Kinship – relationship between people who are related to each other by blood, marriage or adoption

Nuclear family – unit that comprises of two generations who are blood related, sharing a household (children
could be biological or adopted)
Extended family – unit consisting of nuclear family, plus other kin who may live in the same household and
contact between everyone is regular or frequent
Commune – cooperative household made up of mainly unrelated people who agree to share work,
possessions and religious + social objectives (Kibbutz in Israel)

PERSPECTIVES ON THE ROLE OF THE FAMILY

Functionalism:
Murdock – suggested the ‘four essential function of the nuclear family’:
1. Stable satisfaction of the sex drive
- Within monogamous relationships
- Prevents sexual jealousy
- Contributes to sex within marriage which maintains social order
2. Biological reproduction of next generation
- Without which society cannot continue
3. Socialization of the young
- Teaching norms and values
4. Economic needs
- Taking care of economic welfare such as food and shelter

Criticisms on Murdock:
● Argument fails to consider diversity in modern family structures
● Reproduction and sex no longer exlusive to marriage
● Feminists think ideology is conservative and disadvantages women
● Excludes setups involving single, gay and surrogate families from being ‘proper’ families
● Feasible that other institutions could perform the functions above
● Anthropological research shows that there are culture which don’t appear to have families

Talcott Parsons – his ‘functional fit’ theory suggests that as a society changes, the type of family that fits that
particular society also changes
- As society changed from pre-industrial to industrial, families also changed from extended to nuclear
- Extended families’ functions:
● Meet basic needs of extended kin
● Educate children in whatever skills the family specialized in
● Take responsibility for their health
● Take responsibility for welfare of disabled and elderly
● Kin acted as a criminal justice system and seeked revenge

Criticism on Parsons:
● Too neat – social change doesn’t happen in such an orderly manner
● Church records show that nuclear families were in majority because industrialisation
● Extended kin families were still strong in London as late as 1970s

Parsons – introduced ‘irreducible function of family’ theory

- Urbanization led to an evolved and streamlined isolated nuclear family
 - Functioned in a way that met the needs of an industrial-capitalist society
- This led to:
● Geographically mobile workforce
● Opportunity to improve oneself materially
● Member of nuclear families granted more independence
● Stark difference created between home and workplace’s environments and norms
● Encouraged development of modern bureaucratic state

- Nuclear family reduced the functions it had previously

- According to Parsons, it’s still the only institution in society that can perform two specific functions:
1. Primary socialization:
- Promotes gender-role socialization
- Socializes men and women into instrumental and expressive roles in life
- Nuclear family considered a ‘personality factory’
- Teaches values of industrial-capitalist society such as:
● Achievement, competition, equality of opportunity, and value & respect of private property

2. Stabilization of adult personalities:

- ‘Warm bath theory’ – The family provides emotional support to its members. Parsons famously
described this in his warm bath theory. This was the idea that when a man came home from a hard day
at work, he could relax into his family like a warm bath and it would take away the stress and refresh
him for the next day's work
- Nuclear family is a retreat for adults
- Caters to therapeutic needs of adults
- Allows them to act like children and take care of their inner child

Criticism on this theory:

● Ronald Fletcher – Parsons was wrong to suggest nuclear families had experienced a loss of functions
because family continues to perform crucial functions that other institutions cannot
- Deborah Chambers – observes that family lost its function of economic production but replaced it with
with ‘economic consumption’ which motivates them to keep working
● Failed to consider the impact of global migration on family life as it introduced diversity in family types

● Neglected the agency and free will of human beings

- Parsons paints a picture of children as ‘empty vessels’
- Overly-deterministic claim and an extremely passive view of children
● Too simplistic in his interpretation of the impact of industrialisation on the family
● Confused cause and effect and hypothesized industrialisation incorrectly
● Presented a very positive picture of relationships within nuclear family but evidence suggests otherwise
- David Cheal – intense love can change into toxic hate and form damaging bonds
- Feminists point out that most abuse takes place in the nuclear family
● Account of family is ethnocentric
● Patriarchal ideology that justifies sexism, misogyny and gender inequality
- Cordelia Fine – Nature justified for gender roles not backed by scientific evidence
- These ideas undermine women’s aspirations and limit young role models for women

Marxism:
Friedrich Engels – humanity could be divided into two main eras:
 1. End of primitive communism:
- No private property
- Promiscuous tribes
- Children brought up by tribe
2. Era of capitalism:
- Monogamy developed alongside emergence of capitalism
- Nuclear family provided wealth to bourgeoisie to remain in power
- Descendants could inherit wealth
- Monogamous marriage allowed legitimacy of children

Criticism of Engels:
● Monogamous families have grown due to capitalism, evidence suggests
● Nuclear families existed before capitalistic societies did
● Feminists argue that there is no proof of primitive communism
- Kathleen Gough – Chimpanzees show evidence of primitive communism

Eli Zaretsky – family is a crucial agent of socialization

1. Socialized children into capitalist ideology
- Turn them into passive and falsely conscious workers
- Working class children’s experience of socialization is obedience and conformity

2. Zaretsy is very critical of Parsons’ stabilization of adult personality argument

- Nuclear family dampens such feelings
- Huw Benyon – companies like Ford did not employ unmarried men because they are more likely to go
on a strike as they have nothing to lose
- Fran Ansley – male workers are stripped of dignity, power and control at work
- Male alienation absorbed by female partner
- Results in domestic abuse and child abuse
- Wives act as ‘safety valves’ for capitalism

3. Extended family deliberately discouraged by capitalist class

- Extended family encourages collectivist values
- Collectivist values not favorable for bourgeoisie

