Families and Households- Nature and Role of Family in Society

Question 1

What is a household?

Answer 1

A group of people who live together who may or may not have family or kinship ties

Question 2

What is a family?

Answer 2

A type of household where the people living together are related

Question 3

What does kinship mean?

Answer 3

Being related by birth or blood

Question 4

What is a nuclear family?

Answer 4

Two generations living together- parents and dependent children

Question 5

What is a traditional extended family?

Answer 5

Three or more generations of the same family living together or close by with frequent contact

Question 6

What is an attenuated extended family?

Answer 6

Nuclear families that live apart from their extended family but keep in regular contact

Question 7

What are lone-parent families?

Answer 7

A single parent and their dependent children

Question 8

What are reconstituted families?

Answer 8

New stepfamilies created when parts of two previous families are brought together

Question 9

How do functionalists see all institutions in society?

Answer 9

Essential to the smooth running of society

Question 10

How does Murdock view the family?

Answer 10

Inevitable and universal

Question 11

What are Murdock’s four basic functions of the family?

Answer 11

Stable satisfaction of the sex drive, reproduction of the next generation, meeting society’s members’ economic needs, socialisation of the young

Question 12

What did Parsons say that the two basic and irreducible functions of the family are?

Answer 12

Primary socialisation and satisfaction of adult personalities

Question 13

How has Morgan criticised the functionalist perspective?

Answer 13

It idealises the family, Murdock makes no reference to alternative households or to disharmony and problems in family relationships

Question 14

How do feminists criticise the functionalist perspective?

Answer 14

They ignore the exploitation of women

Question 15

What does the functionalist perspective not look in to?

Answer 15

Conflict, class or violence in regards to the family

Question 16

How do Marxists view the family?

Answer 16

Benefits the minority in power (bourgeoise) and the economy but disadvantages the working class majority (proletariat)

Question 17

What does Engels say?

Answer 17

The family has an economic function of keeping wealth within the bourgeoisie by passing it on to the next generation as inheritance

Question 18

What did Zaretsky say?

Answer 18

The family is one place in society where the proletariat can have power and control (a safe haven)- helps relieve some frustration workers feel about their low status which helps them to accept their oppression and exploitation

Question 19

What does the woman’s role as a ‘housewife’ mean in capitalist society?

Answer 19

Workers are cared for and healthy to make them more productive

Question 20

What does the unit of consumption mean?

Answer 20

The family is a unit with the desire to buy the goods produced by capitalist industry, so the bourgeoisie get the profit

Question 21

How can the Marxist view of the family be criticised?

Answer 21

• Ignores other benefits than the economy to individuals and society
• No Marxist explanation to why family flourishes in non-capitalist or communist societies
• Assumes traditional gender roles

Question 22

What do feminists say about the family?

Answer 22

It helps to maintain existing social order by exploiting and oppressing women

Question 23

What do feminists call the existing social order?

Answer 23

Patriarchy which is the combination of systems, ideologies and cultural practices which ensure men have power

Question 24

What do feminists argue that the family does?

Answer 24

Supports and reproduces inequalities between men and women

Question 25

Why do feminists say that women are oppressed?

Answer 25

They are socialised to be dependent on men and put themselves in second place to men

Question 26

How does the family have a central role in socialising for the oppression of women?

Answer 26

Male and female roles and expectations are formed in the family and then carried on into wider society

Question 27

How do Marxist feminists view the family?

Answer 27

• Exploitation of women is essential to the success of capitalism
• Family produces and cares for next generation of workers for society at almost no cost to the capitalist system
• Women aren’t paid for the work they do inside the home

Question 28

How do radical feminists view the family?

Answer 28

• Women are exploited due to the domination of men in society
• Men will always oppress women
• Family is a patriarchal institution

Question 29

How do liberal feminists view the family?

Answer 29

• Emphasise cultural norms and values reinforced by the family
• Family is only sexist because it supports mainstream culture
• Social change is possible

Question 30

How have feminists been criticised?

Answer 30

• Portrays women as too passive and plays down individual power
• Doesn’t acknowledge that power may be shared
• Doesn’t consider other households such as gay and lesbian and lone-parent
• Doesn’t address different ethnic backgrounds

Question 31

What is the New Right theory based on?

Answer 31

The idea that the traditional nuclear family and its values are best for society

Question 32

What does the New Right believe about social policies?

Answer 32

They have undermined the family

Question 33

What does Murray believe?

Answer 33

Welfare benefits are too high and create a ‘culture of dependency’ where an individual finds it easy and acceptable to take benefits rather than work

Question 34

What do New Right theorists think about giving welfare benefits to lone-parent families?

Answer 34

It’s bad for children to be brought up in families where adults aren’t working

Question 35

What does the New Right say cause social problems?

Answer 35

Lone-parent and reconstituted families and easier access to divorce has led to a breakdown of traditional values

Question 36

How has New Right theory been criticised?

Answer 36

‘Blaming the victim’

Question 37

What is the postmodernist view?

Answer 37

There is a much wider range of diversity in families which is good

Question 38

What does Stacey say?

Answer 38

Family structure in Western society are varied and flexible so there is no fixed family structure