We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Therefore, a man shall leave his mother and father and cling to his wife, and they shall be one flesh.
Genesis 2:2It is not good for man to be alone.
Genesis 2:18God always pairs off like with like.
The Iliad, XVII, 1:218Others, on the contrary, hold that all similar individuals are mutually opposed.
Aristotle, Nicomechean Ethics 1155a: 214–16Families stand as the primary social units; households are recurrent locations for social interactions. No matter that there are other partners in conversation – parents, children, friends, neighbors, workmates, and acquaintances – people talk to their spouses and domestic partners. In all these intimate social units, not only words but groans, smiles, frozen silences, grimaces, laughter, and shouts convey preferences. No matter the level of interest of politics in the household, the greater the number of thoughts exchanged, the more they discuss politics (Walsh 2004).
Families are the primary locus of political discussions; here, national politics enters the personal space of each citizen (Glaser 1959–60; Hays and Bean 1992; March 1953–4; Stoker and Jennings 1995; Verba, Schlozman, and Burns 2005; and Zuckerman and Kotler-Berkowitz1998). Absent information on these issues in GSOEP or BHPS, we bring illustrative evidence from other sources. For example, in 1987, more than 0.75 of Britons report that the person with whom they most frequently discuss politics is a family member who lives in their household; 0.66 single out their spouse or live-in partner as that person; 0.30 talk politics with no one but family members, and less than 0.05 do not include a family member among the two persons with whom they most frequently discuss politics (Zuckerman, Kotler-Berkowitz, and Swaine 1998).
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
