The Family

Family diversity: Rapoprt & Rapoport

• In 1971, 35% of households had nuclear families. By 2008, this figure had dropped to 21%

• Families become increasingly diverse as the nuclear family continues to go into decline

• 5 different types of family diversity identified:

  • cultural diversity - how ethinicity affects the family

  • life stage diversity - how we have different family structures at different stages of our lives

  • organisational diversity - how family structures/organisation has changed

  • family life course diversity - how different generations have different views on the family

  • social class diversity - how social class creates different family structures

Beliefs of Rapoport & Rapoport:

• Diversity is central to understanding the modern family

• We have moved away from the traditional nuclear family

• British families have adapted to a pluralistic society - culture and lifestyle is diverse

• There are 5 different types of family diversity

Cultural diversity refers to the differences in lifestyles between families of different ethnic, national or religious backgrounds

• In 2008, 88% of the British population were white, with the remaining 12% (6.7 million) belonging to other ethnic groups

Different types of family structures

• Family - a group of two or more people linked by blood, marriage, adoption or cohabitation

• Nuclear family - a family group consisting of parents and their children

• Extended family - Parents, their children and other more distant relatives - e.g. grandparents, aunts, uncles

• Reconstituted (or blended) family - when two adults with children from previous relationships remarry to form a new family

• Lone parent family - a family with only one parent as consequence of death, divorce or individual choice

• Same sex family - families headed by a couple of the same sex

• Beanpole family - a family whose living members come from many generations, with few members in each generation

Functionalism:

• Functionalist sociologists believe both people and society have needs which must be met for society to function smoothly

• Functionalists see the nuclear family plays an important role because it perform a number of essential functions

Emile Durkheim - consensus theory

• Organic analogy

  • society is like the human body because of all of the various institutions within society have a particular function to perform. If one of these institutions break down or fails to operate properly then the rest of society begins to shut down and not work as effectively as it did before

George Murdock (1949)

• studied 250 societies

  • claimed that the nuclear family was universal

  • saw families as the most important institution

• stated that the four essential functions are:

  • reproduction

  • primary socialisation

  • economic provision

  • emotional gratification

  Reproduction

  • sexual - marital sex creates a powerful emotional bond which encourages fidelity and commits the person to family life - stable relationships maintain stability in society

  • reproductive - society requires new members to continue - this generally occurs within a marital family context

  Primary socialisation

  • Educational - culture needs to be transmitted to the next generation - children need to be socialised into norms and values of society

  • Economic - family members provide shelter, food and money for their children - also helps to maintain the economy

Norms - informal rules that influence social behaviour

Values - important beliefs held by individuals or social groups

Talcott Parsons (1959)

• Focused on the American family

• the family performs two vital funtions that can’t be performed by other institiutions

Primary socialisation

• Parsons saw mothers as playing the major role in the process of socialising children - Expressive role - caring, emotional, nurturing role

• Father perform the instrumental role - breadwinner - working outside the home to earn money for the family, is also said to protect the family

Stabilisation of adult personality (S.O.A.P)

• familly are always there to protect eachother from dangers and stresses of modern day living - relief

• Warm bath theory

  • implies that a family is a safe haven where one can feel secure - stable adult personality

• strengthens social stability

Criticisms of functionalist family views

• Ignores potential ‘darker side’ of family life

  • neglect, domestic violence, divorce etc.

• Parsons’ study is only based on middle class American families

• Still relevant? - outdated

  • people nowadays tend to have children outside of marriage

  • gender roles have become obsolete - dual career families, joint conjugal roles etc.