4. Nuclear family essential component of capitalism

- Major component of consumption
- Consumerism distracts from injustice
- Bourgeoisie’s wealth goes unchallenged
- Herbert Marcuse – capitalism curated ‘false needs’
- Trendy high status items that were mainly bought to be conspicuously consumed are coined as false
needs
- Capitalist ideology transmitted by advertising and mass media
- Nuclear family targeted by advertisers as a unit of consumption

Criticism of Zaretsky:
1. Over-deterministic as Marxists do not take into account free will and agency of man
2. Working class could be empowering their children with knowledge of capitalist inequality
3. Standard of living provided by capitalism so comfortable that inequality is dismissible
4. Economic reductionism in women’s patriarchal experiences
5. Marxist account is dated and does not take into account recent global changes
Family’s role in the capitalist system:
1. Ideological control:
- Althusser – family is an ideological state apparatus
- Zaretsky – socialization involves the passing on of ruling class ideology

2. Economic control:
- Family produces future workers
- Replacement of retired + sick + old workers
- Consumption role and a unit of production

3. Political control:
- Steady force to help maintain political order for companies to function
- Zaretsky – growth of privatized nuclear family encourages family members to focus on private problems
rather than worrying about societal inequality
- Release for adult frustration

Neo-Marxism:
- Adds cultural dimensions to relationship between family and economic system
1. Cultural capital:
- Bordieu – concept of non-economic resources that provide one family advantages over others
- Silva & Edwards – middle and upper class parents are better able to equip their children with
knowledge and skills for transition to working place

2. Social capital:
- Family’s capital connections that provide them with advantages
- Putnam – calls them norms of reciprocity between affluent families
- Cohen & Prusak – calls them mutual understanding that ties wealthy families together against other
classes

3. Symbolic capital:
- Authority is directing efforts of others in expectation of being of obeyed
- Personal charm is manipulating others’ behavior at your own will

Feminism:
- Performed two key functions to oppress women:
● Socializing girls to accept subservient roles within family
● Socializing women into accepting the housewife role as the only acceptable role for women
- Family breeding ground for patriarchal values
- Children witness patriarchal values – recreate the parental relationship

Liberal feminists:
- Situation of women can be improved by new laws
- Believe nuclear families no longer patriarchal
- Believe that we should work within the system to bring about gender equality
- Social policies such as equal paternity/maternity pay
- Somerville – believes feminists need to focus on policies which will encourage greater equality within
relationships
- Considered practical as system focused on small policy changes rather than revolutionary change
- Difference feminists believe that this is an ethnocentric view
- Delphy – argues that she fails to deal with patriarchal structure

Marxist feminists:
- Dual burden / double-shift – exploited as paid employees + exploited as unpaid workers at home
- Triple-shift – psychological well being caretakers
- Women’s subordination performs functions for capitalism
- Bruege – Women are a reserve army of labor men cannot work
- Women reproduce the next generation of workers through unpaid domestic labor
- Women absorb anger – absorb anger of proletariat men (warm bath theory)
- Tackling patriarchy would mean tackling and dismantling capitalism
- Other feminists believe that this is a very dated view
- Women’s oppression existed before capitalism
- Capitalist development ushered women’s alliteration

Radical feminists:
- Traditional nuclear family is the key institution which allows patriarchy in continue
- Their needs to be revolutionary change to abolish patriarchy
- Paid work has not been liberating (triple shift and dual shift)
- There is a dark side of family life such as domestic abuse
- ¼ women will experience domestic violence
- Solution is disconnect from men
- Women-only communes
- Some practice political lesbianism

Black feminists:
- Little in common with white feminists
- Did not see men as the ultimate enemy
- Black feminists focus on employment and discrimination
- Family is a haven from racism

Difference feminists:
- Emphasize differences between men and women
- They disagree with liberal feminists when they say men and women are equal

DIVERSITY AND SOCIAL CHANGE

Marriage:
- Western societies promoted monogamy
- Bigamy – considered illegal and punishable by crime

- Serial monogamy is now considered the norm

- Serial monogamy – act of engaging in several monogamous relationships

- A number of Western societies have legalised same-sex/gay marriage

- Same-sex marriages are between gay men or lesbian women
- In some countries, homosexuality is punishable by death

- People are likely to practice polygamous marriage in Middle East and Africa
- Polyandry is when a women can have more than one husband (Tibet, India and China)
- Polygyny is more common – man has more than one wife
- Considered a way to achieve status as adult and improve family status

- Some societies practice arranged marriage (promoted by Islam, Hinduism and Sikhism)
- Involves mutual discussion about potential marital match
- Not done without consent of potential bride and groom

Trends in marriage:
- Marriage rate has gone into significant decline
- Age at both men and women are marrying has increased
- Women marry younger worldwide as men prefer younger women
- Marriages commonly occurring between people of similar backgrounds
- People from poorer backgrounds less likely to get married
- Marriage increasingly becoming a middle-class institution
- Global migration causing increased inter-ethnic marriages
- Forced marriages is acceptable in certain societies
- Remarriages are increasing in number
- Cohabitation has increased as an alternative to marriage

Explanations for trends:

- Decline in marriage can be explained by population changes
- There are ‘peak periods’ for marriage
- Number of children or elderly in a population affect marriage statistics (baby boom)
- Fewer stigmas attached to having children outside marriage

- Women have more career opportunities thus more financial independence

- Less social pressure to get married
- Helen Wiklinson – young women weigh up costs of marriages and children against benefits of having a
career in today’s age
- Women are now more carefree about marriage

- Marriage is now a lifestyle choice rather than a compulsion

- Failing marriage and rising cohabitation are the result of delay in marriage
- Secularization led to changes in beliefs regarding a typical style of marriage

