Family - sociology

Functionalist 4 functions of the family - Murdock

Four functions of the family

• sexual stabilisation - stable satisfaction of the sex drive

• economic stabilisation - meeting its members economic needs

• socialisation - socialisation of the young

• reproduction - reproduction of the next generation

Criticisms of Murdock

There are other institutions that can fulfil these functions, it does not have to be a nuclear family.

rose tinted glasses

feminist - serves the needs of men but not women

marxists - the family meets the needs of capitailism

functionalist fit theory - parsons

pre industrial revolution - extended family

post industrial revolution - nuclear family

As society changed, the ‘type’ of family that was required to help society unction changed. Industrial society has two essential needs which requires a nuclear family to work:

• geographically mobile workforce

• socially mobile workforce

Parsons also argues that the family in modern society has lost many of its functions as it has become a unit of consumption only (rather than also being a unit of production)

functionalist fit theory - eval

criticisms

• Young and Willmott (1973) & Laslett (1972): the pre-industrial family was nuclear, not extended.

• Young and Willmott: hardship of the early industrial period gave rise to a ‘mum-centred’ working-class extended family.

• Hareven (1999): extended family not the nuclear was the structure best equipped to meet the needs of early industrial society.

• There is some support for the claim that the nuclear family has become dominant but the extended family has not disappeared

Marxist - Engles

the main function of the family is to pass on wealth to biological offspring, it reproduces class inequalities.

This brought around the patriarchy monogamous nuclear family, monogamy became so important due to passing on wealth.

Marxist - Zaretsky

The family is a unit of consumption, the family is a prop to the capitalist system. The unpaid housework of women supports future generations of workers. The family consumes the products produced by the bourgeoisie (ruling class) to make profits.

• keeping up with the Joneses

• pester power

• children who lack the newest things often get teased

Marxist - Poulantzas

The family is part of the superstructure, part of the ideological state apparatus used to control and create values to support capitalism.

The family is nothing more than “an ideological conditioning device”. Children learn to conform and become cooperative and exploited workers.

Marxist - Eli Zaretsky (1976)

family also provides a “haven from the harsh world” of capitalism, although it is an illusion and is based upon the

domestic servitude of women

Marxist - evaluation

• Marxists assume that the nuclear family is dominant and ignores the wide and increasing variety of family structures in society today.

• Feminists: Marxist emphasis on capitalism and social class underestimates the importance of gender inequalities.

• Functionalists: Marxists ignore the very real benefits that the family provides for its members, such as intimacy and mutual support.

• Zaretsky has been criticised for exaggerating the extent to which the family can escape from alienating work as he ignores the fact that the family can be a place of cruelty, neglect and violence.

Liberal Feminist - Sommerville (2000)

• changes in policy

• dual income

• changes in parenting

• changes in social attitudes

liberal feminist - key points

• Family life is becoming more equal.

• Socialisation of the young is more neutral.

• There has been a changes in social attitudes which have decreased female oppression in the family.

• Working culture still exploits and oppresses women.

• Government policies have helped to reduce female oppression in the family.

Marxist feminist - Beechey

3 ways that the family forces women support capitalism:

• Reproduction of the Labour force

• Reserve army of cheap labour e.g. WWII

• Ansley (1972): women are takers of shit

Radical feminists

Only by getting rid of patriarchy and the family in particularly will lead to the end of women's oppression.

• Separatism: Women must organise themselves to live independently of men.

• Political Lesbianism: heterosexual relationships are inevitably oppressive.

• Matrilocal Households: all female households (Greer, 2000)

Criticisms of feminism

Liberal Feminists - Overestimate positive change in domestic life

Marxist Feminists - Ignore the role men play in oppression of women

Radical Feminists - Fail to recognise any improvements in domestic life

Difference Feminists - Fail to recognise that women share many experiences such as low pay

Personal life perspective - bottom up

They look at the wider view of relationships rather than just blood and marriage ties. (Kinship)

Giddens

needs based family

Beck

negotiated family

conservative policies (1979-1997)

• Child Support Agency 1993

• Children's Act 1989

• Married Men’s Tax allowance

• Section 28

• Illegitimate Children given same rights as those who have married parents.

