Family

Question 1

Types of family

Answer 1

Nuclear - definition by Murdock – mother, father, kids
Common Law – nuclear family that is not legally married
Sibling – raised by older siblings (no parents)
Gay/lesbian- same sex parents
Visiting Union – survival strategy of the poor…woman with many kids by many men and uses funds from different fathers to take care of all kids
Trans-Continental - ‘barrel family’ – parent works abroad and send money and barrels for family in the Caribbean
Re-constituted - mother and father from previous families…get together and create a new family with their kids from other partners

Question 2

Focal and Archal

Answer 2

Matrifocal – center of relationships is a female, usually a grandmother or old aunt
Patrifcoal - center of relationships is usually a male – not common among Caribbean families
Matriarchal – mother is the main bread-winner
Patriarchal - father is the main bread winner

Question 3

George Murdock on family

Answer 3

George Peter Murdock (Social Structure 250 societies)
“A social group characterised by common residence, economic co-operation and reproduction. It includes adults of both sexes, at least two of whom maintain socially approved sexual relationship, and one or more children, own or adopted of the sexually co-habiting adults”.

Support for G. P. Murdock
statistics show matrifocal families are not the norm.
matrifocal family is a broken nuclear family.
Blacks regard the ‘ideal’ mainstream family as ideal.
Matrifocal families is the family ‘gone wrong’, it is full of disorganisation and thus not an alternative to the nuclear family.

Against Murdock
statistics don’t mean its not recognised as an international family structure. In many societies, polygamy, polygamous marriages are a minority, yet sociologists accept them a form of extended family.
In low-income areas, the matrifocal family is expected and accepted.
Matrifocal family members regard the unit as a family
Female-headed families are well organised and are an adaptation to the economic circumstances of poverty. Common - law, visiting unions.
The supposed harmful effects of the matrifocal family are far from proven.

Question 4

Diana Gittens

Answer 4

Diana Gittens
“While it can be argued that all societies have beliefs and rules on mating, sexuality, gender and age relations, the content of rules is culturally and historically specific and variable, and is in no way universal.”

Question 5

FUNCTIONALISTS

What are the functions?
What are the functional relationships of members?
What are the functions to the members?

Answer 5

Murdock – sexual, reproductive, economic, educational and co-habitate.
Parsons – ‘Primary Socialisation’ – early years of the child.
‘Secondary Socialisation’ – other institutions exert increasing influence.

Primary socialisation has two main processes: The internalisation of society’s culture (norms and values). Structuring of the personality. Secondary socialisation; stabilisation of adult personalities. (less close-knit extended families and 
  ‘childish elements allowed to surface).

Critique - it is of a ‘well-adjusted’ unit with each caring for the other’s needs.
- it represents the middle class American family.
- no consideration for alternatives (many functions are now controlled by state
agencies).
- ignores the two-way interaction between individual and parent (spoilt child?).

Vogel & Bell (emotional scapegoating)
- look at emotionally disturbed children. Hostilities between parents are transferred and
projected onto the children.
- what is dysfunctional for the children is functional for the parent, family and society. The cost of the child of low, relative to the functional gains of the family.
- it is a personality – stabilising process, allowing them to function in the workplace and community.

Critique - functional is a matter of opinion. Relative low cost of the child is debatable.
- See Bergers (pg. 464) on bourgeois family.
- Edmund Leach of runaway world? (pg. 465) overloaded electrical circuit.
Privacy (nuclear family) is a source of fear and violence.
NB “Far from being the basis of a good society, the family, with its narrow privacy and
tawdry secrets, is the source of all our discontents.”

Laing (phenomenological psychology)
Family allows members to play one against the other. One is usually a go-between (child). The group is a ‘nexus’, the highest concern of the nexus is reciprocal concern. Members are vulnerable and potential for harm is great as each wants to feel loved and given attention. ‘Family members act as gangster, offering each other mutual protection against each other’s violence’.
Barriers between themselves and the world are strengthened, thus perpetuating the problem.