- The likelihood of divorce has resulted in avoidance of that risk

- Rise in DINK families (dual-income / no kids)
- Global decline in marriage not a negative trend according to feminists as it is in an indicator of
autonomy and independence

- People still see marriage as a desirable life goal

 - More men than women remarry
- Children reduce a woman’s chances to remarry
- Decline of marriage has been exaggerated

Cohabitation:
- An arrangement where two people are not married but live together with romantic attachment
- Gillis – common-law marriage was extensively practiced in the past but wasn’t legally recorded
- Zoya – cohabitation becoming a popular domestic setup worldwide
- Hughes & Church – identified a broad increase in cohabitation
- Cohabitation considered deviant and illegal in highly Islamic societies
- Cohabitation may cause marital breakdown as people filter out weaker relationships
- Cohabitation usually not considered an alternative to marriage

Explanations:
- Reduced social pressure to marry
- Less stigma attached to romantically living with someone
- Wider availability of contraception, birth control and abortion services
- Smart & Stevens – suggest four main reasons:
1. Changing attitudes towards marriage
2. Represents a test for the partner
3. Cohabitating parents unwilling to enter a legal relationship
4. Philosophical resistance to marriage
- Couples may cohabit to save money for marriage
- People separated from previous partner may cohabit with new partner

Marital breakdown:

Divorce: - Legal ending of marriage

- Permissible everywhere besides Vatican city
- Some countries grant separatio on non-mutual request of divorce
- Some countries only grant divorce on the basis of a partner being guilty of
a marital offense

Separation: - Couple agrees to live apart after breakdown of marriage

- Done to present undergoing shame in divorce proceedings

Empty-shell marriage: - Not separated nor divorced

- No love or intimacy shared
- Persisting for sake of children, economic reasons or shame factors

Trends in divorce:
- Global divorce rate increased by 250% since 1960s
- A younger a couple marries, the more chances of getting divorced
- About 30% of marriages end before the 20th anniversary
- Divorce more likely if a partner has been married before
 Explanations:
- Contemporary ideas such as one partner ‘falling out of love’
- ‘Confluent love’ such as conditional demands from marriage not being met
- Changes in law – ‘irretrievable breakdown’ social policy
- Easier and cheaper to obtain divorce
- Functionalists argue that marriage is more valued today
- People are demanding higher standards of marital behavior
- Demanding emotional and sexual compatibility
- People are willing to go through multiple partners to achieve marital goals

- Barbara Thornes & Jean Collard – women have higher expectations than men from marriage and
require friendship and emotional gratification more than men do
- Entry of women into labor force made them financially independent
- Women refuse to put up with empty-shell marriages
- Nicky Hart – divorce is due to frustration regarding household injustices such as unequal distribution of
housework and childcare tasks between man and woman
- Tensions produced by women taking over the breadwinner role
- Men may regard this as a threat to their masculinity
- Women are no longer tolerant of male violence

- Secularization removed stigma and shame from divorce

- Divorce rates are still very low in religious societies
- Social controls exerted by close-knit communities have declined
- Ulrich Beck – divorce rates are a product of a changing world which views love and marriage differently:
1. Individualization:
● Under less pressure to conform to traditional collectivist goals
● Egoistic and narcissistic
2. Conflict:
● Less selflessness
● Chaos of love – marriages becomes a battleground between self-interest and self-sacrifice
 DIFFERENT HOUSEHOLDS

1. Single person: ● Single-person households

● Death of partner, breakdown of relationship or personal choice

2. Couple: ● Two people without children

● Couples who have not started a family
● Those whose children have left home (empty-nest syndrome)
● Remain childless or cannot have children
● Roseneil – Living together apart (LAT): stable relationship and spend time
together but live apart

3. Shared: ● Group of unrelated people living together

● Could be temporary such as college dorms or hostels
● Could be permanent such as communes

4. Nuclear: ● Parents and children live together

● Two generations only

5. Reconstituted: ● Step-family
● Reassembly through marriage or cohabitation

6. Lone-parent: ● Parent bringing up children without other partner

● Adult married or unmarried

7. Extended: ● 1. Vertically extended: three or more generations (grandparents + parents

+ children)
● 2. Horizontally extended: branches within generations (aunts + uncles +
cousins)
● 3. Martifocal: family centered on the mother
● 4. Modified extended family: contemporary form when family members
remain contact but rarely live together

8. Families of ● A chosen family-like network of people

choice: ● Term coined by LGBTQ+ community for expressing the loss of their blood
family via disconnection or homophobia

9. Blended family: ● Variation of a reconstituted family

● Half-brother and half-sisters or other step-children live together

10. Civil partnership: ● Same-sex marriage

● Can now adopt children
● Can use surrogate mothers
● Test-tube babies for lineage as well
 DIMENSIONS OF DIVERSITY

Organizational diversity:
- Variations of internal structural organization
- Rhona & Robert – observed that family structure underpinned by marriage or cohabitation
- Devault – argues that family is a falsely monolithic concept
- Organizational diversity refers to ways in which roles and responsibilities are distributed within family:
● Different pattern of work
● Both within and outside of home
● Conjugal roles and their impact on different social classes

Domestic diversity:
- Variations in the way men and women divide housework
- Dual-income families involve women taking a dual burden

Class diversity:
- O’Neill – states that single parents more likely of lower class origins and low income
- Lower class reflects more beanpole families than other classes
- Young & Wilmott – point out conjugal role differences
- Middle class has more symmetrical conjugal roles
- Lower class has more asymmetrical conjugal roles
- Paul & Vogler – argue that middle men make more financial decisions
- Careau – parents of different class interact differently with children
- Middle class has more deliberate parenting
- Lower class has more natural growth-based parenting
- Reay – middle class women are more involved in child’s education