Marxism:

keywords:

• Proletariat - the poor

• Bourgeoisie - the rich

• Inequality - unfairness, when things are not equal

• Social class - a group of similar levels of wealth, influence and status

• Capitalism - a system whereby money is organised to support businesses owned by the individuals to profit from the work of the people they employ

The family and capitalism

• The family acts as a unit of consumption and production

  • children use ‘pester power’ to encourage their parents to buy goods, the adults provide labour for the capitalist workforce

  • buying things, keeps the bourgeoisie rich

• Inequality is passed on through generations

  • the proletariat are socialised to accept their low position

  • bourgeoisie remain rich by passing on wealth and land through inheritance

  • educational advantages are passed down - people from wealthy backgrounds can afford to send their children to private schools

• Hierarchy in the family reflects hieratchy in society

  • children learn to be obedient and take orders

Eli Zaretsky (key thinker who supports marxist views)

• directly challenges functionalist views on the function of the family

• rather than saying it supports society, Zaretsky thinks that the modern, nuclear family benefits capitalism and the ruling class

Feminist views on the family:

• Feminist sociologists come from a conflict perspective. This is completely opposite to functionalist sociologists.

• Feminists identify that inequality exists between men and women. Therefore they are critical as the family as they see it to contribute to the inequality.

• Feminist sociologists identify primary socialistation to be negative as it contributes to the inequality between males and females

• The feminist approach is one which highlights the negative aspects of the family to be violence in the home

  • identify how the family is not a safe haven for every family

Feminists believe that the family is patriarchal - men are the head of the household - and that the nuclear family is an ideological apparatus and that society is gender biased

There are 3 types of feminist views on the family - Marxist, Radical and Liberal

Marxists feminists -believe that the family is patriarchal and that women are a reserve army of labour

• Veronica Beechey: believes that housewives carry out two functions - to provide and care for future workers and to be a cheap reserve army of labour

  • strength - acknowledges that the family is patriarchal and that the female role is the expressive role

  • weakness- doesn’t look at modern day life where the woman can be the breadwinner in some house holds

• Barrett & McIntosh: believe the nuclear family is an ideological apparatus and that all other families are inferior

  • strength - supports new rights view that diverse families are wrong

  • weakness - outdated - now less nuclear families and doesn’t see how lone parents can be beneficial - i.e getting out of violent relationships

• Fran Ainsley: Believes that women are the expressive leaders, providing emotional support and that “women are takers of shit” because they deal with their husband’s anger and frustration from work. She believes that women are oppressed

  • strenghts - women’s role is stereotypically seen in the home with them having either dual/triple burden

  • weakness - nowadays women are working as well as having children. Her research does not acknowledge this.

Liberal feminists: don’t blame capitalists or men for unequal treatment of women and children, Believe that laws like the Sex Discrimination Act and the equal pay act are making life better for women but it is not equal yet

• Sommerville: radical feminists have failed to acknowledge the progress made by women and their view that women should live apart from men is unrealistic. Even though most divorces are initiated by women, the fact most get remarried shows that they do want relationships with men

  • strength - criticises radical reminist view

Radical feminists - believe that patriarchy leades to the subordination of women and children in the home and in wider society. Rape and sexual assault are example of male power

Delphy & Leonard: the family role is to maintain patriarchy.

• believe that the family is an economic system where men benefit and women get exploited, this is because fammily members work for the head of the household not themselves

  • strength - disagrees with Sommerville view on the family

  • weakness- fails to acknowledge that some households are egalitarian and there is research based on the fact that all households are nuclear, which they are not.

Summary of feminist views:

• The family passes on gender inequalities and exploits women.

• Families have a negative impact on the lives of women.

• Families socially construct gender differences - canalisation

• children also learn gender divisions through the division of domestic labour. e.g mum cleaning up

• Delphy and Leonard: the family expoits women because…

  • women’s labour is not valued and is used by husbands

  • financially women must depend on husbands

  • they have a subordinate position in the family

• The family passes on gender inequality through gendered socialisation - canalisation, i.e children’s interests being channelled to different activities based on gender

New right view

• Like functionalists, the New Right hold the view that there is only one normal/correct family type.

