FAMILY

Functionalist Perspective
1. George Peter Murdock's 4 functions of the family
- Sexual (Continuation of society)
- Reproductive (Continuation of society)
- Economic (Essential for survival)
- Educational (Pass on culture to next generation)
2. George Peter Murdock's 5 characteristics of the family
- Economic cooperation
- Adults of both sexes
- A child or more either biologically acquired or adopted
- Sexual relationship that is socially approved
- Common residence
3. Talcott Parson's 2 irreducible functions
- Socialization of the young
- Stabilization of adult personalities
- Structural differentiation from Preindustrial to Modern Industrial family

Marxist Perspective
1. Friedrich Engels
- Origins of family
- Solve property inheritence problem
2. Eli Zaretsky
- Capitalist contributor
- Future generation of workers (labour)
- Consumers of products of capitalism
3. Soviet experiment
- Communists encouraged divorce, marriage and abortion as a means to undermine the
nuclear family
- They believed that the nuclear family promotes capitalism, and wanted to free women to
help rebuild the country destroyed by revolution and civil war.

Feminist Perspective
1. Somerville (Liberal view)
- Women do not wish to live without a male partner
- Women have more opportunities and choices open now
- Greater equality in marriage
2. Calhoun (Difference feminism)
- Lesbian and gay families are chosen families, just as much family relationships as those of
heterosexual couples, but they do not fulfill Murdock's definition of the family in that it
includes adults of both sexes and a sexual relationship that is socially approved.
3. Benston (Marxist)
- Family produces cheap labour, keeps men in working mental and emotional condition,
forces men to work to maintain family
4. David Cooper (Marxist)
- Family teaches children to conform to authority, to be obedient and submissive workforce
for capitalism
5. Delphy and Leonard (Radical)

- Family is an economic system whereby men benefit from the exploitation of women, of
men being the heads of household, makes final decisions and supports family members
financially
- Women must support elderly and children, and husband emotionally and sexually
- Believe family is patriarchal
6. Greer
- Women must adore their husbands and serve them
- Men benefit more from marriage than women psychologically
- Women are not compensated or loved enough in return for bearing and rearing a child,
no value to motherhood
- Children's faults are blamed at mothers'
- Women are quite likely to experience sexual assault from a male adult relative (Patriarchy)
- Advocates segregation for women, living in matrifocal households

Postmodern Perspective
1. Judith Stacey
- Movement towards greater variety in family relationships (Diverse, fluid and unresolved)

Modernity and the Family

1. Anthony Giddens
- Plastic sexuality (Sex for pleasure, non-permanent relationship)
- Confluent love (Both partners getting what they want from such a relationship)
2. Beck and Gernsheim
- Individualization (Individuals make their own decisions, opportunities abound)
- People seek emotional security in family
3. Talcott Parsons
- Isolated nuclear family is the typical family of modern industrial society
- Involves structural differentiation (Institutions evolve which specialise in fewer functions,
such as schools, hospitals, churches, etc)
4. Peter Laslett
- 10% of households preindustrial were extended
- Majority were nuclear family
- Nuclear family may have played a role in industrialization
- Family played roles of informal support and care, financial aid
5. Michael Anderson
- Co-residence occurs when parties receive net gains from the arrangement
- Working class families used extended family to their advantage as it allowed both parents'
to work whilst grandparents' took care of grandchildren'. Hence, early stages of
industrialization increased the propensity of extended family
6. Leach suggests that isolation from kin strains the nuclear family's marital relationship,
suffering from emotional overload and increases conflict between members of a family, this
being a negative force to the industrial society, creating a barrier between it (The Family)
and wider society to breed suspicion, fear and social conflict
7. R.D Laing claims that the nuclear family restricts self-development and generates an
unthinking respect for authority

Historical Development of Family

1. Young and Wilmott (The 4 stages of the family)
- #1 Preindustrial family (Pre-I Family is a unit of production)
- #2 Early industrial family (Working class Bethnal Green in London, where mothers kept in
touch with daughters that lived nearby)
- #3 Symmetrical family (Nuclear & home-centered, reduction in children per family, more
nuclear family, less networking with relatives)
- #4 Asymmterical family (Upper class set trend for family life, husbands are work-centered,
wives domestic-centered, couples spend less time together)