Age-wise diversity:
- Experiences of grandparents very different now
- Grandparents very involved in child’s upbringing
- Beaumont – majority of children live with dual-parents
- Following factors also affect the experiences of different age groups:
● Family formulations
● Family size
● Family structure
- Rhona & Rappaport – state that family with school-going child is usually dual-income
- Increased life expectancy also affect age groups:
● Increased likelihood of divorces
● Change in childbearing patterns
● Changed patterns in grandparenting
 Cultural diversity:
- Global migration has led to multiculturalism
- Dual-heritage children are the fastest growing population in Europe
- Dale – points out that there is a clear different in female employment patterns
- Black women stay in paid employment most of their lives
- Mann – there is a difference between Caribbean and Asian families in terms of marriage, divorce and
cohabitation
- Chahal – Pakistani and Bangladeshi families mostly tun under the traditional and cultural influence of
old age population
- Berthoud – Caribbean families had low rates of marriage and higher rates of single parenthood
- South-Asian families had the following:
● More adults are married
● Lower divorce rates
● Little to none engage in cohabitation
● More than three generations live together at times

Beanpole family:
- Brannen – claims that new type of family has emerged in industrialized societies
- Four-generational family
- Less likely to have horizontal intra-generational ties
- We are now more likely to experience closer ties with grandparents

Life-cycle diversity:
- Young adults are learning their family of origin
- Rosenfeld – argues that this new independent life distinguish from previous one
- Pre-family stage: introduces autonomy and independence
- Family stage: developmental as it introduces new roles and status
- Post-family stage: when children leave home and empty-nest syndrome takes place

- Boomerang kids are those that return back to family origin due to unemployment, debt or relationship
breakdown
- Family size differs in different eras:
● Class influences family size
● Child conceiving attitude has changed over time
● Staying childless is now considered a viable option
● Social attitudes towards raising children and childhood from financial responsibility to emotional
responsibility as well
 DEBATE ABOUT EXTENT OF FAMILY DIVERSITY
- Chester – claims arguments about family diversity are exaggerated
- Neo-conventional family remains largely unchanged
- Media representation also assumes nuclear families are the main type of families
- Trends are disapproved due to societal and social reasons

- Greater diversity come about for following reasons:

1. Social changes – easier access to divorce and legalization of same-sex marriage
2. Changing social attitudes – greater social acceptance towards different types of families
3. Increased life-expectancy – active lifestyles and changes in welfare system

- Trends have led to beanpole families being created

- 29% British households contain one person according to Beaumont
- Reasons for this are:
1. Older people living alone after their partner has died
2. Middle-aged people living alone after divorce
3. People choose to live alone instead of marrying, especially women
4. People get university education and move out of their family home

- Chester – identifies a number of patterns that support his view of nuclear family
● Children reared by two parents for most of their lives
● Most marriages continue till death
● Cohabitation is a temporary stage before marriage, not an alternative to it
● Some Ethnic groups only like to live in extended family system such Pakistanis

UNIVERSALITY OF NUCLEAR FAMILY

Functionalist argument’s extension
- Murdock – researched 250 societies and concluded:
● Convergence: families converging into nuclear norm (all families are based on the same grounds)
● Dominance: only surviving type in future/main family structure type
- Nuclear norm: Functionalist sociologists advocate the notion that the nuclear family is the norm in
society as it is a vital institution which maintains social cohesion and value-consensus

- Human development has followed a linear process

- Driving force being this change is institutional differentiation
- Parsons – institutional specialization changes family patterns:
● Family has lost many functions
● Family’s speciality on two functions:
1. Socialization for children
2. Stabilization for adults
 - If society changes, so does the family according to the ‘fit thesis’
- Skolnick – family convergence based on two claims:
1. Family essential for survival
2. Functional fit between family and industry
- Nuclear family is best suited for all emotional needs of its members

COUNTER-ARGUMENT:

- Ken Browne – claims that only 22% of households are married couples with dependent children, which
indicates the nuclear family is no longer the norm
- Finch – found no evidence to support ‘fit thesis’
- People do not automatically assume responsibility of the elderly
- Wider range of family structures in pre-industrial societies (ethnocentric view)
- Nuclear family needs to be there for industries to develop and not vice-versa
- Carlin – most households in early era were nuclear
- Average age in pre-industrial era was 40 years
- Old age, if survived, retired in separate homes
- Laslett – difference in upper class and lower class family structures
- Wider kin and servants (upper class)
- Nuclear dwelling (lower class)

Alternatives:
1. Nayar of Malabar:
● Gough – Malabar, South India
- Females lives in their own houses
- Matrilineal family structures
- Women can have multiple relationships
- Children responsibility of women’s clan
- Women live in the main part of their house
- Domestic group - woman’s brothers and sisters

2. Lakkar of Burma:
● Keesing – Myanmar, Burma
- Parent and child relationship not considered blood-based
- Children of same mother but different father was not a relation
- Incestual relationships between siblings not considered wrong

3. Ashanti of Africa
● Herndon – Middle African tribe
- Females usually stay at her house after marriage
- Children legally belong to mother’s clan
- Properly controlled + inherited by women’s clans

4. Communes of Boston, USA

- Commune leaders decide couples
- Coupling is temporary until child’s birth
- Any 2 individuals can become a couple with consent
- Children were of the commune’s rather than the parents’

5. Kibbutz of Israel
- For farming purposes
- Families live together with special arrangements
- Permanent couples but live apart from children
- Females designated as Kibbutz mothers
- Parents meet children once a week during a ‘happy hour’
6. New world black family
- Consequence of slavery
- Females supporting other females
- Outside main city with no other support system
- Headed by oldest family member, usually the grandmother
- Consists of only females and their children

