Family and household key terms

• household - a place where you live and who you live with
• What is a family - many things the family is an intimate domestic group of people related by blood , sexual or legal ties
• Types of family

  -nuclear family

  -step family’s

  -single parent

  -extended family

  -same gender parents

  -foster family

  -chosen family
• Why are gender roles changing

  -economically active mothers

  -decline in extended family

  -weakening gender roles

  -technology and living standards

  -commercialisation of domestic labour
• Allowance system-men give women an allowance to budget
• Pooling - both parents work and have joint responsibilities for spending e.g joint bank
• Instrumental roles - masculine jobs E.G bread winner ,discipline
• Expressive role - feminine role E.G emotional, caring , domestic
• Dual earner families - both partners earn money
• Lone parent families - single parent with no partner
• Joint - couples share domestic labour and spread leisure time together
• Separate- individual roles within the family both in the terms of domestic labour and leisure activities
• What was the idealized view of the family during the industrial era?

  The family was seen as a retreat from stress and turmoil.
• How was the household viewed in relation to the world of work?

  The household was viewed as separate from the world of work.
• What major themes were prevalent in art and literature regarding home life?

  The pleasures and virtues of home life were major themes.
• What was the differentiation of sexual roles in society during this period?

  Men were associated with the public sphere, while married women were confined to the home.
• How were working-class mothers perceived in society?

  They were singled out for particular approbation.
• What contradictions were exposed in the ideology of separate spheres?

  Anxieties arose over issues such as child care, birth control, and gender roles.
• What was the primary family structure in modified Victorian middle-class families?

  The family structure was primarily nuclear.
• How did the living arrangements of working-class families differ from those of middle-class families?


  Working-class families often housed lodgers and had extended family relations for support.
• What was the norm regarding marriage during this period?

  Companionate marriage was the norm.
• What factors influenced the choice of marriage partners in the 19th century?

  Participants exercised free choice based on mutual love, subject to parental veto.
• How did Lord Lyndhurst's Act affect marriage choices in 1835?

  It narrowed the choice of marriage partners and was not modified until 1907.
• Was the romantic ideal of Victorian marriage based on equality?

  No, it was not based on equality.
• Complementary - traditional gender roles where women are responsible for housework and men are responsible for earning money
• Separate - traditional gender division of labour where women are responsible for housework and children while men focus on paid employment
• Extended family - grandparents, uncles etc live together
• Reconstituted families - stepfamilies
• Single parent families - one parent is responsible for all the children's needs
• Single earner families - one wage earner
• Expressive role - feminine jobs E.G housework, childcare
• Division of labour - how tasks within the home are divided between male and female members of the household
• Egalitarian - both partners share responsibilities equally
• Patriarchy - a social system in which males hold power over females
• Shared - both parents share responsibility for childcare and domestic tasks equally
• Conjugal role strain - when there is conflict between work and home life due to competing demands