Families & Households Flashcards
Definition of family
Group of people related by kingship (blood,marriage,civil,adoption).
Definition of household
Alone or group of people at one address.
Functionalist views on family
-Families are seen as harmonious.
-Seen as a vital ‘organ’ in the ‘body’ of a society.
-Nuclear family.
-Family has a number of functions to perform.
The nuclear family (NF)
Involves married heterosexual parents and biological children in 1 household together.
Parents expected to fulfil traditional gender roles & conjugal roles.
Definition of socialisation
Process in which individuals learn the norms and values of society - social cohesion & functional society.
Primary socialisation
Socialised through your families normals and values.
Secondary socialisation
Learning universalistic values (norms of wider society) happening through other institutions e.g. media.
Murdock (1949) - 4 functions of family
- Stable satisfaction of the sex drive.
- Biological reproduction.
- Socialisation of young.
- Meeting economic needs.
Criticisms of the NF
Different, diverse families are able to meet these functions. E.g. same sex, unmarried.
Not all NFs meet the needs as they may not be able to get pregnant or have enough money.
Feminists - NF disadvantages women
Marxists - NF forces WC to work for bourgeoisie.
Criticisms of NF being universal
Murdock argued it is a universal institution & exists everywhere and is the only ‘right way’.
Cross cultural research criticises this from: Nayar, Commune & Kibbutz.
NF criticism: Nayar
In Nayar, there’s was no direct links between sexual relations, child bearing, rearing & cohabitation.
E.g. women could have up to 12 sexual relations with any man and their brother would raise them.
NF criticism: Commune
Multiple kids and multiple parents all unconventionally lived together and parents shared a collective responsibility of the children.
NF criticism: Kibbutz
Child rearing was completely separate as parents were kept away from their children and brought up by metapelets (professional parent - nurse, educator & mother).
These children met their parents for short periods per day, yet their needs were met.
More criticisms of NF
-lone parent families can still fulfil child’s requirements.
-gay/lesbians can have surrogacy.
-The civil partnership act 2004 gave same rights.
-foster care can be good.
Parsons (1995) - Functional fit theory
-In prior gens, families would live together (3 gens). Each person would have different roles. After industrialisation, families grew smaller.
-His theory is that as society changes, family changes to ‘fit’ societal needs.
-Pre-industrial society, extended family was a unit of production.
-NF fits industrial society better.
Definition of Geographically mobile workforce (GMW).
Places of work rise & decline in diff parts of the world. Parsons argues it’s easier for NF to move and is better fitted to the need that modern industry has for GMW.
Definition of Socially mobile workforce (SMW).
Individuals stays is achieved by their own efforts & ability, not ascribed so social mobility is possible. Father or son can have a better job.
Primary socialisation of children
-Involves learning & internalising society’s culture, language, history & values. He argues society would cease to exist if new generations weren’t socialised into accepting norms and values.
-gender role socialisation boys and girls should grow up in their correct gender roles.
Stabilisation of adult personalities.
-Pressures of industrial society e.g. need to work, lack of power etc, threaten to destabilise adult personalities which threatens the success of the family.
-He argues family stabilises adult personalities through the sexual divisions of labour
What are the sexual divisions of Labour?
The way jobs are divided into ‘men’s jobs’ & ‘women’s jobs’ in family.
Women have an EXPRESSIVE role - providing warmth, security & emotional support to husband and children.
Men have an INSTRUMENTAL role - as the family breadwinner leading to stress and anxiety threatening to destabilise his personality.
‘Warm bath’ theory
Wife’s expressive role relieves the husbands tension by providing love & understanding.
Parsons argues the NF is like a ‘warm bath’ providing a loving home with warmth, emotional support & security which is essential for economy (breadwinner has to go back to work each day).
‘Trad wife’
A woman who believes in and practices traditional sex roles and marriages. Many tradwives believe that they do not sacrifice women’s rights by choosing to take a homemaking role within their marriage.
Evaluation of functionalist perspectives on family.
-out-dated - not very relevant to todays society.
-ignores exploitation of women - sexual division of Labour is built upon gender inequality.
-downplays conflict - ‘darker side of family such as domestic violence & child abuse.
The New Right views or family.
