Functionalist and Marxist views on the family Flashcards
What is a family? Household?
-Broad definition: All those related to a common ancestor.
Narrow definition: Parents living with their children.
-Household: A group of people living together regardless of kinship ties. This could be a traditional nuclear family, or a group of housemates.
What functionalist identified 4 key functions of the family?
What are the 4 key functions?
-Murdock.
-Educational, economic, reproductive, sexual.
Who updated Murdock’s theory? What did he argue instead? Describe this.
What is the warm bath theory?
-Parsons.
-That the family performed 2 main functions.
-Primary socialisation: In a similar way to Murdock’s educational role, Parsons agreed that families teach children social norms and values. However, he argued they specifically teach children the norms and values associated with their family or community, while other institutions such as schools, the media, religion teach children the universal norms and values of wider society. Parsons called the latter secondary socialisation.
-Stabilisation of adult personalities: Parsons argued that families help to prevent adults from behaving in disruptive or dysfuntional ways, instead encouraging them to conform to social norms, especially at times of stress. The family provides emotional support to its members.
-The warm bath theory is the idea that when a man comes home from a hard day at work, he can relax into his family like a warm bath, taking away the stress and refreshing him for the next day’s work.
What is the functionalist perspective of the family criticised for by Marxists and feminists? Postmodernists?
Who criticised the Warm bath theory? Why?
-Conflict theories criticise functionalists for painting too rosy a picture of the family.
-They also argue that families do not serve the interests of everyone in society, just powerful groups.
-Fran Ansley(Marxist-feminist) criticised Parson’s warm bath theory, suggesting women are ‘takers of the shit’, absorbing men’s frustration and protecting the ruling class.
-Others argue the theories are outdated: contemporary families are more diverse with different gender roles.
What Marxist argued that the main role of the family was to keep wealth and property passed down?
How was this done legally?
-Friedrich Engels argued the main role of the family was to keep wealth and property within the ruling class.
-The modern family is based on legal contracts(marriage) that ensure the property of wealthy men passes down their blood lines.
Who provided a Marxist alternative to the warm bath theory? What did he argue?
How does this serve the interest of capitalism?
Which feminist sociologist supports this argument?
-Zaretsky.
-The family provides the proletarian man with soemthing he can control: a space to be the boss.
-This serves the interests of capitalism because the working class is better able to tolerate the frustration of powerlessness in the workplace because they are the ‘king of the castle’ at home.
-Supported by Fran Ansley’s ‘takers of the shit’, who argues women have to absorb the frustrations and anger of men that would be better directed at the ruling class.
How does the family working as a conservative institution only serving the interests of capitalism according to Marxists? Disempowering workers? Consumerism?
-It weakens workers against their bosses: workers will put up with lower wages and worse conditions because the risk of no job is not only their risk, but also that of their dependents.
-The family acts as a unit of consumption and large numbers of consumer products are marketed directly at families(‘pester power’) providing capitalists with profits.
Why are marxist views on the family criticised? Engels?
Are families only found in capitalist societies? Zaretsky’s theory?
-Engel’s view of family and marriage is hardly a romantic one!
-Families are not just a feature of capitalist societies. However, Parson himself argued that privatised nuclear family was a product of and suited to an industrialised society.
-Despite some experiments with communal living in early years of the Russian revolution, communist societies have been based around family life too.
-Zaretsky’s theory is outdated, assuming a male breadwinner and female housewife. It also only sees a negative side to the emotional support and comfort that a family can provide to its members.
