Variant Family Structure

To begin, in the article “Variant Family Forms and Life Styles: Rejection of the Traditional Nuclear Family”, Betty E. Cogswell looks at the nuclear family structure as well as family forms that lay outside of this traditional structure. Cogswell uses the following definition of the nuclear family, “‘households of husband, wife, and children living apart from both sets of parents with male as the breadwinner and female as homemaker (391).’” This description establishes nuclear family as a patriarchal structure with a wife and husband, along with their children who the mother takes care of. While this definition, coming from Cogswell’s 1975 article, is dated, it is still accurate for the familial structure that was expected for the time in …show more content…
Cogswell states that the traditional family myth relies on two thing, the first exclusivity in relationships and the second being, “that parents should be responsible for meeting all their children's needs. This includes holding parents not only legally, morally, religiously, and economically responsible for their children, but also responsible for the personalities they develop (392).” This excerpt states that not only is having kids a requirement for accomplishing an idealize nuclear family, but so is the presence of the wife and mother who takes care of these children (Cogswell 392). Edna has two children, thus fulfilling the baseline prerequisite, but she is mainly absent in their lives, only taking interest intermittently (Chopin 19). When talking about Edna as a mother, it is said she, “was not a mother-woman… They were women who idolized their children, worshiped their husbands, and esteemed it a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals and grow wings as ministering angels. (Chopin 9).” This paints an image of Edna as a woman who isn’t very motherly, and doesn’t idolize her children as society expects her to; moreover, this representation is further solidified as her children are mainly absent from the story, being taken care of by there nanny, and is chastised when she tells her friend that “she would never sacrifice herself for her children (Chopin 9, 46). By handling to her children in this way, Edna takes a rather distant form of motherhood that is incompatible with a traditional family ideal that requires women to be wholly responsible for the children (Cogswell 392). The fact that Edna relates to her family and other relationships in the aforementioned ways, it proves that he personality and desires is