather than as a Damson.
The following description is a compilation:

Tree vigorous, very productive; branches long, slender. Fruit matures

the last of September, season long; small, oval, pale yellow sprinkled with
reddish-brown dots, covered with thin bloom; flesh yellowish, sprightly,
pleasant flavored; good to very good; stone clinging.

WHITE IMPERATRICE
Prunus domestica

1. Kraft Pom. Aust. 2:33, Tab. 181 fig. 2; 2:44, Tab. 197 fig. 2. 1796. 2.
Duhamel Trait. Arb. Fr. 2:106. 1768. 3. Pom. Mag. 1:38, Pl. 1828. 4.
Prince Pom. Man. 2:61. 1832. 5. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 285. 1845. 6.
Floy-Lindley Guide Orch. Gard. 300, 383. 1846. 7. Poiteau Pom. Franc. 1.
1846. 8. Thomas Am. Fruit Cult. 329. 1849. 9. Hogg Fruit Man. 730. 1884.
10. Mathieu Nom. Pom. 454. 1889.
Die Weisse Kaiserpflaume 3, 4, 6, 10 incor. Die Weisse Kaiserpflaume
1. Die Weisse Kaiserinnpflaume 1. Imperatrice Blanche 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8,
9, 10. The White Imperatrice Plum 3. Prune Imperatrice Blanche 7. White
Imperatrice 3, 10. White Empress 5, 8, 10. Weisse Kaiserpflaume 10.

Kraft in his Pomona Austriaca, 1796, described a Weisse

Kaiserpflaume and a Weisse Kaiserinnpflaume and gave Imperatrice
Blanche as a synonym to both of them. The latter he gave as a
variety of the Weisse Kaiserpflaume but it is probable that they are
the same since no other author noted the distinction, and, in fact, the
differences mentioned are wholly insignificant. According to Downing
this variety was little known in this country in 1845 and it is doubtful if
it is now known at all. It is described as follows:
 Compared with the Saint Catherine, which it resembles, it is found to
differ in that its stone is free and its flavor less high; branches smooth;
leaves smaller and less shining; fruit matures in September; of medium
size, obovate; suture indistinct; cavity narrow; skin yellow, spotted with a
little red; bloom thin; flesh yellow, crisp, juicy, sweet.

WHITE PERDRIGON
Prunus domestica

1. Rea Flora 208. 1676. 2. Langley Pomona 92, 93, Pl. XXIII figs. V &
VI. 1729. 3. Miller Gard. Dict. 3. 1754. 4. Duhamel Trait. Arb. Fr. 2:84, Pl.
VIII. 1768. 5. Kraft Pom. Aust. 2:41, Tab. 193 fig. 1. 1796. 6. Lond. Hort.
Soc. Cat. 151. 1831. 7. Prince Pom. Man. 2:52, 64. 1832. 8. Downing Fr.
Trees Am. 287. 1845. 9. Floy-Lindley Guide Orch. Gard. 298, 301, 383.
1846. 10. Hogg Fruit Man. 386. 1866. 11. Mathieu Nom. Pom. 454. 1889.
Brignolle 11. Brignole 6, 8, 10, 11. Die weisse Duranzen pflaume 5.
Diaprée Blanche 11. Maître Claude 2, 3, 7, 9. Perdrigon blanc 4.
Perdrigon blanc 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. Maître Claude 8, 10, 11. Weisser
Perdrigon 11. Weisse Diaprée 11. Weisses Rebhuhnerei 11. Prune-Pêche
(of some) 11. White Perdrigon 11.

White Perdrigon is an old French variety grown extensively in the

vicinity of Brignoles, France where it is used in the manufacture of
the famous Brignoles Prunes. Because of its use for this purpose, it
has been badly confused with a similar variety, the Brignole, which
derived its name from the town of Brignoles, where it was first grown.
The variety is probably not known in America and might be worth
introducing. It is described as follows:

The White Perdrigon is a mid-season, medium-sized, oval plum,

tapering slightly towards the base; suture shallow; cavity small; stem
slender; skin rather tough, pale yellow, with thin bloom; dots numerous,
small, whitish; flesh greenish-yellow, melting, juicy, sweet, aromatic; good;
stone small, long-oval, free.