New Labour Policies 1997 - 2010

• Parenting Order for parents of unruly children.

• Longer Maternity leave

• Allowed unmarried and same sex adoption.

• The New Deal

• Working Families Tax Credits.

• Civil Partnership Act

Coalition Government Policies 2010 - 2015

• Removed couples Penalty from Tax Credits.

• Introduced shared parental leave.

• Equal Marriage Act

Conservative Government Policies 2016 - Present

• Reintroduction of the Married couples Tax allowance.

• 2 Child cap on Child tax credits

• Civil Partnerships for Heterosexual couples

Childhood as a social construct

Sociologists believe that ‘childhood’ only exists because of the way society has created it. For example, there is no factual age at which childhood stops.

Benedict (1934)

found that children in non-western cultures have more responsibility at home and work. He also found that in many non-western cultures, the expected behaviour of children was less clearly separated from the expected behaviour of adults.

benedict - AO3

At the time of Benedict’s research, western societies had a very different opinion of non-western cultures. There was an idea that adults in these societies where child-like themselves.

Shorter (1975)

pre-industrial revolution childhood

• Children had similar responsibilities to adults

• Work began at an early age

• There were no differences in rights

• High infant mortality rates meant that parenting attitudes were different

postman (1994)

Children lacked literacy skills so they couldn’t explore adult matters and material such as:

Sex

Money

Violence

Illness

Death

March of progress (childhood)

Aries believe that children in today’s society:

Are more valued

Are more protected

Are better educated

Are healthier

Have by more rights.

Cunningham (2006)

• Childhood is the opposite of adulthood

• Physical and symbolic separation

• Different ‘rights’

Wells (2009)

Government almost entirely organised around internal and external threats

Palmer (toxic childhood)

believes that rapid technological and cultural changes have damaged children’s physical, emotional and intellectual development.

Gittins

believes that there is an age patriarchy of adult domination and child dependency. This may assert itself in the form of violence against children.

Parsons (division of labour)

Instrumental role - breadwinner and works outside of the house

expressive role - home marker, looks after the children

Parsons

Parsons argues that this division of labour is based on biological differences, with women ‘naturally’ suited to the nurturing role. He claims that the division of labour is beneficial to both men and women.

Elizabeth Bott

Segregated conjugal roles – where the couple have separate roles: a male breadwinner and a female homemaker/carer (as in Parsons’ roles). Their leisure activities also tend to be separate.

Joint conjugal roles – where the couple share tasks such as housework and childcare and spend their leisure time together.

Willmott and Young

They studied families in London and found the symmetrical family was more common amongst younger couples, those who are geographically or socially isolated, and the more affluent.

Symmetrical family – the roles of husbands and wives, are now much more similar (women work, men help with housework, couples spend leisure time together).

Oakley

Men and women remain unequal within the family and women do most of the housework.

The fact that men are seen as ‘helping’ women more does not prove symmetry. It shows that the responsibility of housework is still the woman’s.

Man-Yee Kan (2001)

Income, age and education can have a positive or negative correlation with the amount of housework women do. For every £10,000 increase in salary, there is a two-hour reduction in housework.

Feri and Smith (1996)

Survey sample of 1,589 33 year-old fathers and mothers. Fathers took main responsibility for childcare in fewer than 4% of families.

Morris (1990)

even when fathers are unemployed, they avoid the housework.

R W Connell calls this the ‘crisis of masculinity’.

Hochschild (1983)

suggests an even bleaker picture for mothers: paid work, followed by domestic work and supporting the family emotionally (e.g. caring for a sick child). Marsden (1995) calls this a ‘triple shift’

Dunne (1999)

studied 37 cohabiting lesbian couples with dependent children. Found they were more likely than heterosexual couples to:

Share childcare and housework equally.

Ascribe equal importance to their careers.

view childcare positively.

Edgell (1980)

Very important decisions are made by men. – Moving house, changing jobs etc. Important decisions are made jointly – Holiday destinations, children education and health etc.

Day to Day decisions are made by women – dinner choices, home décor, food/clothing purchases etc.

Selbourne (1993) - Dark side of the family

says that the largest category of murder victims in most years is children under the age of 5yrs, at the hands of a family member

The British Crime Survey

Domestic violence accounts for almost ⅙ of all violent crime.

