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totally 2 pages or between 300- 500 words, double space. The content is from book Public and Private Families(by Cherlin J. Andrew 2017) chapter 9 ''Children and Parents". Another content is by Wilcox,"Religion and the Domestication of Men'' which I uploaded in the bottom.

you should write about what did you take away from the content I listed. Do not summarize the entire assignment. instead, focus on what you believe to the main points, or the most interesting points. and offer two questions or comments which can be discuessed.

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feature article w. bradford wilcox religion and the domestication of men Should we worry that evangelical Protestantism turns men into abusive and insensitive patriarchs in the home? Not exactly. A wife should “submit herself graciously” to her husband’s leadership, and a husband should “provide for, protect, and lead his family.” So proclaimed the Southern Baptist Convention—the nation’s largest evangelical Protestant denomination—in 1998. Statements like this, and religious support for gender traditionalism and antifeminist public policies more generally, indicate how conservative religious institutions have helped to stall the gender revolution of the last half century. The crucial role that Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum played in defeating the ERA in the 1970s is but one example. Beneath the politics, we know less about how religious institutions influence individual men. Journalists, academics, and feminists have been skeptical—to say the least—about the influence of religion on American family men. Journalists Steve and Cokie Roberts responded to the 1998 Southern Baptist statement, for instance, by writing that such thinking “can clearly lead to abuse, both physical and emotional.” Similarly, sociologists Julia McQuillan and Myra Marx Ferree have argued that evangelical Protestantism is an influential force “pushing men toward authoritarian and stereotypical forms of masculinity and attempting to renew patriarchal relations.” Academics, journalists, and feminists raise an important question: Are religious institutions, especially conservative ones such as evangelical Protestantism or Mormonism, a force for patriarchy? Critics have yet to examine how religious institutions, particularly conservative ones, have also become deeply concerned about the family revolution of the last half century. Increases in divorce, nonmarital childbearing, and premarital sex in the society at large and in their own ranks have disturbed many conservative churches, organizations, and leaders. Partly as a consequence of this revolution, and partly because feminism has raised women’s expectations of men in the society at large and within conservative churches, conservative religious institutions have turned their focus on men with the aim of encouraging them to devote more time, attention, and emotional energy to their families. They hope to strengthen families that seem increasingly vulnerable to fragmentation. Does religion domesticate men in ways that make them more engaged and attentive husbands and fathers? To answer this question, I focus not only on white, middle-class families, but also on the urban poor, who have borne the brunt of our nation’s retreat from marriage. In my research, I have relied on quantitative data—primarily the National Survey of Families and Households and the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study—and on qualitative interviews with over 150 clergy, churchgoing, and secular men and women living in cities across the country to determine how religion is associated with men’s approach to family life. a force for patriarchy? So how do religious institutions affect men who are married with children? In my book, Soft Patriarchs and New Men: How Christianity Shapes Fathers and Husbands, I find some evidence that religion is a force for patriarchy. When it comes to work and family life, evangelical Protestantism (theologically conservative churches such as the Southern Baptist Church, Assemblies of God, the Presbyterian Church of America, and nondenominational evangelical churches) fosters gender inequality. Evangelical Protestant family men are more likely to endorse traditional gender attitudes than other men. For instance, I found that 58 percent of churchgoing, evangelical men who are married with children believe it is “much better for everyone if the man earns the main living and the woman takes care of the home and family,” compared to only 44 percent of churchgoing, mainline Protestant men and 37 percent of unaffiliated men. (Mainline Protestantism encompasses churches such as the Episcopal Church, Presbyterian Church (USA), the Lutheran Church (ELCA), and the United Methodist Church.) These attitudes, reinforced by church-based activities and social networks, matter. Evangelical Protestant husbands do an hour less housework per week than other American husbands; not surprisingly, the division of household labor is less equal in evangelical homes than in other American homes. Sociologists Jennifer Glass and Jerry Jacobs have shown that women raised in evangelical Contexts, Vol. 5, Issue 4, pp. 42-46, ISSN 1536-5042, electronic ISSN 1537-6052. © 2006 by the American Sociological Association. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press's Rights and Permissions website, at www.ucpress.edu/journals/rights.htm. 42 contexts fall 2006 cially—evangelical Protestant churches and ministries have generally taken the lead in the religious world in calling on men to put their families first. Drawing also on a therapeutic emphasis that entered evangelical Protestantism in the 1970s, evangelical elites urge men to be emotionally and practically engaged with their wives and children. For instance, one popular book among evangelicals, If Only He Knew: What No Woman Can Resist, by therapist Gary Smalley, chides husbands for their insensitivity toward their wives. He lists 122 ways in which husbands are insufficiently attuned emotionally to their wives—from “not inviting her out on special romantic dates from time to time” to “being easily distracted when she is trying to talk”—and exhorts men to comfort, to listen, to praise, and to communicate with their wives. Likewise, popular Christian pastor Charles Swindoll urges men to model God’s love to their children in the following way: “Your boy must be very aware that you love him.... When is the last time you took him in your arms and held him close so no one else could hear, and whispered to him how happy you are to have him as your son?” Protestant families are more likely to focus on motherhood than work: they marry earlier, bear children earlier, and work less than other women in the United States. So it is true that evangelical Protestantism—but not mainline Protestantism, Reform Judaism, and Roman Catholicism—appears to steer men (and women) toward gender inequality. Evangelical Protestantism also steers fathers in a patriarchal direction when it comes to discipline. Drawing in part on their belief in original sin and on biblical passages that seem to promote a strict approach to discipline—“He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him” (Proverbs 13:24)—evangelical Protestant leaders, such as Focus on the Family President James Dobson, stress the divine authority of parents and the need for parents to take a firm hand with their children. As Dobson writes, “If a little child is taught to disrespect the authority of his parents, systematically from the tender years of childhood—to mock their leadership, to ‘sass’ them and disobey their instructions, to exercise extreme self-will from the earliest moments of awareness—then it is most unlikely that this same child will turn his face up to God, about 20 years later, and say humbly, ‘Here I am Lord; send me!’” Many evangelical fathers take these views to heart. They are more likely to value obedience in their children. They are also more likely to spank their children when they do not get that obedience. Specifically, evangelical fathers are significantly more likely to use corporal punishment on their children than Catholic, Jewish, and unaffiliated fathers. In important respects, evangelical Protestantism appears to be a force for patriarchal authority and gender relations. But this is not the whole story about religion and men in the United States. Because they are worried about the social and religious consequences of divorce and nonmarital childbearing, and because they view the vocations of marriage and parenthood in a transcendent light, churches and family ministries have devoted countless radio broadcasts, books, and sermons to the task of encouraging Americans to make their marriages and children a top priority. Conservative religious groups, such as Promise Keepers and the Southern Baptist Convention, have been particularly attentive to the family failures of men. Recognizing that men are often the weak link in families—because they fail to focus emotionally and practically on their wives and children, and because they are often absent, physically or finan- W. Bradford Wilcox is currently writing a book on religion, sex, and marriage among African Americans and Latinos in urban America. photo by Helen M. Stummer turning the hearts of men toward their families Mainline Protestant, Catholic, and Reform Jewish congregations also encourage men to invest in their families, although they do it more in the context of encouraging both men and women to honor the Golden Rule by treating their spouses and especially their children with care and consideration. As sociologist Penny Edgell reports in her new book, Religion and Family in a Changing Society, moderate-to-liberal congregations in these traditions criticize lives centered around careers or materialism and stress the importance of putting family life first. This emphasis on family seems to be bearing fruit. I fall 2006 contexts 43 rent research on religion and marriage in America’s cities found that men who are religious—especially evangelical suggests that religious institutions play an important and fathers and husbands—are more involved and affectionate understudied role in keeping marriage alive in poor and with their children and wives than are unaffiliated family especially working-class urban communities—including men. As fathers, religious men spend more time in one-onAfrican-American communities—where marriage is often one activities like reading to their children, hug and praise comparatively fragile. They do so in part by supplying their kids more often, and keep tabs on the children more churchgoing women with churchgoing men who are than unaffiliated fathers do. For instance, churchgoing responsible, faithful, and employed. fathers spend 2.9 hours per week with their children in Marriage persists in American cities partly because the youth activities such as soccer, Boy Scouts, and religious three largest urban religious tradiyouth groups, and churchgoing tions—Black Protestantism, Roman evangelical fathers spend 3.2 hours Men who are religious— Catholicism, and evangelical per week on these activities, comespecially evangelical Protestantism—depict marriage as a pared to 1.6 hours for unaffiliated sacred institution that is the best fathers. fathers and husbands—are context in which to have sex, raise As husbands, religious men are more involved and affecchildren, and enjoy divine favor for more affectionate and understandtionate with their children an intimate relationship. As Wallace ing with their wives, and they Charles Smith, pastor of Shiloh spend more time socializing with and wives than are unaffiliBaptist in Washington, D.C., has them, compared to husbands who ated family men. written, “God’s revelation clearly are not regular churchgoers. I also points to male-female