WICKSON
 WICKSON

Prunus triflora × Prunus simonii

1. U. S. D. A. Rpt. 263. 1892. 2. Burbank Cat. 21 fig. 1893. 3. Gard. &

For. 7:420. 1894. 4. Cornell Sta. Bul. 106:63. 1896. 5. Cal. State Bd. Hort.
53. 1897-8. 6. Cornell Sta. Bul. 139:46 fig. 120. 1897. 7. Can. Hort. 21:30
 fig. 1272. 1898. 8. Vt. Sta. An. Rpt. 12:229. 1899. 9. Cornell Sta. Bul.
175:148, 149 fig. 38. 1899. 10. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 41. 1899. 11. Kan.
Sta. Bul. 101:125. 1901. 12. Mich. Sta. Bul. 187:77, 80. 1901. 13. Waugh
Plum Cult. 227. 1901. 14. U. S. D. A. Rpt. 387. 1901. 15. Ga. Sta. Bul.
68:13, Pl. IV, 37. 1905. 16. Md. Hort. Soc. Rpt. 85. 1905. 17. Am. Pom.
Soc. Rpt. on Plums etc. 65. 1905.
Eureka 5. Perfection 1, 2. Perfection 4, 14.

It is difficult to estimate the value of Wickson in American

pomology. Probably no plum of recent introduction has been on the
one hand so highly lauded and on the other so condemned as this
one. Its remarkable size, the largest of the Oriental plums if not the
largest of all plums; its handsome color and distinct form; the firm
flesh and peculiar flavor, generally considered pleasant; the narrow
upright tree with its long lanceolate leaves, mark the variety as a new
and for some parts of the country a valuable addition to pomology.
The contradictory evidence as to its desirability arises from the fact
that it can be well grown in comparatively few plum-growing regions,
most of these being on the Pacific Coast and in the South. In New
York, the Wickson has small value other than in private collections.
The variety is a little tender in tree and bud, hardy only in favored
parts of this State and not at all where the peach cannot be grown; it
blooms too early to be safe from frost; it is susceptible to brown-rot;
the trees are late in coming in bearing and are not reliable in fruiting;
the fruits ripen unevenly; and the trees are not of good form for
heavy crops. In California, however, the Wickson is one of the
leading Japanese sorts, possibly the leading one, and is seemingly
growing in favor. Starnes, one of the pomological authorities of the
South, in his bulletin on Japan and Hybrid Plums, speaks of Wickson
as a “grand plum” and as one of the best for Georgia. It is to be
hoped that from the same cross which produced Wickson or from
breeding this variety with some other, a plum of this type well suited
to New York may sometime be offered the plum-growers of this
State.
Wickson is one of the best known of Burbank’s many plums. The
variety was first described in the report of the Secretary of
Agriculture in 1892 under the name Perfection and as a seedling of
Kelsey crossed by Burbank. In 1893 and 1894 Burbank offered for
sale the control and the stock of this variety but found no buyers and
in 1895 introduced it himself. The parentage of the variety is in
doubt. Burbank considered it a Kelsey-Burbank cross; the Pacific
Rural Press described it as offspring of Kelsey and Satsuma; Bailey,
Waugh and the workers at this Station believe it to have Prunus
simonii characters. The foliage, flowers, the tree, the fruiting habit,
the texture of the flesh, all indicate Simon as one of its parents.
According to the report of the Secretary of the California State Board
of Horticulture shipments of this plum were made to New York in the
season of 1897 under the name of Eureka. In 1899 it was placed on
the fruit catalog list of the American Pomological Society.

