AQA A-Level Sociology Families and Households Summary Notes

THE ROLE OF THE FAMILY

FUNCTIONALISM

MURDOCK:
- Murdock: 5 functions of the family:
+ Sex: healthy relationship maintained.
+ Primary socialisation: norms/values taught.
+ Education: teaching right from wrong.
+ Economics: meeting the economic needs of the population.
+ Reproduction: population growth.
+ Stabilisation of the adult personality: warm bath theory.
ALTERNATIVES TO THE FIVE FUNCTIONS OF THE FAMILY:
- Sex: porn/prostitution/affairs.
- Primary socialisation: schools.
- Education: media.
- Economics: shelters/food banks/welfare state.
- Reproduction: IVF.
- Stabilisation of adult personality: therapy.
CRITICISMS OF FUNCTIONALISTS ON THE FAMILY:
- They see the family through 'rose-tinted glasses'.
- Ignore negative aspects such as abuse or neglect.
- Marxists and feminists would argue that women stay at home being a housewife and
they do not get paid for this.
- Some parents fail to bring their children up in a socially acceptable way.
PARSONS:
- Created the functional fit theory: families play different roles depending on the society
they live in.
- Believed that in pre-industrial Britain, the extended family was most common as
separate housing was too expensive and there were more members within the unit of
production (meaning more income).
- Believed that after the industrial revolution, the nuclear family became the norm, loses
some of its functions: ceases to be a unit of production and is only a unit of consumption,
loses some functions to schools/healthcare.
- After the industrial revolution, the family only provided primary socialisation and the
stabilisation of adult personalities.
FACTORS THAT CHANGED FAMILY TYPES:
- Geographical mobility.
- A socially mobile workforce (moving up/down the class system).
- Extended family was too expensive to maintain.
CRITICISMS OF PARSONS:
- Extended family was not dominant before the industrial revolution:

, + Young and Willmott: the nuclear family was dominant and families worked in
cottage industries such as weaving.
+ Laslett: short life expectancy due to poor healthcare and late childbearing meant
not many extended families.
- Not all families became nuclear after industrialisation:
+ Anderson: working class families turned to the extended family due to illness,
cost and childcare (exchange theory).
+ Hareven: extended family was best equipped for post-industrial society.


PERSONAL LIFE PERSPECTIVE

PERSONAL LIFE PERSPECTIVE ON THE FAMILY:
- Share 'bottom up' approach of interactionism.
- Focus on relationships that are deemed important by individuals rather than what may
be conventionally defined as family.
- For example: friends, gay and lesbian 'chosen families', dead relatives.
‘BOTTOM UP’ PERSPECTIVE:
- Studying the ways in which individuals interpret the world.


MARXISM

FUNCTION OF THE FAMILY IN MARXISM:
- Sex: relieve sexual frustration, man must be able to work otherwise bourgeoisie suffer
loss.
- Primary socialisation: socialises the capitalist ideology.
- Education: reinforces the idea of hierarchy.
- Economics: family acts as a unit of consumption.
- Reproduction: production of the next workforce.
- Stabilisation of the adult personality: links to warm bath theory, women must stabilise the
family so they can support capitalism by working and acting as a unit of consumption.
ALTHUSSER:
- The bourgeoisie cause the proletariat to submit by keeping them in a state of false class
consciousness.
ENGELS:
- Nuclear family developed as a means of passing on private properties to heirs.
- Role of the woman in the family is not very different to that of a prostitute; exchanging
sex and heirs for economic security.
CRITICISMS OF MARXIST PERSPECTIVE ON FAMILIES:
- Feminists: Marxists underestimate the importance of gender inequalities.
- Functionalist: Marxists ignore the very real benefits the family provides.
- Women now have financial independence so are less likely to marry for financial gain.

, FEMINISTS

SOMERVILLE:
- Some modern men voluntarily complete their responsibilities within the family (or they
can be bullied/persuaded into doing so).
- Many men don't do this, however, and this leads to women feeling angry, resentful and
disappointed.
FEELEY:
- The family is an authoritarian unit dominated by the husband.
- Has an authoritarian ideology which teaches passivity and submission to parental
authority, accepting their place in the hierarchy of power and society.
GREER:
- Marriage reinforces patriarchal relations.
- Once the honeymoon period is over, marriage settles into a pattern where the husband
spends more time outside of the home (this reinforces the gendered public-private
divide).
- Husbands think they have done all that is required to keep their wife happy simply by
consenting to marry her.
VIEWS ON THE NUCLEAR FAMILY:
- The nuclear family does the following:
+ Socialises girls to accept subservient roles within the family, telling them that
boys are superior.
+ Socialises women into believing the 'housewife' role as the only available or
acceptable role for women.
+ Teaches patriarchal values.
CRITICISMS OF FEMINISTS ON THE FAMILY:
- 70% of divorces are initiated by women.
- Somerville: women's position in society has greatly improved.
- Difference feminists argue that Somerville’s argument is an ethnocentric view.