PERSPECTIVES:

The New Right:

- Preferred institution:
● Two heterosexual married adults
● Clearly defined gender roles
- John Redwood – ‘The natural state should be two adults caring for their children’

- Diversity represents a family breakdown

- Stable nuclear family = emotional + psychological benefits for family members
- All types of family structures being equal is a wrong notion for New Right believers
- New Right endorses social policies that encourage ‘beneficial’ family structures

- Morgan – argument against cohabitation

- Cohabiting relationships are unstable
- Sexual behavior promiscuous
- Partners with children more likely to divorce
- Cruel or abusive relationships

- Family diversity will lead to ‘moral chaos’ such as abortion practices

- Counter of family breakdown – ‘family uniformity’
- Horwitz – traditional family teaches moral values
- Vital source of happiness and stability is a heterosexual nuclear family

- The new right doesn't like diverse family structures due to these reasons
- Lone parenting:
● causes an excessive dependency on state welfare due causing lone mothers to be ‘married to the
state
● undermines the sexual division of labour which gives each parent a dedicated role to fulfill –
expressive and instrumental, which lone parenting is unable to do
● it also caused the absence of the male whose instrumental role was that of breadwinner,
disciplinarian and role model
 ●Charlies Murray – the growth in fatherless families and the subsequent ill-discipline of their children
drew them into a life of crime
- Increase in divorce:
● causes the devaluation of marriage as an institution undermining the inherent strengths of the
nuclear family, leading to fragmented families and dysfunctional families such as lone parent families
- Cohabitation:
● causes the breakdown of traditional family values of loyalty, commitment and self-reliance which
ultimately undermines the inherent value of the nuclear family which is built on stability and commitment

Criticism of The New Right:

1. Idealized view of white, middle-class families are desirable norm
2. Advocates ‘One size, fits all’ approach
3. Ignores ‘Dark side’ of family (domestic abuse and femicide)
4. Encourages trapping people in loveless and empty-shell marriages
5. Reuben Ford & Jane Millar – New Right mischaracterizes single parenthood
- Single mothers do not ‘choose’ this lifestyle
- Poversity is a major cause rather than effect
6. They ignore the contribution made by lone parent families to family life as many lone parents have
brought up well-rounded and successful children

Postmodernism:
- Finch – family is whatever people want it to be
- Family groups are when individuals play out their personal narrative
- Rejects the idea of ‘the family’

- Main principle beliefs include:

● Secularization has taken over which means there is no dominant belief system
● There is a decline of traditional gender roles
● There is a decline of class-based identities used to define oneself and lifestyle
● There is greater individual freedom than before

- Stacey – every family is an alternative family (new family type - “divorce extended family”)
- Individual differences dictate family structure differences

- Elkins – ‘characterized by a permeable family which encompasses many forms’

- Family diversity should be embraced
- Constant exposure to new ideas via globalization allows individuals to break free from traditional
notions of family
- Suematsu – family is a unit of support
- Zeitlin – postmodernity frees people from constraints from past
- Neale – relational approach to understanding diversity allows us to see that family relationships are
played out in micro-networks
- Mann – result of this freedom allows people to form families with their own needs in mind

- Postmodernity rejects metanarratives such as Marxism and Functionalism

- Diversity and fragmentation: diversity of subcultures rather one shared culture
 - Rapid social change: less predictability in individual behavior due to technological advancements

- Hareven – “life-course analysis”

- Family members make choices throughout life regarding family arrangements
- Nuclear → empty-nest → boomerang kids
- Flexibility and variations in choices regarding sexuality, gender identity and living arrangements

Criticism of Postmodernism:
1. Giddens – there is still some form of structure which shapes people’s decisions
2. Postmodernists exaggerate extent of individual changes
3. Feminists argue that traditional gender roles still exist in most family structures, nuclear or not
4. Postmodern theory is not applicable to religious and traditional societies
5. Nuclear family is still the ultimate goal for many

STATE AND SOCIAL POLICY INFLUENCES

● States try not to intervene in family’s personal life
● States intervene to impose certain family form such as China’s one-child policy

Perspective: Influence, beliefs and explanation:

Functionalism - Functions family provide necessary for maintaining societal order

- State has removed functions for family
- State’s role to provide moral values and policies under which families grow
- Family has a mutually beneficial relationship with state (consensus approach)
- State must provide behavioral boundaries to prevent societal & moral chaos

The New Right - Patricia Morgan – social policy has declined and government should promote
marriage
- Critical of liberal policies such divorce laws, accessible abortion law and
legalisation of same-sex marriages
- Government should only promote the ‘right’ type of family
- Eichner – ‘supportive state model’
- Political institutions should support family in caretaking functions
- Neale – policies helping poorer families have created a dependency culture which
encouraged an underclass of welfare-dependent problem families
- Rector – social policies which benefit the poor have damaged institution of
marriage
- Mothers are attracted to lone motherhood due to a perverse incentive of being able
to claim state welfare
- Single parenthood seen as dysfunctional and produces poorly socialized children

Marxism - Ruling class benefits from free family services

- The capitalist state allows family to maintain social inequalities by presenting them
as natural
- State is part of ideological and political superstructure and promotes family as a
stabilizing force
- Althusser – family is an ideological state apparatus
Feminism - Liberal feminists looked at state as a way of fixing gender imbalances in family life
through policies
- Legal system a source of protection
- State recognizes dual roles of family
- Offered policies such as nursery schooling and childcare facilities

