theories Flashcards
Nordqvist and Smart
Nordqvist and Smart are the Personal life perspective. They reject assumptions that there is a decline in family life and they tend to focuses on peoples ‘meanings’ of family They Draw attention to a range of personal or intimate relationships which are important to people, even though they might not be conventionally defined as family. For example, fictive kin, chosen families, relationships with dead relatives. They did a study of donor conceived children. “family” is not biologically related
Jenny somerville
Jenny somerville was a liberal feminist who argued that women’s role within the family have improved significantly, they now have better access to divorce, control over their own fertility, less social pressure to marry and better job opportunities as mothers.
Nonetheless, she does recognise the need for further reforms if women are to achieve full equality.
Evaluate Nordqvist and smart
They have too much of a broad view! They ignore important factors like blood and marriage which bind people.
Fran Ansley
Fran Ansley said Women are takers of shit! She was a Marxist feminist and believed women absorb anger as one of their functions in capitalism
Germaine Geer
Germaine Geer was a radical feminist who advocated ‘matrilocal’ households (the husband goes to live with the wife’s family) This is an alternative to heterosexual relationships.
Murdock
Murdock studies 250 societies concluding that the same form of family exists within each one. He concluded it was the nuclear family, which was universal either on its own or at the base of an extended family. He suggested 4 universal functions of the family. These were, stable satisfaction of the sex drive, reproduction of the next generation, socialisation of the young, and meeting its members economic needs.
Murdock evaluation
A critique of Murdock’s ideas is that nursery and school can provide socialisation of the young and communities and other institutions can prove economic security. Women can also use sperm donors for reproduction! He assumes only the family can fulfill these functions which is not the case. Murdock sees the family through ‘rose-tinted’ glasses, ignoring the dark side of family life e.g. domestic abuse. poverty and different beliefs
There is also evidence to challenge the family as being nuclear! e.g. same sex, loneparent families.
Also evidence from other cultures to critique Murdock. Many families, particularly within black communities in the West Indies and USA are matrifocal meaning female headed and do not include adult males.
Parsons
Parsons believed families have played different functions throughout the history of society depending on which society they are in. There are two types of family, the isolated nuclear family and the extended family. The structure and functions of a given type of family will “fit” the needs of the society in which it is found.
In the traditional pre-industrial society you had an ascribed status, family were self sufficient and land and resources were commonly owned or rented. Extended family was needed because everyone can help each other on the farm.
In parsons modern industrial society, industries were springing up and declining and evolving science and technology required a skilled and competent workforce. Status in society is achieved. The family type needed is a nuclear family. The modern industrial society needed a more geographical mobile workforce, a nuclear family is geographically mobile because they can move around easily, and they need a more socially mobile workforce, skilled workers are needed because they can achieve their own status.
Parsons argue that evolution from pre-industrial to a modern industrial society led to structural differentiation. This meant that key institutions within society evolved as they did, they specialised in specific functions
parsons pre-industrial functions = unit of production, unit of consumption, self-sufficient unit.
Modern industrial functions = no longer unit of production but unit of consumption. specialist functions instead. primary socialisation of children and stabilisation of adult personalities (warm bath theory)
male = instrumental role
female = expressive role
parsons evaluation
Young and Willmott say the pre-industrial family was nuclear not extended” Parents and children working together, e.g. cotton industries such as weaving,
Young and Willmott also say hardship of the early industrial period gave rise to the ‘mum-centred’ working class extended family.
Partial support for the nuclear family being the dominant family type today. Young and Willmott argue that, from about 1900, the nuclear family emerged as a result of social changes that made the extended family less important as a source of support
Engels
Engels argued that family had a clear economic function for capitalism, by ensuring wealth remained in the hands of the bourgeoisie. Family relations, based on clear legal contracts, facilitate inheritance and therefore when rich people die it is their children who hold their wealth. For Engels, family is all about blood lines and proof of parentage.
Zaretsky
Zaretsky argued that family life gave men something they could control and a space where they could be the boss. This provided a clear function for capitalism because it meant that workers would tolerate the powerlessness and frustration of being exploited at work because they had this private domain where they were “king of the castle” and could take out their stress and frustrations.
This again ties in with Fran Ansley’s Marxist-feminist perspective of women being the “takers of shit”.
Family helps preserve capitalism. If you are not being paid enough, you cant walk away from your job because you have a family to provide for.
parsons - how is family positive for society
primary socialisation of children -> teaches children norms and values
stabilisation of adult personalities -> warm bath theory. family is a place to distress which helps reduce conflict in society.
Benson
He followed the New Right perspective.
He conducted a study in 2006 analysing data on the parents of over 15,000 babies. He established that over the first three years of the babys life the rate of family breakdown was much higher amongst cohabitating couples. 20% compared with only 6% of married couples. This is used to support the New Right argument that only marraige can provide a stable environment in which to bring up children. Couples are therefore more stable when they are married than cohabitating.