Tree medium to large, vigorous, with narrow, upright head, dense-

topped, tender to cold, an uncertain bearer; branches medium in
smoothness, the fruit-spurs numerous, dark ash-gray with tinge of brown,
with lenticels of medium size; branchlets thick and long, with short
internodes, greenish-red changing to light chocolate-brown, glossy,
glabrous; lenticels numerous, raised, variable in size; leaf-buds small,
short, obtuse, free.
Leaves folded upward, lanceolate or oblanceolate, one inch wide, three
inches long, thin; upper surface dark green, glossy, glabrous, with a
slightly grooved midrib; lower surface pale green, glabrous, except along
the midrib; apex taper-pointed, base cuneate, margin finely serrate, with
reddish glands; petiole three-eighths inch long, lightly pubescent along
one side, faintly tinged red, glandless or with from one to nine small,
reniform, greenish or yellow glands variable in position.
Blooming season early and of medium length; flowers appearing after
the leaves, intermediate in size, white; borne in clusters on lateral spurs, in
pairs or in threes; pedicels of medium length and thickness, glabrous,
greenish; calyx-tube green, obconic, glabrous; calyx-lobes acute, erect,
glandular-ciliate; petals oval, entire, short-clawed; anthers yellowish;
filaments below medium in length; pistil glabrous, longer than the
stamens.
Fruit early mid-season, period of ripening long; variable in size, the
larger fruits about two and one-eighth inches in diameter, obliquely
cordate, halves unequal; cavity deep, abrupt, with yellowish concentric
rings; suture often prominent and deep, with a prolonged tip at the apex;
color dark red over a yellow ground, indistinctly splashed with darker red,
mottled with thin bloom; dots numerous, small, yellow, inconspicuous,
densely clustered about the apex; stem thick, eleven-sixteenths inch long,
glabrous; skin thin, tender, separating easily; flesh amber-yellow, juicy,
coarse, somewhat fibrous, firm, sweet, pleasant but not high in flavor;
good; stone clinging, one inch by five-eighths inch in size, oval or ovate,
pointed, with pitted surfaces; ventral suture winged; dorsal suture grooved.

WILD GOOSE
 WILD GOOSE

Prunus munsoniana

1. Gard. Mon. 9:105. 1867. 2. Am. Jour. Hort. 5:147. 1869. 3. Am. Pom.
Soc. Rpt. 60. 1869. 4. Am. Hort. An. 78. 1870. 5. Country Gent. 35:166.
1870. 6. Am. Pom. Soc. Rpt. 116. 1871. 7. Ibid. 44. 1875. 8. Am. Pom.
 Soc. Cat. 36. 1875. 9. Am. Pom. Soc. Rpt. 152, 153, 154. 1883. 10.
Mathieu Nom. Pom. 454. 1889. 11. Cornell Sta. Bul. 38:51, fig. 3, 86.
1892. 12. Tex. Sta. Bul. 32:482, fig. 4. 1894. 13. Vt. Sta. An. Rpt. 10:99,
104. 1897. 14. Wis. Sta. Bul. 63:24, 63 fig. 31. 1897. 15. Ala. Col. Sta. Bul.
112:178. 1900. 16. Waugh Plum Cult. 189, 190. 1901. 17. Ga. Sta. Bul.
67:284. 1904. 18. S. Dak. Sta. Bul. 93:42. 1905. 19. Ohio Sta. Bul.
162:258. 1905.
Nolen Plum 10. Suwanee 9. Suwanee ?16.

Wild Goose is the first of the native plums to be generally grown

as a distinct variety though Miner was first known and named. Wild
Goose, too, is probably a parent of more sorts than any other variety
of the several cultivated native species, most of its offspring so
strongly resembling it that its name has been given to a group of its
closely related sorts. In spite of the great number of native plums
that have been introduced in recent years, Wild Goose is still a
favorite—probably more trees of it are now cultivated than of any
other native plum. Its good qualities are: bright attractive color;
tender and melting flesh with a sprightly and refreshing flavor; a
tough skin which fits the variety well for shipment and long-keeping;
comparative freedom from brown-rot and curculio and a large, hardy,
healthy and, when cross-pollinated, a very productive tree. Wild
Goose has been more extensively planted in New York than any
other plum of its kind and in a few cases has proved a fairly
profitable commercial sort. It is doubtful if it is now the best of its
species for this State but it can at least be recommended for home
plantings and in some localities as a market plum. Wherever planted
there should be some other native sort blooming at the same time for
cross-pollination.
The following account of the origin of this variety, more romantic
than credible, is told with several variations. About 1820, M. E.
McCance, who lived near Nashville, Tennessee, shot a wild goose
on his farm; his wife, in dressing the goose, found a plum seed in the
craw, which, planted in the garden, produced the Wild Goose tree.
The merits of the new fruit seem to have been discovered by J. S.
Downer, Fairview, Kentucky, and James Harvey of Columbia,
Tennessee. The former propagated, named and began the
dissemination of Wild Goose to fruit-growers. Many varieties have
been sent out for this plum and much confusion has arisen as to
what the true variety is. Since the characters of Wild Goose, even
when cross-pollinated, are transmitted to its offspring to a
remarkable degree, the name now applies to a class of plums rather
than to a variety. The American Pomological Society placed this
variety on the fruit catalog list of the Society in 1875, dropped it in
1891, and replaced it in 1897.

