Families and households: perspectives of family Flashcards
Parsons
Argues that the nuclear family uphold societies values through:
Functional fit theory
The primary socialisation of children
The stabilisation of adult personalities
Functional fit theory
The nuclear family fits the needs of an industrial traditional society - as they provide a geographically mobile workforce.
The primary socialisation of children
equipping them with basic skills and societal values in order to integrate them into society
The stabilisation of adult personalities
The family is where an adult can release tensions in a stress free environment - known as the warm bath theory
warm bath theory
women absorbs all everyone stress but cant unload her stress to anyone
Murdock (explain the functions)
looked at families across the world and found 4 functions that were common in all families:
economic - family provides an economic function to all its family members by pooling resources and ensuring they have what they need.
educational - children taught the norms and values of society
reproductive - produces the next generation of society
sexual - ensures that adults sexual relationships are controlled and stable
Benson
Argues that couples are more stable when they are married.
He claims that the rate of divorce among married couples is lower because marriage is more stable because it requires a deliberate commitment to each other.
What do New Right believe?
They believe that there is an increase in lone parent families in the UK that are dependent on the welfare state benefits and thus creates a dependency culture and has introduced a ‘work shy’ underclass.
Charles Murray (his argument and outline beliefs)
Argues that social change and welfare benefits threatens the foundation of nuclear family. he believes in:
Nuclear family is threatened by social change
The underclass
Dependency culture
Nuclear family is threatened by social change
they see the nuclear family is under threat from social change which has caused a rise in divorce rates, cohabitating and re-constituted families.
legalisation of same-sex marriages led to a decline in stigma in divorce and decline in secularisation which leads people to believing that marriage isn’t as important
The underclass
The emergence of welfare culture has created a ‘work shy’ underclass.
New right believe that this group contribute to wider problems in society like theft, fiddling with the benefits system etc
Dependency culture
Murray argues society has allowed for ‘generous welfare state benefits’ which have broken the traditional nuclear family expectation. he believes that it introduced dependency culture on welfare benefits to avoid work.
Radical Feminist
Argue that men are the enemy.
Women are expressing the ‘triple shift’ (exploited at work, home and sexual)
Patriarchy needs to be overturned through separatism (living independently)
Marxist feminists
Argue that women are a reserve army for cheap labour, they are seen as extra workers when needed.
- Ansley - ‘takers of shit’ - argues women absorb anger from their partners toward capitalism because they feel exploited by the system
- Dual burden - exploitation is according at home or the workplace with no support system
Difference feminists (IRRELEVANT)
Argues that women have differentiating backgrounds so we cant generalise.
E.g. Black women deal with racism so view the family as a support mechanism
- women of colour are marginalised for both race and gender