GENDER EQUALITY & EXPERIENCES OF FAMILY LIFE

Liberal - Based on idea of equality of opportunity

feminists - Free to choose roles in conjugal relationship
- Promotes practical and realistic ways of creating gender balance
- Men and women can compete equally in both private and public areas

Marxist - Economic inequality is an explanation of gender inequalities in conjugal roles

feminists - Women perform service role
- Have status of unpaid servants
- Exploited in housework and paid employment
- Capitalism real cause of female oppression
- Capitalism promotes domination, subordination and oppression

Radical - Patriarchy allows male domination and subsequent oppression of women

feminists - Firestone – biology essential gender difference
- Women’s reproductive equalities allow dependency on men and create
sex-based discrimination
- If women freed from biological dependency, males powers of discrimination will
lessen over time
- Women should exploit ‘values of femininity’ – community, family, understanding
and empathy
- Frieden & Millet – patriarchal structures such as the family are a main source of
oppression
- Solution is to abandon traditional family structures and develop matriarchal
structures
- Extreme radical feminists call for drastic change such as opting for political
lesbianism and cutting off sexual and romantic ties with men

CONJUGAL ROLES AND GENDER INEQUALITY

Domestic labor, childcare & housework:

- Gershuny — Women of all ages do more domestic labor than men
- Division of labor represents traditional beliefs about parental roles

- Young & Wilmott — Conjugal roles in 1950s were clearly segregated

- Women exclusively responsible for housework and childcare
- Domestic division of housework and power relations generally unequal
 - Men’s and women’s attitudes towards conscience by the rules have changed due to:
1. Greater educational and job opportunities
2. Isolated from traditional beliefs due to geographical mobility
3. Women’s economic contribution has increased
4. Women acquired power over their own fertility and reproductive qualities

- These changes resulted in a symmetrical family

- Kan — housework for women reduced by paid employment
- Ramos — domestic labor equally distributed when male is unemployed
- Lyn Craig — Partnership penalty: women’s housework doubles and men do even less housework than
they did before when they were not married
- Motherhood penalty: motherhood makes women financially worse off across their lifetime
- Modern marriages are now characterized by chore wars
- Women experiencing second shift and dual burden
- Venning — Women take less leisure time as they have a mental load
- Wilmott — less dependence on traditional roles nowadays
- Cultural beliefs and generational differences also dictate division of labor

- Pilcher — Older people did not talk about equality

- Sullivan — Industrial societies have undergone a quiet revolution
- Wilmott — Changes came through stratified diffusion
- Upper-class moved towards equality
- Changes came through in other class divisions as well

- Rosemary — it female earnings improved so would division of labor

- Dolti Sani — fathers invest in countries spending more time with children than parents in 1960s
- Craig — fathers only spend time with children when mothers are nearby

Decision-making + power:
- Edgell — Important decisions such as economic or financial decisions are made by men due to their
earning power
- Decisions involving quality or family life and children schooling are taken jointly because they require
economic investment as well
- Less important domestic decisions solely made by the wife as they are deemed as insignificant by the
man

- Hardill — Found very few changes in decision-making and wives are still subordinated because men
are the breadwinners
- Leighton — decision-making rules are reversed when men are unemployed and therefore dependent
on their life to earn for them

Emotion work:
- Brownmiller — housework is a thankless and alienating task because it is not witnessed firsthand by all
family members
- Duncombe & Marsden — emotion work must have equality in household too
- Both parents must equally contribute to effort that maintain emotional wellbeing
- Women work a triple-shift in the family
 - Gabb — mother have pragmatic and symbolic functions to play
- Hochschild — Women never thanked for such work as it is seen as gender bound
- Seen as a gendered duty

- Marsden — Carried out study that showed male partner lacked in emotional participation
- Bernard — Study showed men more satisfied than female partners when it comes to emotional
satisfaction
- Wives are more likely to experience emotional loneliness
- Pixley — Lack of equality in childcare and emotion work needs to marital tension and divorce
- Dallos — Affective power: when someone loves you this gives you power over them
- Women have more affective power in the household than men

FAMILY LIFE: POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE

Consensus Conflict

- Nuclear family fulfills a range of means: 1. Domestic violence:

1. Companionship
2. Security
3. Raising functional children
- Parsons — Family plays a stabilizing role for
individual and society
- Postmodernists believe in personal
stabilization and focus on formation of identity
- Cultural globalization has caused
uncertainties but family provides role models
- Children given moral and behavioral
guidance
- Provides a sense of moral commitment
- adult partners play rules regarding domestic
labor and shared economic provision
- Becker — psychic income: psychological
pleasures gained from a relationship involving
personal commitment, love, intimacy and
affection
- Cheal — Family relationships can easily slip
into damaging relationships
- Love can turn into hate in moments of intense
emotion
- Giddens — nature of family life makes
violence a common occurrence
- Isolation of nuclear family makes it dangerous
- Family structures are known to be a toxic and
dangerous environment especially for
vulnerable members such as women and
children
- 35% of them femicide committed by an
intimate partner
- Honour-related murders occur as a way for
families to protect their reputation
- Child abusers are more likely to belong from
the family itself
- Leach — nuclear family is privatized and
isolated
- Members make great emotional demands
from each other
- Laing — Family members may become
psychologically scarred and mentally ill due to
damaging family relationships

2. Toxic masculinity:
- Boys socialized into a form of hegemonic
masculinity
- Toxic masculinity underpins patriarchy and
legitimizes abuse of male power
 - Jordan Stephens — gender role socialization
in families account for such behavior
- Men are hardwired to exercise male
dominance and anger
- Men are now suffering from a crisis of
masculinity
- Men are denied the capacity to acknowledge
their childhood pain
- Men wounded by childhood socialization can
unlearn patriarchal behaviors