Tree very large and vigorous, wide-spreading, flat-topped, hardy in New

York, productive; branches rough and shaggy, dark ash-gray, with
numerous, large, elongated lenticels; branchlets slender, long, with
internodes of medium length, greenish-red changing to dull reddish-brown,
glossy, glabrous, with many, conspicuous, large, raised lenticels; leaf-buds
small, short, obtuse, free.
Leaves folded upward, lanceolate, peach-like, four and one-quarter
inches long, one and one-half inches wide, thin; upper surface light or dark
green changing to reddish late in the season, smooth, glabrous, with a
grooved midrib; lower surface pale green, glabrous except along the
midrib and larger veins; apex taper-pointed, base abrupt, margin finely
serrate, with small, reddish-black glands; petiole five-eighths inch long,
slender, pubescent along one side, tinged red, glandless or with from one
to six globose, yellow or reddish-brown glands on the stalk and base of
the leaf.
Blooming season late and long; flowers appearing after the leaves,
three-quarters inch across, white, with disagreeable odor; borne in
clusters on lateral buds and spurs, in threes or fours; pedicels five-eighths
inch long, slender, glabrous, green; calyx-tube greenish, narrowly
campanulate; calyx-lobes narrow, glabrous on the outer surface, lightly
pubescent within, entire, heavily pubescent and with reddish glands on the
margin, erect; petals ovate, entire, long and narrowly clawed; anthers
yellow, with a tinge of red; filaments five-sixteenths inch long; pistil
glabrous, equal to the stamens in length.
Fruit very early, season of medium length; one and three-eighths inches
by one and three-sixteenths inches in size, oval, halves equal; cavity
small, narrow, shallow, rather abrupt; suture an indistinct line; apex
roundish or pointed; color bright red, with thin bloom; dots few in number,
light russet, somewhat conspicuous, clustered about the apex; the stem
attached to a stem-like growth from the fruit-spurs gives the appearance
on the tree of a jointed stem, very slender, three-quarters inch long,
 glabrous, not adhering well to the fruit; skin tough, slightly astringent,
separating readily; flesh yellowish, very juicy and fibrous, tender and
melting, sweet next the skin but sour at the center, sprightly; fair to good;
stone adhering, seven-eighths inch by three-eighths inch in size, long and
narrow-oval, flattened, slightly necked at the base, acute at the apex,
roughened; ventral suture wide, blunt, ridged; dorsal suture acute or with a
shallow, indistinct groove.

WILLARD
Prunus triflora

1. Ohio Hort. Soc. Rpt. 81. 1893. 2. Cornell Sta. Bul. 62:31. 1894. 3.
Ibid. 106:64. 1896. 4. Ibid. 131:194. 1897. 5. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 26.
1897. 6. Mich. Sta. Bul. 177:42, 43. 1899. 7. Cornell Sta. Bul. 175:134 fig.
27. 1899. 8. Rural N. Y. 57:515, 530, 595. 1898. 9. Waugh Plum Cult. 140.
1901. 10. Ga. Sta. Bul. 68:33. 1905. 11. Ill. Hort. Soc. Rpt. 420. 1905.
Botan No. 26 2, 3, 9. Botan 1. Botan No. 26 1. Willard Plum 1. Willard
Japan 8.

Willard is about the earliest of the Triflora plums that can be

shipped to the markets. When this is said all is said; as the variety
has little else to recommend it, being very inferior in quality and
having a reputation of being subject to shot-hole fungus. S. D.
Willard, Geneva, New York, procured cions of this variety from
California about 1888 from an importation made by Burbank from
Japan. According to Willard, the plum was received under the name
Botan and he labelled it No. 26 to avoid confusion; in 1893, it was
named Willard by W. F. Heikes of the Huntsville Nurseries,
Huntsville, Alabama. The American Pomological Society placed the
variety on its fruit catalog list in 1897.

Tree medium to large, vigorous, vasiform, productive; leaves falling

early, folded upward, oblanceolate, one and three-eighths inches wide,
three and three-quarters inches long, thin, glabrous; margin finely and
doubly serrate, with very small glands; petiole three-quarters inch long,
with from one to five reniform glands usually on the stalk.
 Fruit early, of medium size, roundish or somewhat oblong, blunt at the
apex, dark red when well grown, covered with thick bloom; stem short,
thick, adhering poorly to the fruit; skin sour; flesh greenish-yellow, rather
firm, sweet, low in flavor; poor in quality; stone variable in adhesion, of
medium size.

