A review of 50 years of research on naturally occurring family routines and rituals: Cause for celebration?

This article is a qualitative review of 32 publications appearing since J. Bossard and E. Boll’s (1950) seminal work on family rituals was conducted. Definitions are offered whereby a distinction is made between family routines as observable practices and family rituals as symbolic representations of collective events. The relative occurrence of family routines, as described in the literature, appears to follow a developmental course and is affected by the cultural environment. Family routines and rituals were found to be related to parenting competence, child adjustment, and marital satisfaction. The studies were limited by inconsistent methods of assessing family routines, reliance on samples of convenience, and a failure to distinguish between direct and indirect effects. Recommendations are made to better integrate theory with empirical efforts to demonstrate the importance of family routines and rituals in contemporary life. Over 50 years ago, Bossard and Boll (1950) conducted an extensive qualitative study of family rituals. Through detailed analyses of diaries, interviews, and family memorabilia, they concluded that rituals were powerful organizers of family life, supporting its stability during times of stress and transition. Since that time, family rituals have sparked the interest of researchers and clinicians alike, although for apparently different reasons. Whereas much of the empirical literature is directed toward identifying rituals as naturally occurring events in families, the clinical literature is focused on the therapeutic benefit of rituals. The focus of this review is on naturally occurring routines and rituals and their functions in families during the last half of the 20th century. We limit our review to research of these activities in relatively healthy families in order to chart how they are a part of patterned group interactions, fluctuate across the life cycle, and are related to individual health and well-being. An examination of naturally occurring routines and rituals may inform subsequent reviews and research directed toward the therapeutic value of family rituals. There are several reasons why we believe that the study of family routines and rituals is important. First, such study represents a focus on whole family process. A recurring problem in family research is gaining access to how the family, as a group, is organized and finds meaning as a collective unit. Typically, subsystems of the family are studied (e.g., husband–wife; parent– child), and attempts are made to extrapolate to the larger system. With a few notable exceptions (cf. McHale & Cowan, 1996), the whole is considered separate from its individual parts. By definition, family routines and rituals involve multiple family members, with only family rituals serving to provide meaning to group activities. Second, family routines and rituals are embedded in the cultural and ecological context of family life. As we demonstrate in this review, there are significant cultural variations in the practice of family rituals that aid in our understanding of how families are similar as well as different across cultures. Family rituals and routines allow for a closer examination as to the specific ways in which culture affects family regulation. Third, family rituals and routines highlight the intersection between individual- and family-level factors. This aspect is important in two respects. First, it allows for an examination of how family life may affect adaptation and adjustment of the individual. Second, it allows for an examination of how individual perspectives and characteristics may affect whole family functioning. We begin our review with a brief description of the historical roots of the study of rituals in family life and offer definitions of routines and rituals that guide the remainder of the review.