Unit4 The following text is extracted from Marriages and Families by Nijole V Benokraitis. The book has been used as a text book for sociology courses and women studies in a number of universities in the United States. It highlights important contemporary changes in society and the family and explores the choices that are available to family members, as well as the constraints that many of us do not recognize. It examines the diversity of American families today, using cross-cultural and multicultural comparisons to encourage creative thinking about the many critical issues that confront the family of the twenty fist century. Love and Loving Relationships Nijole V. Benokraitis 1.Love-as both an emotion and a behavior-is essential for human survival- The family is usually our earliest and most important source of love and emotional support. Babies and children deprived of love have been known to develop a wide variety of problems- for example, depression, headaches, physiological impairments, and neurotic and psychosomatic difficulties- that sometimes last a lifetime. In contrast, infants who are loved and cuddled typically gain more weight, cry less, and smile more. By five years of age, they have been found to have significantly higher IQs and to score higher on language tests. 2.Much research shows that the quality of care infants receive affects how they later get along with friends, how well they do in school, how they react to new and possibly stressful situations, and how they form and maintain loving relationships as adults. It is for these reasons that people's early intimate relationships within their family of origin are so critical. Children who are raised in impersonal environments (o...
