Family Sociological Perspectives.

Funk and Kobayashi 2014

people in LATs want to maintain independence.

Parsons and Fletcher - Functionalism

The rising rates of marital breakdown are due to more pressure being put on marriage, especially the husband and the wife due to the family becoming more private.

Greer - Feminist

The rise in marital breakdown is a good trend. Women are filing most of the divorce therefore this is an indication that they are gaining financial independence as well as resisting the patriarchal system.

Goode and Gibson

Marriage has lost most of its religious power as marriage is being seen as a personal commitment. Our consumer lifestyle also invites us to make choices based on personal fulfillment.

Beck and Beck Gernsheim - Postmodernism

view the increase of marital breakdowns as a reflection of greater individualisation.

Giddens - Postmodernism

People stay in a relationship to satisfy their sexual and personal needs and will not continue staying if these needs are not met.

Smart and Neale - Postmodernism

Fragments of the family, study parenting after divorce. there’s a difference between expectations vs reality, therefore there was a constant need for revaluation. The parents also felt immense guilt and worry for the children. they still acted on a fragment of morality.

Crompton

The concept of the gendered division of labour must be deconstructed and reconstructed so that men and women both may combine career life and family life.

Young and Wilmoth

The symmetrical family

Hochschild

There is a dissemblance between men and women due to economic differences, however, this doesn’t apply to relationships where the woman makes more than the man.

Marjorie Devault

Feeding the family

Miller

The difference between what men say and do

Gelles and Straus

Identify the family as the most violent group in society with the exception of the military and the police

Giddens 2021

Defined vdomestic violence as physical abuse directed by a family member against another, or others, or several others.

Rawsthorne

The violence towards men is usually self defence. Women also tend to become violent after suffering many attacks.

Leach

The isolation, secrecy and privacy of the family creates a barrier between them and the outside. When members of the family have no where else to turn, they take it out on each other. He also disagrees with the privatised nuclear family.

Durkheim - Functionalism

The organic analogy

Murdock - Functionalism

The nuclear family is universal. Talks about the 4 functions of the family (SRSE)

Talcott Parsons - Functionalism

idolises the family and says that without the family, society wouldn’t exist. He also talk about the 2 retained functions it has. He also talks about the warm bath theory. the gendered roles, the expressive and the instrumental. He also argues that the extended family got replaced by the isolated privatised nuclear family

Cooper, Laing and esterson - Marxists

The family hinders the development of individuality

Fletcher - Marxists

doesn’t agree that its being replaced and that the other institutions are supporting it. It also has economic function as a unit of consumption.

Wilmoth - Marxist

Modified Extended Family

Murray & Marsland - New right

Critical of government welfare as it makes people lazy to provide for their family. Criticise single mothers. Believe the government should assign policies to reduce dependency culture.

Engles - Marxists

The family serves capitalism as it keeps the wealth in the hands of the bourgeoisie

Zaretsky - Marxists

Family works in interest of capitalism. as it is not seperate from capitalism it cannot act as a refuge for it. Real seperation can only occur when people find fulfillment between the two.

Althrusser - Marxists

State apparatus

Oakley - Feminist

Says that the breadwinner housewife ethic got popularised during the industrialisation. disagrees with Wilmoth’s theory of the symmetrical family as women do most of the work.

Greer pt 2 - Radical fem

Women entering relationships with men is like sleeping with the enemy.

Delph Leonard and Feeley - Feminists

Women as the safety valve.

Germaine and greer - radical feminists

Women are exploited in the family, which is a patriarchal institution. Married men are happier than married women yet women continue to romanticise marriage

Greer pt 3 - radical feminist

Marriages were more stable not because values were stronger but because women kept their mouth shut. Women must be segregated from men and live in female only household.

Hakim

Criticises feminists by saying that since women are filimg most divorce petitions they can indeed leave the marriage and are not as oppressed as said to be

Lyotard and Baudrillard

People are no longer constrained by religion, family, values and class. However, people care less about trad family patterns both outside marriage and in, proven by rising divorce rates, birht outside marriage, serial monogamy etc.

Giddens

The transformation of Love and plastic sexuality. Confluent love replaced romantic love.

Beck and Beck Gernsheim

Normal chaos of love Theory

Bauman

Liquid Love

Jamieson

Criticised giddens for looking only at pure love and not involving children

Smart

Criticised Bauman for not backing up his arguments sociologically , from arguing that individuals have set themselves free from social structures and metanarratives. He argues that personal life, social and emotional relationships are still very important such as factors of class and identity.

Chambers

Even though traditional family values are lost this doesn’t mean that people can do whatever they want.