Caribbean family patterns--implications for family life education.

Examines types of families in the Caribbean out of a concern for improving the quality of family life regardless of structure. Family types identified and described include: 1) the visiting or extraresidential relationship 2) the grandmother or multigenerational household 3) concubinage or common law marriage and 4) legal marriage. The 1st 3 types of family arrangements are weakened by 3 intertwining factors: failure to control fertility the defection of men and tensions imposed by material hardship. Legal marriage has never taken root in the Caribbean except among the ruling class. Marriage for most Caribbean people is something graduated into in maturity after a series of visiting relationships and trial concubinages and is associated with a secure economic status.