CONSTRUCTION OF CHILDHOOD

- Archard — Societies differ in definitions of childhood

- Childhood socially constructed than biologically decided

- Aries — childhood distinctive stage in social development that came into existence three centuries ago
- Childhood linked to industrial and preindustrial times
- Children were non-adults in the industrial society as they worked and wore same clothes as adults
- There was not an idea of a proper childhood stage in preindustrial times

- Adult attitudes towards childhood exists in two extremes:

1. Naturally good and innocent
2. Needing to be trained and disciplined

- Children are seen as:

1. Requiring adult protection
2. Owner of rights
3. Lacking of fairness of right and wrong
4. Aware and responsible of their actions
- This showcases uncertainty about children

- Heywood — “childhood most abject category of human nature after that of death” that comparison to
“children are fragile creatures of God”
- Heywood — there are different expectations from children now
- Chambers — protected childhood became popular in the 19th century

- Cunnigham — child-centred society is now in action:

1. Childhood is the opposite of adulthood
2. Physically and symbolically separated
3. State is associated with the rights of children

- Distinct culture of childhood emerged after the 17th century with features such as:
1. Certain clothing and style exclusive to children
2. Games and toys manufactured for children
 - Postman — childhood has disappeared due to open admission technologies that expose children to
violence, sex and news
- Sue Palmer — argues that childhood has become toxic due to restrictions and exposure
- Robertson — childhood disappearing because children are encouraged to be consumers
- Postmodernists argue that children are developing sophisticated childhood cultures
- The idea of child-centredness became key focus when making policies

- Hendrick — range of transformations:

1. Delinquent child — commits petty crimes
2. Schooled child — needs to get an education
3. Psycho medical – child children have different nature and development
4. Psychological child — children have different set of needs and treatment
5. Welfare child — children need protection against abuse, neglect and poverty

Cross-cultural dimension:
1. Trobian Island Study — Malinowski
- Children are given more rights and responsibilities
- Adult-child relationship is more egalitarian
- Children are allowed to explore sexuality through sex play

2. Pacific Island of Samoa Study — Margarette Mead

- Female adolescence experiences are very different
- Different attitudes towards child rearing
- Less stressful compared to modern childhood

3. Brazilian Street Children Study — Hecht

- They leave home before the age of 10
- Survive on their own by selling and committing petty crimes
- Never disconnect from their original homes but become independent

ROLE AND POSITION OF GRANDPARENTS

- Life expectancy has increased and the birth rate has fallen
- Old age is also socially constructed
- Many industrial societies have seen an increase in the aging population

- One consequence of these processes is an increased dependency ratio

- Older people may rely on their adult children for support
- Adults that are looking after their children and their parents are referred to as the pivot generation or
sandwich generation
- Many grandparents act as a valuable resource of support for their adult children with kids

- Smallwood — this has led to modifications in the family structure:

1. Grandparents now provide childcare from many families as work pressures leave mothers with less
time for childcare
2. Grandparents also provide financial support for their grandchildren
 - Chambers — notes important features of the aging population:
1. it is not a uniform group of people because there are differences in the experience of aging due to a
variety of factors
2. The elderly are often stereotyped as a part of a culture of decline even though many elderly people
remain independent until death
3. Beanpole families showcase increasing life expectancy as this has produced a new form of family

- Dalia Galim — grandmothers are putting in a greater number of informal childcare hours
- June Statham — Grandparents are providing childcare when mothers are in education or working
- Ben Evans — an overwhelming majority of grandparents reported that caring for grandchildren had a
positive impact on their lives
- Ross — Explore the relationship between grandparents and teenage grandchildren and found out that
grandparent spoke positively about becoming and being a grandparent
- Their relationships grew into talking, giving advice and support

Cross-cultural dimension:
- Korean and Chinese culture are influenced by the confusion principle of filial piety which means that
one must respect one’s parents
- It is customary in Korea to have a big celebration to mark an individual’s 60th and 70th birthdays as it is
a rite of passage for children to celebrate their parents moving into old age
- Placing parents in retirement homes often results in children being labeled as dishonorable

- In traditional societies older people gain increase family status as patriarchs or matriarchs
- They are valued for their knowledge and experience
- In Western societies, old-age is often seen as a diminished identity, characterized by loss of status
- However, higher life expectancy and wealthier family lifestyles have contributed to the reinvention and
breaking up of elderly identities
- in America, older people who have control over economic resources also have higher status

- Viktor — status of older people depend upon a number of factors for example the nature of social
organization
- Nomadic tribes force themselves to kill off their elderly as they are considered a problem when they are
no longer able to easily follow the nomadic lifestyle

- Kagan — studied a Columbian village

- The older people remain socially and economically active as far as physically possible
- They did not become social leaders but were seen as valued and respected members

- In Native American cultures, older males are regarded as Chiefs

- They are valued for their skills of leadership and their intimate knowledge of the community’s tales of
the past and ceremony

- In the culture of Sherbro of Sierra Leone, A person's status increases if they become harder to
understand because they are believed to be communicating directly with their ancestors
- Old age is valued because older people are seen as closer to death and the spiritual afterlife

- Linda Burton — Young African-American grandmothers feel like they became grandmothers too early
 - Were disconnected and feeling obligations that they felt they were not ready for

- However, older people are represented as social problems or as a burden

- They are excluded from the workplace
- Retirement from work can be a significant rite of passage marking a diminished identity
- Modern industrial societies have experienced changes that have led to greater ageism
- New technology which older people are seen as untrained or unprepared
- They are often separated from family and community networks