It is estimated that there are 6.6 million domestic assaults a year, about half involving physical injury

Mirlees- Black

found that:

Most victims are women 99% of all incidents against women are committed by men.

Nearly 25% of women have been assaulted by a partner at some point in her lifetime, and 12.5% repeatedly so.

Dobash and Dobash (1979)

Interviewed women in women's refuges in Scotland and used police and court records to research domestic violence.

Dobash and Dobash found that violent incidents could be set off by what a husband saw as a challenge to his authority.

David Cheal (1991)

found that this reluctance is due to the fact that Police and other state agencies are not prepared to become involved in the family. They make 3 assumptions about the family...

• The family is a private sphere so access to it by the state agencies should be limited.

• The family is a good thing and so agencies tend to neglect the ‘darker side’ of family life.

• Individuals are free agents, so it is assumed that if a woman is experiencing abuse she is free to leave.

radical feminist - dark side family

The family is the main source of female oppression. Women are dominated through domestic violence or the threat of it.

Domestic violence is a way of exerting dominance in a patriarchal society.

Male domination in state institutions helps to explain the reluctance of the. Police and courts to deal effectively with cases of domestic violence.

radical feminist - criticisms

Faith Robertson Elliot (1996) rejects radical ideals of patriarchy in the family. Not all men are aggressive or violent. Radical feminists tend to ignore this.

Demography - changing position of women

• Increased involvement in further education

• More likely to work, and work full time

• Changing attitudes to women’s role in family life

• It’s easier and cheaper to divorce, and live independently

• Abortion and contraception are less stigmatised and accessible.

fall of birthrate

Less child mortality

children are an economic liability

families are more child centred

Migration - Windrush

After WW2, the country was in need of ‘rebuilding’. The government invited people from the Caribbean to migrate to the UK to provide labour.

Migration - EU

In 2004, Poland and other Eastern European countries joined the EU, which resulted in their citizens being able to move to the UK.

Increase in divorce

1857: Men were able to divorce wives - but ONLY if they had been unfaithful. It was also very expensive.

1923 Women were given the same rights (1857) as men.

1969: The ‘Divorce Law Reform Act’ made irretrievable breakdown of marriage acceptable as the sole grounds for divorce - but only after 2 years of being separated.

1996: the ‘Family Law Act’ allows divorce by agreement after a ‘period of reflection’.

increase in divorce - raising standards

Fletcher (1966) argues we place too high expectations on our marriages, which is why so many of them fail.

Allan & Crow (2001) state that love, satisfaction inand commitment are now the fundamental components of a successful marriage.

increase in divorce - declining stigma

Mitchell & Goody (1997) Since the 1960’s, there has been a declining stigma attached to divorce. This could be due to:

high profile divorce

Increase in divorce

Changing position of women

society is become less secular

Family structure - functionalist

As a modernist theory, functionalists didn’t necessarily comment on family diversity. However, functionalists saw the nuclear family as the most ‘natural’ type of family because it was based on the biological division of labour.

family structure - new right

The New Right are strongly against family diversity. They see the nuclear family as the only family type that can effectively perform its functions. Other family types are seen as unnatural and the cause of social problems.

Benson - new right

His study found that over the first 3 years of a baby's life, 20% of cohabiting couples had a family breakdown, compared with 6% of married couples. Therefore, Benson argues that couples are more stable when they are married because it requires a deliberate commitment.

Postmodernism and Feminism

Judith Stacey (1998)

Family diversity has led to greater freedom and choice, which has benefited women. It has allowed them to free themselves from patriarchal oppression.

In Stacey’s study of life history interviews, she found that women have been the main agents of change in the family; for example, the women she interviewed had rejected the traditional housewife role.

Giddens - the pure relationship

Relationships are no longer defined by law, tradition or the need to produce children. Instead, they exist solely to satisfy each partners needs. Therefore, it only lasts as long as it continues to satisfy each others needs.

beck - the negotiated family

Equality and individualism have created the negotiated family, which is not fixed, but varies according to each members wishes. Individuals are inclined to leave the family if their needs are not met.