-Believe in the traditional patriarchal NF consisting of heterosexual couple & dependant kids with a clear cut of sexual division of Labour.
-NF is the cornerstone of society’s place of refuge, contentment & harmony - stability.
How is NR different to functionalists?
-The NR feel the NF is under threats due to rise in divorce rates, lone parents.
-They believe this decline in traditional, conventional families is the cause for students’ rising disrespect & antisocial behaviour, crime, lack of discipline etc.
Murray & Marsland
Believe welfare state is at fault for rise in untraditional & ineffective families as it single women (who place their career above their children), to have kids & raise them with the money provided from state benefits to avoid work.
This creates a work shy underclass.
What is a work-shy underclass?
Relying on the welfare state for support rather than seeking employment and supporting themselves without state help. This can lead to younger people were socialised into an anti-work, high-crime and teen-pregnancy culture.
What do the NR propose?
To restore dominance of the NF by introducing govt policies to reverse decline of traditional families & measures to reduce divorce rates, births outside marriage & a reduction of benefits towards unconventional families.
New Right support
-rate of family breakdown is lower amongst married couples (6% compared to 20%).
-children from broken homes are 5X more likely to develop emotional problems.
-young with divorced parents are 3X more likely to be aggressive or badly behaved.
-lone-parent families are over 2X more likely to live in poverty.
-children from broken homes are 9X more likely to become young offenders.
-Functionalists support.
New Right criticism
-decline in NF is exaggerated, most people marry till death.
-feminism - traditional gender roles are oppressive to women & gender roles are socially determined not biologically.
-feminism - divorce being easier is good so women aren’t trapped in abusive relationships.
-most single parents aren’t welfare scrounges - most want to work but it’s difficult to find jobs & balance it with looking after kid.
-Chester argues the NR exaggerate the extent of cohabiting & single parent families.
What does the NR believe happens since the NF is under threat?
Family losing its functions and can no longer provide adequate socialisation or stability for family members.
Marxists views on the family
-The function of the family is to maintain the capitalist superstructure of society.
-This family structure enables the bourgeoisie (the elite ruling class) to pass down their capital and private property to their children. This reinforces social class inequalities.
-The family reproduces the next generation of workers that will be exploited as labour-power by the capitalist systems of production.
Friedrich Eugels views
-NF structure rose during capitalism.
-Went from age of primitive communism to capitalism through establishment of family norms such as private ownership & inheritance.
Primitive communism meaning
No private property and thus no social classes or private family units. Properties and resources were owned collectively.
4 functions of family to benefit capitalism
- Inheritance of property
- Marriage & status of women
- Ideological functions
- Unit of consumption
Inheritance of property
-would ensure heir was legitimate to pass on property & rich stayed rich & poor stayed poor.
-this reproduced and reinforced social class inequality. The bourgeoisie owned all of the wealth and resources and passed it down to the next generation of rich capitalists whilst the proletariat, the working masses, had nothing.
-advantageous to class hierarchy and inequality.
Marriage & status of women.
-Engels claimed that the nuclear family also created gender inequality as men took control of women’s sexuality and labour to reproduce and raise the next generations.
-Communism = no private property = women not subject to male control for reproduction.
Ideological functions: Zaretsky
Zaretsky argues that through the family, proletariat children are socialised to accept and embody norms and values that uphold capitalism.
Children are taught:
-that the inequality between social classes is ‘normal’ and ‘natural’.
-how to respect and conform to authority; hierarchy is inevitable and there will always be someone ‘in charge’.
-Within the family, this is usually the father; outside the family, it is teachers and employers.
As a result, children are conditioned to accept imbalances of power and control. This ‘prepares’ them for adulthood so that they can be obedient workers and retain false class consciousness.
Ideological functions: Althusser
The NF is an imbalanced structure that teaches its members to accept imbalances of power in wider society.
E.g.
-Husbands obey employers
-Women obey husband
-Children obey parents & authority by school.
According to Althusser, the role of the family is to produce submissive individuals that will benefit the capitalist system.
Unit of consumption
-Families are encouraged to constantly purchase the latest products and services to appear ‘fashionable’ and show off their ‘high’ status.
-Targeted advertising towards children who request expensive products (pester power).
-Exploitation of workers and benefits bourgeoisie by creating profit.
