Family and households

Question 1

Family

Answer 1

A group of people represented by kinship ties

Question 2

Kinship

Answer 2

Relations of blood, marriage/civil partnership or adoption

Question 3

Cohabitation

Answer 3

Living together without the legal bonds of marriage

Question 4

Household

Answer 4

One person living alone or a group of people living at the same address and sharing living arrangements

Question 5

Symmetrical family

Answer 5

Authority and tasks shared between males and females

Question 6

Polyandry

Answer 6

One wife and two or more husbands

Question 7

2022 family statistics

What % are nuclear families with children still present?
How many families?
What happened to marriage rates between 1991-2001?
How likely is a single parent family to be in poverty?

Answer 7

• 57% are nuclear families with children still present
• 19.4 mil families
• marriage rates halved between 1992-2001
  -Single parent family 2x more likely to be in poverty

Question 8

George Murdock family functions

What are the four functions of the family according to Murdock?
What do theese functions do?

Answer 8

Educational - primary socialisation

Economic - pooling reasources, ensures everyone has their needs met

Reproductive - produces next generation

Sexual - adult sexual relations are controled and stable

Question 9

Talcott Parsons updated view on family functions

what did he believe about state functions?
What did he argue about family functions?

Answer 9

• the state provides some functions some educational and economic function
• argued there are 2 irreducible functions in modern family, stabilization of adult personalities and primary socialization

Question 10

Talcott Parsons view on primary

What specific norms does family teach about?
What norms do institutions like media and ___ teach about?
What did he call the latter process?

Answer 10

• Family teaches specifically norms about community and/or family
• other institutions like school, media and religions teach children the universal norms of society
• Parsons called the first process primary socialization and the latter secondary socialization

Question 11

Talcott Parsons, stabilization of adult personalities

What does family prevent and how?
What is warm bath theory?

Answer 11

• Argued families prevent adults from being dysfunctional by promoting conformity to societal norms, especially in times of stress

Warm bath theory - when a man comes home he can relax into his family like a bath, taking away stress.

Question 12

Parsons 1955 functionalist family model
What was expected of the husband?
What was expected of the wife?
What were these roles based on and who agrees with them?

Answer 12

Husbands instrumental role - breadwinner, discipline
Wife’s expressive role - emotional support for husband and kids, housework

• based on biological differences and societies benefits
• New right thinkers often agree

Question 13

Feminist critique on Parsons family model

Answer 13

• Highly criticized
• Feminists argue there is nothing natural about a model of labor division and it just benefits men

Question 14

Conjugal roles

Answer 14

Roles relating to housework

Question 15

Young and Willmott (1973) take on ‘march of progress’ view.

Answer 15

stage 1: Pre-industrial family
stage 2: The early industrial family
stage 3: The symmetrical family
stage 4: The asymmetrical family