This dissertation addresses how the institution of the modern, nuclear family is accepted and contested in contemporary society. In particular, the dissertation focuses on the recent movement within the lesbian and gay community to gain access to the social, economic, and legal benefits of marriage. The research entailed structured open-ended interviews with 90 lesbians and gay men living in Massachusetts. The dissertation addresses three central questions: (1) How do the practices of lesbians and gay men (including same-sex ceremonies and struggling for the legal right to marry) reflect larger structural changes occurring within the institutions of marriage, family, and gender in the United States?; (2) Why and how are lesbians and gay men creating new meanings of marriage and family for themselves?; and (3) To what degree does gender influence lesbians' and gay men's conceptions of marriage and family?
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UMASS/oai:scholarworks.umass.edu:dissertations-7563 |
| Date | 01 January 1996 |
| Creators | Stiers, Gretchen A |
| Publisher | ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst |
| Source Sets | University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Source | Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest |
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