Marxist views: support
-recognises impacts of the family on women and the poor.
-acknowledges influence of structural factors on the family.
Marxist views: criticisms
-Is overly deterministic and views individuals as too passive.
-New Right argues that there are benefits of the nuclear family, such as the support given to children by two parents.
-Parsons argues that the family has positive functions, such as providing a ‘safe haven’ and place of comfort for its members.
-Feminists argue disregarding the role of the family in maintaining gender inequalities.
-Feminists argue it is unlikely that overthrowing capitalism will remove patriarchy altogether.
-MFs argue - Fran Ansley argues that men unload their stress and anger towards the capitalist system on women, which leads to domestic violence. Double oppression.
Feminist views on the family
-conflict theory .
-argue family oppresses women.
-focus on division of domestic labour and violence against women.
-don’t see gender inequality as natural but rather, socially constructed.
Radical feminism & the family
Beliefs:
-the family & marriage are key institutions that benefit men & disadvantage women.
-men benefit from women’s domestic unpaid labour & sexual services and they dominate women through sexual/domestic violence.
They want:
-separatism- living separately from husband.
-political lesbianism- women marrying women to prevent violence.
-Greer (2000) wants matrilocal households where the husband goes to live with wife & her family.
Evaluation of radical feminists
:) relevant e.g. METOO campaign shows commonness of sexual abuse.
:( Somerville argues their views won’t work due to heterosexual attraction.
:( RF fail to recognise law progression to prosecute domestic violence.
:( Presents women as too passive. Postmodernists feminists say women have initiative & don’t have to accept patriarchy.
Marxist feminists & the family
Beliefs:
-Main cause of oppression is capitalism.
-Women reproduce labour force.
-Women absorb anger - Ansley (1972) described wives as “takers of shit” who soak up frustration their husbands feel because of alienation & exploitation at work.
-Women are a reserve army of cheap Labour, hired when needed & ‘let go’ when not to go back to unpaid domestic labour.
They want:
-Communist revolution.
-Abolishment of families.
Evaluation of Marxist feminists
-very outdated as women are typically paid the same as men.
-women’s oppression was BEFORE capitalism, more oppressed in tribal societies.
-correlation between capitalist declinement & women’s liberation.
Liberal feminists & the family
Beliefs:
-Somerville - less oppression of women due to law and social attitudes.
-Women now have better access to divorce, job opportunities, control over their fertility, and CHOICE.
They want:
-Greater reforms - more ‘family friendly’ policies e.g. flexible working.
-Changes in attitudes and socialisation patterns of sexes e.g. raising gender neutral kids.
Evaluation of liberal feminists
-More appealing to wider range of women.
-More practical - small policies rather than revolutionary.
-Difference feminists argue that this is ETHNOCENTRIC - focused mainly on white, middle class women.
-RF (Greer,Delphy) argue that fails to deal with patriarchal structures and cultures.
Difference feminists & the family
-Argue that we cant generalise women’s experiences of the family as we’re all different.
E.g. black feminists view black NFs positively as a source of support & resistance against racism.
-Majority of feminism is ethnocentric.
Personal life perspective (PLP) - (Action/interprevists) & the family
-PLP criticises structural theories as they are too determinative - sees people as puppets manipulated by structure of society & ignores choices we have in creating our families.
-These approaches assume the traditional NF is the dominant family & ignore family diversity.
PLP: Beyond ties of blood & marriage
Family isn’t defined by BIOLOGICAL relation or marriage.
- family is simply a personal or intimate relation that you choose to class as family.
E.g. relation with pets - Tipper 2011
E.g. friends, godparents (fictive kin).
Nordquist & Smart (2014)
-wanted to discover meanings people give to relations with donor conceived children.
-conducted research exploring “what counts as family when your child shares a genetic link w a stranger but not your partner?”
-people have donor children to feel a connection and experience pregnancy whereas adoption is a long process of checking, money, history of child etc.
-N&S found parents of donor children placed greater emphasis on social relations over genetic ones.
E.g. a mother defined being a mom in terms of time & effort she put into raising her daughter.
Pets as family
According to a survey of 1000 households and a further 193 in-depth interviews carried out.
46/193 mentioned pets as family.
According to Blue Cross Pet Census 95% of respondents said they view their pets like family.
