Summary Families and Households condensed notes

Family and Households

 A Family -> A group of people who are related by Kinship ties: Relations of
blood, marriage/Civil partnership, though it lacks the same legal rights and
responsibilities.
 A Household -> Either one person living alone or a group of people who live at
the same address and share living arrangements. Most families live in
households, but not all households are families – e.g. a group of students who
live together.
 There is diversity:
 In Families -> e.g. Lone parent, extended, nuclear, same-sex couples,
patriarchal and symmetrical families, reconstituted (Step/Blended) families.
 In Households -> e.g. Traditional nuclear family households, extended family
households, groups of friends, and people living alone.


TOPIC 1 -> The Relationship of the Family to the social
structure and Social Change, with particular reference to
the economy and to state policies

The functionalist perspective:

- Durkheim – Social cohesion and solidarity as a result of the nuclear family
- Parsons – Gendered division of Labour – stabilisation of adult personalities +
Primary socialisation + Functional Fit Theory
- Murdock – Sexual relationships, reproduction, socialisation, economic function

 Functionalism is a consensus structuralist view that sees the Nuclear
family as a beneficial institution, contributing to social stability and
providing a source of practical and emotional support for individuals –
(Durkheim) The family:
- Meets the needs of society by socialising the children into shared norms and
values (Value consensus) leading to social harmony and stability.
- Provides security for the conception, birth and nurture of new members of
society.
- Stabilises adult personalities and helps to maintain a stable society, through
the sexual division of labour, with men performing instrumental roles and
women performing expressive roles – Parsons
- Is a supportive and generally harmonious and happy social institution – Value
Consensus

Parsons’ view:
 Parsons argues that the family in a contemporary society has lost many of
its functions through a process of structural differentiation – Functions
being transferred to other specialised institutions, e.g. the welfare state taking
over education, healthcare, and support during periods of distress (like
unemployment).
 Parsons says the family now has only two essential functions:
1) The primary socialisation of children – The learning and internalisation of
society’s culture
2) The stabilisation of human personalities – By the sexual division of labour.
The male carries out an instrumental (breadwinner) role which leads to

, stress and anxiety which threatens to destabilise his personality. This is relieved
by women’s expressive role in providing warmth, security and emotional
support to their children and male partners – Warm Bath Theory

 Parsons argues that two-generational nuclear families ‘fits’
contemporary industrial societies better than extended families
because:

 Of the need for a geographically mobile labour force – Smaller families can
more easily move around the country to areas where the skills are required,
without being tied down by responsibilities for extended kin who live with them.
 The higher rate of social mobility means that people can move up or down
the social scale compared to the family they were born into. Nuclear families
avoid status conflicts with wider kin they might live with – e.g. daughters
achieving higher status in society than their fathers.
 Rising living standards and the welfare state taking over some functions
previously performed by the family have reduced dependence on kin for support
in times of distress.
 The growth in meritocracy means extended kin have less to offer family
members, such as job opportunities.

Parsons’ Functional fit theory:

Families adapt to the needs of society. Hence the name functional fit. They
complete the functions demanded of them by society. E.g. Primary socialisation.

Murdock

 states that the functions of the family are:
 Sexual stabilisation; Loyal partnership between heterosexual couples
 Reproduction
 Economic support
 Primary socialisation

Criticism of Murdock’s views:

 Outdated; he was a sociologist in 1949.
 False universality: Different cultures have different values.
 Ignores diversity, Different family types etc and simply only focuses on the
Nuclear Family
 Structural differentiation
 REES can be outsourced outside the family, with the welfare system
 Ignores abuse


Criticism of the functionalist perspective:

 It downplays conflict – it has a rosy view of the family as a harmonious and
integrated institution, but it ignores conflict such as domestic violence.
 It is outdated – the idea of ‘instrumental’ and ‘expressive’ roles of men and
women is very old-fashioned. In contemporary societies, both partners are likely
to be playing expressive and instrumental roles.

