Murdock
Functions
Parsons
Stabilisation of adult personalities
Engels
Patriarchal monogamous family maintains capitalism
Zaretsky
Unit of consumption
Safety valve
Benson
Cohabiting couples are more likely to break down than married ones
Murray
Underclass has been created through an over generous welfare state
Sommerville
Social policies have freed women and the family is no longer a patriarchal institution
Firestone
Separation of the sexes
Ansley
Emotional sponges
Smart
Individualism
Murphy
Children born outside of marriage are more likely to underachieve and develop serious illness
Chester
Cohabitation is testing the water before marriage
Fletcher
High expectations are the reason for divorce
Mooney (et al)
Parental conflict has more of an affect than separation
De’Ath and Slater
Conflict in reconstituted families
Allan and Crow
Divided loyalties and difficulties disciplining
Melanie Phillips
Riots caused by absent fathers
Chester
Neo-conventional family - nuclear is the ideal
Rapoports
Cultural diversity
Life course diversity
Organisational diversity
Generational diversity
Social class diversity
Judith Stacey
Divorce extended family
Women have been the main agents of change
Giddens and Beck
Family is unstable due to greater freedom e.g: serial monogamy (risk society)
Elizabeth Bott
Conjugal roles
Young and Willmott
March of progress
Ann Oakley
Dual burden - men do housework but not enough
Dunscombe and Marsden
Triple shift
Gillian Dunne
Gender scripts - same sex couples are equal
Gershuny
The longer the wife had been in paid work, the more housework the husband did
Pahl and Volger
Pooling and allowance system
Edgell
Husband makes all the important decisions in middle class families
Smart
Same sex couples are happy to leave finances to one as they don’t associate it with power
Dobash and Dobash
Domestic violence
Faith Robertson Elliot
Not all men are aggressive
Aries
Portraits of children presented them as adults showing that childhood is a construct
Pollock
Artwork of children doesn’t display their role
Shorter
Childhood has a functional fit with modern society
Gittens
Adults force children to be dependent on them in order to maintain authority (age patriarchy)
Hockey and James
Childhood is an oppressive phase of life and often wish to escape it by acting up/down
Sue Palmer
Toxic childhood
Furedi
Paranoid parenting
Postman
Childhood is disappearing
Opie
Children are still partaking in childlike activities but in different forms due to technology
Jenks
Childhood is changing and adults are dependent on their children as all their other relationships are now unstable
Womack
Childhood is only disappearing for children who are poor
McRobbie
Bedroom culture
Bonke
More expectation for girls to do housework than boys
Mayall
Children are viewed as socialisation projects which parents can mould into what they want
Brannen
Asian families strict on daughters