monogafound—contrary to the expectamous relationships as the gift by God to humankind for the tions of critics—that churchgoing, evangelical married men purposes of procreation and nurturing. Even for people of have the lowest rates of reported domestic violence of any African descent, this concept of monogamy must be at the major religious or secular group in the United States. (On heart of even the extended family structure.” the other hand, evangelical married men who do not attend In my ethnographic research in the Bronx and Harlem, I church regularly have the highest rates of domestic viohave found that many pastors and priests touch on the joys lence.) Not surprisingly, wives of religious men report higher and challenges of married life, encouraging spouses to be levels of marital happiness than wives of men who are not kind and forgiving to one another; more conservative clergy religious. also encourage their members to avoid nonmarital sex and, Religious family men—especially more conservative ones— combine elements of the new and the old in their approach to if they are cohabiting, to consider marriage. Married church family life. They are more likely to have unequal marriages and members—especially married men—are usually given to take a strict approach to discipline; but they are also more prominent roles as deacons, ushers, and Bible-study leaders. emotionally and practically engaged than the average secular Marriage is depicted as the ideal in these churches, even or nominally religious family man. In a word, their approach to when many, sometimes most, of the congregants are family life can be described as neotraditional. unmarried. But churches do more than idealize marriage. They also encourage their members—male and female—to live faith and marriage in the city “decent” lives. Decent or righteous living is exalted from the pulpit as divinely ordained, and it is reinforced by fellow In their recent book, Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor believers who model decent behavior and sanction memWomen Put Motherhood Before Marriage (and in their bers who betray the church’s code of decency. At a miniContexts article, Spring 2005), Kathy Edin and Maria Kefalas mum, decency encompasses hard work, sexual fidelity, the argue that one important reason that poor women in urban Golden Rule, avoiding drug use and excessive drinking, and America put motherhood before marriage is that they do responsible parenting. not have ready access to a pool of “decent,” marriageable For instance, earlier this year at the Abyssinian Church in men. They claim that most of the men whom these women Harlem, Rev. Calvin Butts III delivered a sermon entitled, encounter are unemployed or underemployed in the legal “The Recovery of Righteousness”: “So, Beloved, I am sugeconomy, are in and out of jail, are unfaithful, are violent, or gesting to you that there is no greater need before us today cannot leave drugs and alcohol alone. than the recovery of plain old-fashioned righteousness. ... It is certainly true that many young urban men do not who among us would...eschew drunkenness, idleness, and seem to be promising candidates for marriage. But my cur- 44 contexts fall 2006 riage rates between African Americans and whites in urban America would be even larger than it already is. Let me be clear: religion is no magic bullet for strengthening family life in urban America. Slightly more than onethird of urban mothers attend church regularly, compared to about one-fifth of urban fathers. Most urban adults—especially men—are not exposed to the family message and focus and the code of decency found in churches. Even couples who attend church regularly experience nonmarital pregnancies, infidelity, and the larger forces of poverty, discrimination, and unemployment that can throw their relationships and lives into a downward spiral. Thus, academics, religious leaders, and especially policymakers should not view religious institutions as a panacea for nonmarital childbearing, family instability, and relationship problems in urban America. religion in men’s lives The United States has witnessed two distinct but related revolutions in the last half-century: a gender revolution marked by increased equality in the opportunities, rewards, and responsibilities that men and women face, and a family revolution marked by the weakening of marriage as the central institution for organizing sex, childbearing, childrearing, and adult life more generally. The gender revolution has not completely triumphed, in part photo by Helen M. Stummer immorality? Who would dare to stand in the face of the onslaught of the culture of sin that has enveloped our nation and say, ‘I refuse to succumb. I will not yield to the temptation. I will stand like a tree planted by the water. I will not move’?” By lifting up the ideal of marriage, and especially by encouraging their members to live decent lives, urban churches encourage marriage and help their members to have higher-quality relationships. The effects of church attendance are particularly strong among urban men. Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, demographer Nicholas Wolfinger and I found that urban couples are 40 percent more likely to bear a child in wedlock if the mother attends church on a regular basis (several times a month or more) and 95 percent more likely if the father also regularly attends church. The man’s attendance is also a better predictor than the woman’s of whether urban parents will marry after a nonmarital birth. Wolfinger and I also found that couples with children in urban America report higher levels of marital happiness and supportive behavior (affection, compromise, and encouragement) from their partners when the father, but not necessarily the mother, regularly attends church. In other words, his church attendance seems to matter for the quality of both men’s and women’s marriages in urban America. We also find that male church attendance improves the quality of relationships among unmarried couples. Why is his attendance so important? Because decent men are in relatively short supply in many urban communities, especially among African Americans, churches play a crucial role in enabling urban women to locate good men and in encouraging men to remain or become decent. (Many of the urban, churchgoing men I spoke with have overcome previous problems with the law, substance abuse, or sexual promiscuity.) Although these men are by no means perfect, they are regularly encouraged by their pastors and fellow congregants to avoid the siren calls of the street, to give God glory through righteous living, and to treat their wives and children with love and respect. Besides being more supportive than other husbands, churchgoing, urban fathers are also more likely to be employed full-time and to be clean and sober. As a result, urban women are more likely to marry, and be happy in their marriages, if they find a decent, churchgoing husband. Religion also plays an important role in reducing the wide gap between white and black marriage rates. My research suggests that church attendance is as important in promoting marriage among African Americans as it is among other racial and ethnic groups in the United States. Indeed, were it not for higher-than-average levels of church attendance among African Americans, the racial gap in mar- because men have not taken up an equal share of housework and childcare. My research and that of others suggests another reason: religious institutions—particularly more conservative ones like the Southern Baptist Convention—often lend ideological and practical support to traditional gender attitudes and family behaviors; thus, feminist, academic, and journalistic critics are rightly con- fall 2006 contexts 45 cerned about how some religious institutions reinforce gender inequality. But critics miss how religious institutions—especially more conservative ones—also encourage men to put their families first. Most of the institutions that men encounter in their daily lives—work, popular culture, and sports, for instance—do not push men to invest in family life. But religious institutions—especially traditional ones worried about the well-being of the family in the modern world— do encourage men to focus on their families. They provide men with messages, rituals, and activities that help them to see their roles as husbands and fathers as meaningful and important, and to improve their performance of these roles. Churchgoing family men in the United States are more involved and affectionate fathers and husbands, compared to their peers who are secular or just nominally religious. Their wives report greater marital happiness, and are therefore less likely to divorce them. At least in urban America, these men also appear more likely to engage in “decent” behavior—for example, holding regular jobs and avoiding drug and alcohol abuse—than their less religious peers. This neotraditional approach to family life, combining a progressive insistence on men’s active engagement in family life with a traditional insistence on some degree of gender complementarity in family life, has not received much scholarly attention. But if we seek to understand family pluralism and family change in the United States in all of its complexity, we must keep these neotraditional men and their families in our sociological imagination. recommended resources John P. Bartkowski. Remaking the Godly Marriage: Gender Negotiation in Evangelical Families (Rutgers University Press, 2001). Evangelical Protestant couples draw selectively on both essentialist and feminist gender ideals in negotiating married life. Penny Edgell. Religion and Family in a Changing Society (Princeton University Press, 2005). Men, more than women, attend church to socialize their children, and are thus more likely than women to be attracted to churches that cater to traditional families. Sally Gallagher. Evangelical Identity and Gendered Family Life (Rutgers University Press, 2003). The conventional critique of evangelical Protestant gender politics does not capture the ambiguities and heterogeneity of gender beliefs and behaviors in this subculture. Jennifer Glass and Jerry Jacobs. “Childhood Religious Conservatism and Adult Attainment among Black and White Women.” Social Forces 84 (2005): 555-579. Evangelical Protestantism puts many women on a trajectory toward early motherhood and marriage and away from fulltime employment. W. Bradford Wilcox. Soft Patriarchs, New Men: How Christianity Shapes Fathers and Husbands (University of Chicago Press, 2004). The impact of religion on mainline and evangelical Protestant family men. Fine Distinctions Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2005 From: Columbia University Registrar To: Regular Faculty Subject: Apology I am terribly sorry for the typo in my previous e-mail. It should have been “Dear Course Instructor” not “Dead.” Please accept my apology. Assistant Registrar Faculty and Academic Services 46 contexts fall 2006 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
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Running head: RELIGION AND THE DOMESTICATION OF MEN

Religion and the Domestication of Men
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RELIGION AND THE DOMESTICATION OF MEN

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Religion and the Domestication of Men
Religious institutions influence gender revolution for the last decades. Conservative
institutions claim that the husband should provide, lead, and protect the wife and children while
the wife should graciously submit to her husband. Apart from politics, we care less about how
religion affects men.
Religion as a Force for Patriarchy
Sociologists argued that religion is a force that pushes men towards authoritarian and
attempting to rejuvenate patriarc...


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