,  It ignores the exploitation of women, who suffer the responsibility of
housework and childcare undermining their position in paid employment,
reducing their power and causing stress and mental illness.
 Also criticised by Marxists and Feminists for stating that there is a value
consensus
 Fletcher argues against Parsons’ view that the family has lost
functions in contemporary society; he suggests that in pre-industrial and
early industrial society poverty meant some functions were outsourced to the
state, he argues that in contemporary society most of these functions remain
the same as they have always been.
 Parsons ignores the impact of changes to legislation that have increased
women’s instrumental role, and he ignores the expressive work that men carry
out.


The New Right Perspective:

 The New Right is more a political than a sociological approach and has had
some influence on family social policies. Its views on the role of the family in
society are similar to the Functionalist approach.

 It supports traditional family values and the traditional heterosexual
nuclear family. It believes the best means of bringing up children to become
conformists, responsible adults are in families with two natural parents and a
traditional division of instrumental and expressive gender roles.
 It opposes changes like easier divorce, more stepfamilies, more lone
parents, cohabitation as an alternative to the commitment of marriage, and
births outside of marriage.
 It regards welfare state policies that support relationships outside the
conventional nuclear family as undermining personal responsibility,
self-help, and support from families, and creating a dependency culture and
social problems, e.g. Juvenile crime and anti-social behaviour.
 Underclass – Lone parent households create a poorly socialised underclass.
- Use Watts District Riot cost the LA district $18 Million.
 Marsland also agrees with everything said and is also a key new right
thinker.
 Morgan argues that “Lone parent families breed delinquency”
 Morgan also argues that same-sex couples fail to adequately socialise children
into the ‘correct’ gender roles
 Morgan can be seen as being correct as over 50% of UK prisoners have been
through care system.
 Portillo argued that teenage pregnancies often leads to a whole life of state
dependence. The teenage mother is rarely able to gain a full education or
develop a career, However, this could be seen as just being a moral panic, as
only 1% of single mothers are teenagers.
 Howard argues that we must emphasise our belief that the traditional two
parent family is the best. The best for parents, society and children.


Associated with Murray:

 Leading new right thinker
 Proposes the emergence of an underclass has taken place and believes single
mothers form the bulk of this class.

,  The welfare state reinforces perverse ideologies.

 The view of the gender roles supported by both the New Right +
Functionalists can be seen in the 1950s Fairy Liquid Advertisements;
 In both the new and old adverts, the girl and the boy were being socialised into
their gendered norms. In both videos, women were seen washing up. In the
more recent video, the man could be seen, sat down, reading the
newspaper which could be linked to functionalist Warm Bath Theory.


Criticisms of the new right:

 Blames the poor for their own circumstances -> Is this really fair – Keddie
argues this is victim blaming – this links to the idea of moral panics and folk
devils – only 1% of single mothers are to teenagers in the UK.
 39 is the average age of a single parent.
 1 in 4 families are headed by a single parent.
 Accused of looking back on the “Golden age” of family
 Makes value Judgements on different types of families.
 Has no research or statistical data – Armchair theorist
 The media also plays a role in the representation of single parent families,
fulfilling the negative metanarrative pushed by traditional new right
ideologies on the family.
 Both Portillo and Howard take malestream views.


The Marxist Perspective:

Marx – Women are turned into commodities owned by Men
Zaretsky – Cushioning affect + Unit of Consumption
Althusser – Socialisation/ISA
Engels – Inheritance of wealth - Primogeniture
Hochschild – commodification of personal services

 Marxism is a conflict structuralist view that sees the family as serving the
needs of a capitalist society riddled with conflict between social classes with
opposing interests. The family is concerned with:

 Marx – Women in capitalist systems are commodities, owned by men, like
property – Women can still be seen as a commodity through cooking, cleaning
and prostitution.
 Reproducing, Nurturing, and maintaining a workforce for capitalism.
 Althusser - Social control, by teaching its members to submit to the capitalist
class and developing a false class consciousness in the working class.
Althusser argues the family is an Ideological state apparatus passing on
acceptance of ruling-class ideology, thereby damping down social conflict.
 The reproduction of inequality and the transmission of wealth (especially
for the rich) between generations through monogamous marriage.
 Zaretsky - Providing an escape route and haven from oppression and
exploitation at work– The family is a private place where workers, can be
valued as Individuals.
 Zaretsky talks about how the family reproduces the labour force.
 Zaretsky - The Home has become a place for workers to seek refuge from the
pressures of Work –- Cushioning effect