  • This is the traditional or conventional nuclear family

• Again, like functionalists, the New Right sees this family as ‘natural’ and based on fundamental biological differences between men and women

Alternatives to the family

Communal living - describes living with people not from your family. E.g: university halls, care homes for the elderly and flatshares

Communes - a group of people who share living accomodation, possessions and wealth equally

Key features:

• share living accomodation, possessions and wealth

• often adults have their own rooms and children share a room

• aim to achieve equality

Kibbutz - A type of communal living established in Israel that traditionally revolved around agriculture. These people hold shared ownership of the land and factorues

Features:

• a group of people who live communally

• children and parents slept separately

• children looked after by ‘Kibbutz mothers’

• children see biological parents a few hours a day

• meals eaten communally

• multigenerational families exist in longer established kibbutz

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Marriage:

Marriage - a cultural phenomenon which gives legal status to a union between two partners and any children they may produce

Cohabitation - partners who live together without being married

Divorce - the formal (legal) ending of a marriage

Changes to trends in marriage

• Average age of marriage is increasing

  • in 1971 - 23 for women, 25 for men

  • in 2004 - 29 for women, 37 for men

  • in 2020 - 30 for women, 31 for men

• Number of marriages

  • 1972 - 480,000 - peak

  • 2011 - 286,000 - continues to fall

• civil partnerships have increased since the introduction of the civil partnership act in 2004

• the number of remarriages has increased 40%

• despite decline in marriage rates, there is still evidence to show a strong commitment to the institutions of marriage

Reasons for the decline in marriage

• changing attitudes

  • less pressure to marry/ more freedom to choose relationship/living arrangements

  • decline in stigma to alternatives

    • it is ok to cohabit and to have babies outside of marriage

• changes in position of women

  • less need to be dependent on men, as women can have children without men and have careers to support themselves

• secularisation

  • a decline in the influence of religion has allowed other types of family to become more popular

• fear of divorce

  • as couples fear getting divorced, some choose not to marry in order to avoid this difficult situation

• cost

  • average UK wedding costs £25,000 so couples defer marriage in order to save money or spend money on housing instead

Reasons for the changing patterns of marriage

• people are getting marries later in life

• civil partnerships and same sex marriage

• increase in cohabitation

• increase in births outside of marriage

Cohabitation

• over 2 million cohabiting couples in Britain, with ¼ of all non-married adults under

• recognised trend that cohabitation is replacing marriage

• long term cohabitation has become popular amongst young people either using it as a period/trial marriage before marriage or as a long term alternative

Divorce

Reasons for increasing divorce:

• law (changes)

  • 1969: divorce law reform act

    • effective from 1971

    • grounds now irretrievable breakdown (no need to prove an ‘offence’ has been committed)

    • made divorce easier and cheaper

  • 1984: divorce law

    • meant that you could divorce after 1 year of marriage (previously 3 yrs)

    • made divorce quicker

  • 1996: family law act

    • forced couples to attend mediation sessions before separating followed by a separating period of at least 9 months

    • increased the opportunies for divorce

• changing position of women

  • financial independence via paid work/benefits

  • women able to leave unhappy marriages

  • smaller family size frees women (less children to look after)

• decline in stigma/secularisation

  • decline in influence of religion - no longer a sin to divorce (still stigmatised in some regions)

  • divorce is now socially acceptable

  • couples now resort to divorce to resolve problems

• higher expectations of marriage

  • fletcher argues that divorce rates have riseb because couples expect more in relationships today, so less are likely to put up with an unhappy marriage

  • is divorce rates rising an indication of higher standards of marriage?

  • re-marriages (serial monogamy) to try to achieve happiness

Reasons for changing patterns of divorce

• changes in the law

• changing role of women

• feminism

• changing social attitudes

• secularisation

• media influence

• increased life expectancy

• welfare state benefits

Conjugal role relationships

conjugal relationships - the relationship between marital or cohabiting partners

conjugal roles - the roles typically associated with male and female partners

domestic division of labour - househole tasks divided by different family members

double shift (dual burden) - women who continue to perform the bulk of domestic labour are said to have a ‘double shift’ of paid employment followed by an unequal share of household work

dual career families - a family in which both parents have careers

joint conjugal roles - male and female partners share household tasks

money management - the power relationship surrounding how finances are spent within the family

segregated conjugal roles - male and female partners perform different and clearly defined tasks

triple shift - the three types of work that create a burden for women; paid work, domestic work, emotional work

Symmetrical family

• a family where both domestic and economic responsibilities are equally shared between male and female partners

• they carry out different tasks but make a similar contribution to the home