Marriage: Marriage rates and age at marriage are related to socioeconomic class and region. Overall, the marriage rate is declining and the age at marriage is rising. The average age of marriage for men is twenty nine, and that for women is twenty seven. Women tend to marry later when they seek higher education. Rural male celibacy has been associated with rural-urban migration since the 1960s. Geographic homogamy is a strong factor in marriage: Over half of all marriages involve partners from the same department. There is also a high level of religious homogamy. The divorce rate has increased in recent years, especially since a 1975 law that made the process easier and faster. One in three marriages ends in divorce. All marriages are sanctioned by a civil ceremony in the town hall. Religious ceremonies must follow the civil ceremony, so that frequently wedding parties make the trip between mayor's office and the church. Payment for the weddings of young people is most often divided equally between the families of the bride and the groom. There has been a rise in cohabitation for unmarried couples. A recent law permitting legal unions that are not marriages for couples has given legal status to cohabitating couples, including homosexual couples. The PACS law, passed in 1999, set up an intermediate union between marriage and cohabitation. A pacte is easier to dissolve than a marriage.
Domestic Unit: The basic domestic unit is called le ménage . This includes all persons living in the same dwelling. These persons are not necessarily related. There has been a rise in single person households since the 1960s. In 1997, 18 percent of all households were composed of single women, and 12 percent of single men. Most households, are composed of couples with or without children. There were three types of domestic units traditionally: the patriarchal family and the nuclear family, which predominates today. In the patriarchal family, siblings stayed at home and their spouses joined the household. These large families owned property jointly. In the more hierarchical stem family, there was a pattern of primogeniture. The eldest son would remain in the parental home, but daughters and younger sons were obliged to seek their fortunes elsewhere. That pattern persists in some rural communities, although primogeniture has been illegal since 1804 under the Napoleonic Code. One sibling takes over the farm but pays off the parts of the patrimony due to his or her siblings. The nuclear family was most prevalent in southern France and has a more egalitarian basis than the stem family. A young couple would be established in their own household by both sets of parents.
Inheritance: One of the major functions of the domestic unit is the transmission of property to children. Inheritance involves material and symbolic goods. Most property is held in the form of immovable goods such as buildings and land. Social inequalities are perpetuated through unequal access to inheritances among members of different families. Inheritance occurs not just at the death of the parents but at marriage or the setting up of a household for a young person, when loans or gifts are extended by parents. Inheritance also involves cultural capital, including education, access to various lifestyles, and ways of speaking. Although the Napoleonic Civil Code established uniform regulation of inheritance and authority within the family and equal inheritance among siblings, there are regional variations in the application of the law.
Kin Groups: Kinship is bilateral, with kindreds being recognized as important units of social support. Kinship was historically more important for the peasantry and bourgeoisie than for workers or the petite bourgeoisie, who maintained neighborhood ties that were sometimes stronger than kin ties. Today the family plays a major role in transmitting cultural values, despite the decline in marriage and increasing geographic mobility. Most people continue to live in the region in which they grew up even if they move from a village to a city. Weekend visits to parents and grandparents are common. There is much diversity in the meaning and strength of kin ties across social class and ethnic lines. Ideologies of kinship, in which certain family forms are privileged over others, represent a critique of the kinship patterns of the working classes and immigrants.
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