WOLF
 WOLF

Prunus americana mollis

1. Ia. Hort. Soc. Rpt. 367. 1883. 2. Rural N. Y. 44:645. 1885. 3. Am.
Pom. Soc. Cat. 40. 1889. 4. Cornell Sta. Bul. 38:45 fig. 2, 87. 1892. 5.
Mich. Sta. Bul. 118:54. 1895. 6. Wis. Sta. Bul. 63:24, 64. 1897. 7. Colo.
 Sta. Bul. 50:47. 1898. 8. Waugh Plum Cult. 167. 1901. 9. Ga. Sta. Bul.
67:284 fig. 1904. 10. S. Dak. Sta. Bul. 93:42. 1905. 11. Ia. Sta. Bul.
114:148 fig. 1910.
Wolf Free 4, 6. Wolf Freestone 11.

Wolf has long maintained a high place among the standard

Americana plums, with which it is usually classed though put in a
sub-species, and from which it differs chiefly in having much more
pubescence on foliage, floral organs and branchlets. It is noted for its
great hardiness, reliability in bearing, attractive and well-flavored
fruits and in being one of the few freestones of its kind. This plum is
remarkably well adapted for the northern part of the Mississippi
Valley and there alone it is worth planting extensively. In New York it
might prove valuable in the coldest parts of the State where the
Domesticas and Insititias cannot be grown.
This variety was raised from a pit of a wild plum planted on the
farm of D. B. Wolf, Wapello County, Iowa, about 1852. Professor J.
L. Budd of the Iowa Agricultural College stated in 1885 that for over
a quarter of a century the original tree had not failed to produce a
partial or large crop annually on the grounds of the originator. A
spurious clingstone type of the Wolf has been propagated in some
nurseries but this false plum is readily distinguished from the true
freestone type. The variety was added to the American Pomological
Society fruit catalog list in 1889, dropped in 1891, and replaced in
1897.

Tree large, vigorous, spreading, low, and open-topped, hardy,

productive, healthy; branches rough and shaggy, thorny, dark ash-gray,
with numerous, small lenticels; branchlets somewhat slender, short,
twiggy, with internodes below medium in length, green changing to dull
brownish-drab, overspread with thick pubescence, with numerous, small
lenticels; leaf-buds very small, short, conical, strongly appressed.
Leaves falling early, oval, one and seven-eighths inches wide, three and
seven-eighths inches long, thin; upper surface medium green, lightly
pubescent, with a narrow groove on the midrib; lower surface silvery-
green, pubescent; apex taper-pointed, margin coarsely and doubly
serrate, eglandular; petiole one-half inch long, velvety, tinged red,
glandless or with one or two small, globose, yellowish glands on the stalk
or base of the leaf.
Blooming season of average length, late; flowers opening after the
leaves, one inch across, the buds tinged yellow changing to white as the
flowers expand; borne on lateral buds and spurs; pedicels nine-sixteenths
inch long, thickly pubescent, green; calyx-tube greenish-red, campanulate,
covered with short, fine pubescence; calyx-lobes narrow, acute, heavily
pubescent on both surfaces, with few marginal glands, reflexed; petals
inclined to curl, long-oval, fringed, long and narrowly clawed; anthers
yellowish; filaments three-eighths inch long; pistil sparingly hairy on the
ovary, equal to or shorter than the stamens, frequently defective.
Fruit mid-season, ripening period short; less than one inch in diameter,
roundish-oval or somewhat obovate, compressed, halves equal; cavity
frequently yellowish, shallow, narrow, abrupt; suture an indistinct line; apex
roundish or flattened; color dull crimson, thickly mottled, overspread with
thick bloom; dots numerous, small, russet, inconspicuous; stem slender,
glabrous, adhering poorly to the fruit; skin thick, tough, slightly roughened,
astringent, adhering; flesh golden-yellow, very juicy, fibrous, tender and
melting, sweet next the skin, but astringent toward the center; fair to good;
stone semi-free to free, five-eighths inch by three-eighths inch in size,
roundish-obovate, tapering at the base, blunt at the apex, with smooth
surfaces; ventral suture winged; dorsal suture acute, or with a faint,
narrow groove.

WOOD
 WOOD

Prunus americana

1. Minn. Hort. Soc. Rpt. 60. 1894. 2. Wis. Sta. Bul. 63:64. 1897. 3. Minn.
Hort. Soc. Rpt. 433. 1898. 4. Waugh Plum Cult. 168. 1901.