Family Diversity
1. Leach
- Working husband, domestic wife, 2 children represents cereal packet family (Ideal
advertising image of family)
2. Rapoport (Family diversity is a global trend, due to increasing divorce rates and
cohabitation)
3. Organizational diversity (Variations in family structure, household type, division of labour
in households, increased reconstituted families such as those formed after divorce and
remarriage)
4. Cultural diversity (Different lifestyles of families of different ethnic origins and religious
beliefs, children experience two worlds, conforming to wider society outside and ethnic
culture at home)
5. Class diversity (Differences between middle and working class families in relation to childrearing and adult relationships)
6. Allan and Crow (Diversity caused by increased divorce rate, rise in lone parenthood,
increased cohabitation, declining marriage rates)
7. Consequences of single parenthood (Creation of social underclass whereby young women
choose to get pregnant, fathers remain unemployed and refuse to support children, and
children grow up into a life of crime, associated with low living standards)
8. McIntosh disagrees and claims that mothers have been stigmatized and blamed for problems
such as youth crime and unemployment

Changing Functions of Family

1. Loss of functions
- [Talcott Parsons] Specialized institutions replaced the family's use, labelling the family
almost completely functionless because of low economic production/political power/direct
agency of intergration of society
- Does not mean family is declining in importance, rather it has simply become more
specialized. By structuring the personalities of the young and stabilizing the personalities of
adults, family provides members with psychological training and support to meet society's
requirements
- [Ronald Fletcher] Family's functions have increased in detail and importance. Specialized
institutions such as hospitals and schools have amplified the family's functions, and that the
family's responsibility for socialising the young is as important as ever. Parents' are expected

to do their best to guide, encourage and support their children in their educational and
occupational chocies and careers. State provides health aid to improve children's health.
Admitting that the family has lost its functions as a unit of production, it is still a vital unit
of consumption.

Conjugal Roles
1. Joint conjugal roles & segregated conjugal roles (Domestic work & leisure activities
between spouses shared/not shared, partners are together/not together often)

Childhood
1. Birth, childhood, adolescence, parenthood, retirement, old age, dying is the life course, a
series of inevitable stages to be passed through based upon biological aging
2. Pitcher defines life course as 'A socially defined timetable of behaviours deemed appropriate
for particular stages within any one society'
3. Childhood today is a social construct (Role socially defined and specific to particular society
at particular times)
4. [16th Century increased child care (Philippe Aries)] Education kept children separated from
adults and extended transition to adulthood, psychology and pediatrics emphasized the need
for parents to care and nurture
5. [16th Century increased child care (Shorter)] Romantic love developed making children
seem more special as a product of a special relationship, mother's sacrifice for children

Marriage and Marital Breakdown

1. Reasons for Marital Breakdown
- Women give greater priority to their careers
- Feminism may have made marriage seem less attractive
- Beck & Gernsheim's individualization, their choice to get married rather than obligation
- Gidden's confluent love, a marriage which provides them with personal fulfilment
- Cohabitation
- Delayed marriages
- Declining fertility and birth rates
- Increased single-person households (Choice or divorce)
2. Marital breakdowns divided into 3 categories
- Divorce
- Separation
- Empty-shell marriages (Spouses cohabit but marriage exists in name only)
3. Functionalists argue that the rise in divorce exhibits the rise in value now put on marriage,
as people are more likely to end a relationship that is non-advantageous to them

The Family, Politics and Social Policy

1.
2.
3.
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Taxation, welfare, housing, education and divorce laws influence domestic life
School and work hours make it hard for women to care for elderly relatives
Few state-funded houses are built to accommodate families larger than nuclear families
State policy is based on the ideology of the normal family, an assumption whereby 1 family

member puts primary emphasis on childcare rather than work, taking care of the elderly and
of wives being economically dependent on their husbands.
5. New Right policies approach the family via :
- Liberal economic policies
- Conservative social moral values in favour of conventional family
- Stronger anti-divorce stands
- Critical of any laws or aspects of the welfare state which might allow or encourage
alternatives to the traditional nuclear family
- Charles Murray's underclass theory sees welfare-dependent single parents as an underclass,
also an example of a New Right perspective.

Demography
1. Declining fertility and birth rates (Women are giving birth less as they are getting married
later)
2. Geographers believe the decline is part of the demographic transition
- Improved contraception and greater access to sterilization and abortion
- Increased desire for material goods
- Women furthering their careers
- Declining death rates of young children as a result of increased medical care
3. Lower death rate
- Immunization against infectious diseases
- New surgical techniques
- Increased life expectency
4. Increased ageing population causes :
- Increased cost of pensions and welfare payments
- Increased burden on women or adults to care for elderly relatives