Family Rituals and Routines in the Developmental Trajectory of Urban Southern Angolan Families

Abstract

Rituals and routines are fundamental parts of the family dynamic and contribute to its organization across generations. However, studies on these variables in the context of urban Southern Angolan families are scarce. Thus, this article aims to identify the rituals and routines that organize the development of families in urban Southern Angola through different life stages, using semistructured interviews with 20 professionals from various social fields and 25 couples. Despite some discrepancies between the views of the two groups, they both reported a set of rituals and routines relevant to the organization of the families’ life trajectories.

Urban Families in Southern Angola: What Makes Them Work? The Empirical Validation of a Family Life Cycle Model

“…Circa 100 years after the first studies on family development around the life cycle (Rowntree, 1906), there has been an increase in research on this topic within culturally diverse families (e.g., Kumagai [1984] in Japan; Relvas [1996] in Portugal). Simões and Alberto (2015, 2019) developed a model of the family evolutionary cycle that was applicable to the urban context of Southern Angola, a country located in the Western part of Southern Africa. According to these authors, the family development occurred around four stages: the first stage, family with an adolescent or a young adult child , highlights the involvement of the oldest child in a dating relationship and a great possibility of pregnancy for the young women.…”

“…The parents of the adolescents become grandparents and assume, most of the time, the responsibilities inherent to the care of their grandchildren. The third stage, couple formalization and establishment of a new family system , is established by the performance of cultural ceremonies (e.g., alambamento 1 ) and civil and religious marriages (Simões & Alberto, 2015, 2019). The new couple forms their household with their child(ren), sometimes integrating another member, a child or pre-adolescent from the extended family— the “third element” (Simões & Alberto, 2015, 2019).…”

“…The third stage, couple formalization and establishment of a new family system , is established by the performance of cultural ceremonies (e.g., alambamento 1 ) and civil and religious marriages (Simões & Alberto, 2015, 2019). The new couple forms their household with their child(ren), sometimes integrating another member, a child or pre-adolescent from the extended family— the “third element” (Simões & Alberto, 2015, 2019). Finally, the last stage, family with a middle-aged couple and the “sandwich generation ,” in which the original couple is responsible for providing care for the younger generations (e.g., children and grandchildren) and elderly family members (e.g., their parents or other elderly people in the family system) (Simões and Alberto, 2015, 2019).…”

“…Nevertheless, so far, no empirical validation study of the model has been was carried out, a gap the present research intends to fill. The authors also sought to characterize the perception of women and men regarding their family functioning, particularly, the family vulnerability to stress, family strengths, and family investment in rituals and routines (Alarcão, 2000; Boss, 2002; Lavee, 2013; VanBreda, 2001; Vaz-Serra, 2007) along the stages of the evolutionary cycle proposed by Simões and Alberto (2015, 2019).…”

“…Our study aims to contribute to the validation of Simões and Alberto’s model (2015, 2019), and turn this model into a reference point for scientific research and clinical practice of assessment and family intervention in Angola (Golijani-Moghaddam, 2014). Also, the results of the present study aim to provide reference data from various family assessment instruments (i.e., SCORE-15, FILE, FSQ, and FRQ-R) for the studied population having as reference the developmental stages of the Simões and Alberto model, allowing a greater understanding of the family functioning, that is, the perception of the family problems and resources experienced in the various stages of the family life cycle.…”