- Age boundaries have become less distant in recent times

- John Jessel — researched migrant families of Bangladeshi origin
- Found examples of synergistic learning interactions between grandparents and grandchildren
- Grandmother would help a grandchild learn about their Bengali language and heritage
- Grandchild would help use technology

CLASS, GENDER AND ETHNICITY AFFECTING CHILDHOOD

Social class:
- Childhood experience is qualitatively more advantageous for those children born into affluent and
professional households
- Children in wealthy families may spend most of their formative years in private prestigious boarding
schools
- Bordeiu — The economic inequality on which this is based gives a range of cultural advantages to
those children based on social capital
- These children are likely to receive considerable economic and cultural support from their parents in
pursuit of these goals
- Middle and upper class families are more child-centered because they have family resources

- Lareau — social class influences patterns of family life and childhood

- Experience of middle-class childhood was socially constructed by parents with engage in a concerted
cultivation of children
- Introduced them to specific cultural, artistic and sporting activities

- Stephen Ball — middle-class parents raise renaissance children who are provided with a range of
expensive enrichment activities
- Vincent — middle-class parents see their children as a project for development
- They invest considerable time and money in their childhood

- Barbara Jefferis — children who experience poverty had fallen behind children from middle-class
backgrounds in terms of education by the age of seven
- Poverty also increases the chances of illness during childhood

Ethnicity:
- Ethnic differences translate into how childhood is constructed and interpreted
- Different ethnicities also develop different ideas about childhood divisions

- Experience of childhood may differ because of inequalities and differences that exist according to
ethnicity and religion
 - The highest quality of childhood in India is that of the caste of Brahmins; the Dalits or “untouchables”
experience a poorer quality of childhood

- Ghuman — religion had a significant impact on a childhood experience of Asians in Britain

- Most Muslim children spend some of their week at a mosque or madrasah
- Alison Shaw — carried out an ethnographic study of British Pakistani Muslims in Oxford
- Muslim children were happy to follow Islamic values
- Female children were treated in more traditional ways than their brothers and were monitored more

- Brannen & Oakley — Asian parents in the UK please greater restrictions on the children’s freedom of
movement and association
- Song — noted the significance of the ‘family as workplace’ for some ethnic minority children
- Children are co-opted into the family workspace

- Charlotte Butler — study on Muslim girls in Britain found that the respected both the teachings of Islam
and the wishes of their parents
- They prefered to resolve any potential conflict through compromise

Gender:
- Parents often assume boys are psychologically and emotionally different from the girls and treat them in
different ways
- Will — Same baby was used in a public setting by the names of Beth and Adam
- Strangers gave more smiles to Beth and less smiles to Adam

- Parents treat their children in different ways by associating different objects behaviors and expectations
with different genders
- Parents often expect girls to do more domestic chores
- Their behavior outside the home is more monitorer
- McRobbie — Girls experience of childhood may differ from boys because parents see them as in need
of greater protection from the outside world
- Susan McHale — families with limited budgets are more likely to invest in activities that enhance the
development of their sons rather than their daughters

- Chapman — Boys are asked to tone down their emotionality and familial intimacy so that they acquire
masculine skills
- Boys are rarely seen as in need of protection from external threats
- Boys spend a lot of time socializing with their peers

- Martin and Ruble — children are gender detectives

- They search for clues about gender appropriate behavior from the primary sources and secondary
sources

- Shared activities and pastimes have gender meanings and expectations

- Children who cross those invisible boundaries risk being negatively punished for breaking identity
norms

CHANGES IN CONCEPT OF MOTHERHOOD & FATHERHOOD

Motherhood:
- Motherhood is a social construction
- Society decides what a mother should be like
- Society stigmatizes those who do not conform to their idea of motherhood
- Luca Arfini — In the pre-industrial period of societies, the role of parenting was not clearly differentiated
because everyone was involved in domestic labor

- As more mothers began to enter the workforce, the mother’s role shifted from expressive to intensive
- Chambers — in modern societies there is an ideology of motherhood which forces women to put their
children’s needs first
- Mothers are now seen as straying from the stereotypical good mother role

- Wilkinson — surveys indicate a radical shift in attitudes towards motherhood by young women
compared with the attitudes held by their grandmothers
- Educated women are postponing motherhood until their late 30s
- They are also electing to have fewer children
- Some women are now electing to raise their children alone
- A significant member of the men are choosing voluntary childlessness
- Giddens — The idea of childishness stems from the ideology of individualisation
- Due to digital activism, some females view motherhood as an oppressive ideology which restricts their
independence and their ability to compete equally with men in the workplace

Fatherhood:
- Tina Miller — The responsibilities associated with fatherhood are not morally regulated as those of
motherhood
- The traditional view of the father is as head of the family and as breadwinner
- Hanan Hauari — Pakistani families continue to define and judge fathers in terms of how well the
economically provide for their families
- Sarah Salway — studied four ethnic groups and found that the communities had great respect for
fathers who took economic responsibility for their family
- Jo Warin — survey found out fathers Mothers and teenage children subscribe to the view that males
should be the breadwinners

- There was much talk in the media of ‘the new man’ in the 1980s
- The New Man was supposed to be anti-sexist, gentle, sensitive and fully involved in bringing up
children
- Men are critical of the part their own father is played in the upbringing and are determined to be
different
- Burghes — fathers are now taking an increasingly active role in the emotional development of their
children
- Beck — men no longer rely on jobs to provide a sense of identity and fulfillment
- Anne Gray — research showed that fathers emphasize the need to spend quality time with their
children
- Barbara Risman — research on single fathers proved that they can be homemakers
- Women do not have a natural predisposition to be mothers
- Raising of children should not only be the woman’s responsibility