Social structure + social change

• What is families and household?

  -Family:broad definition:all those related to a common ancestor (I.e family tree).Narrower definition:parents living together with their children (I.e family unit)there is a debate about whether the definition of the family implies kinship tie (I.e related ‘by blood’)

  -household:a group of people who live together regardless of kinship ties.This could be a traditional nuclear family, or a group of housemates.
• George Murdock

  -functionalists argue that families perform essential functions for individuals and society

  -educational:children are taught the norms and values of society (also known as primary socialisation)

  -economic:the family provides an economic function to all its members by pooling resources and ensuring all have what they need

  -reproductive:produces the next generation of the society

  -sexual:ensures that adults sexual relationships are controlled and stable
• Murdock's functionalist view on the family has been criticised because it ignores the fact that not everyone lives in a 'traditional' family
• Parsons


  Sociologist who updated Murdock's theory in 1951
• Functions of families in western societies (according to Parsons)


  • Primary socialisation
  • Stabilisation of adult personalities
• Primary socialisation


  1. Families teach children social norms and values associated with their family and/or community

  2. Other institutions such as schools,the media,religion etc teach children the universal norms and values of wider society
• Secondary socialisation


  The process of learning the universal norms and values of wider society
• Stabilisation of adult personalities


  • Families help to prevent adults from behaving in disruptive or dysfunctional ways, encouraging them to conform to social norms, especially at times of stress
  • The family provides emotional support to its members
• Parsons: 'Described the stabilisation of adult personalities as the "warm bath theory" - the idea that when a man comes home from a hard day at work, he can relax into his family life like a warm bath, taking away the stress and refreshing him for the next day's work'
• Evaluating functionalist views


  -conflict theorists (e.g Marxists and feminists)criticise functionalists for painting too rosy a picture of family

  -they also argue that families don’t serve the interest of everyone in society,just powerful groups (e.g feminists argue families serve the interest of men)

  -ansley (a Marxist-feminist)offers an alternative take on parsons warm bath theory,suggesting women are “the takers of shit”,absorbing men’s fustrations and protecting the ruling class

  -theories of are outdated:contemporary families are more diverse with different gender roles
• Engels 


  -Marxists agree with functionalists that the family performs important functions for society.However,they see it as performing those functions for capitalism and the ruling class,rather than for the whole society

  -the Marxist writer,Engels argued that the main role of the contemporary family was to keep wealth and property within the ruling class by ensuring that it’s passed down by the family line

  -the modern family is based on legal contracts (marriage) that ensures that the property of wealthy men passes down their blood lines
• Zaretsky


  -proposes a Marxist variation on Parsons warm bath theory.The family provides the proletarian man with something he can control:a space to be the boss.This serves the interests of capitalism because the w/c is better able to tolerate the frustration of powerlessness in the workplace because they are the “king of the castle“ at home

  -this clearly links with the Marxist feminist fran ansley‘s argument about women being the “takers of shit”,who have to absorb the fustrations and anger of men that would be better directed at the ruling class
• Marxist views on the family

  • Marxists and functionalists both think the family serves the interests of society as it's currently arranged
  • Marxists disagree with the way society is currently structured, seeing it as only benefitting a wealthy minority
• Marxist view of the family


  A conservative institution, serving the interests of capitalism because it weakens workers against their bosses as 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
• How the family benefits capitalism

  Acts as a unit of consumption and large number of consumer products are marketed directly as families (including via children and their "pester power"), providing capitalists with profits
• Evaluating Marxist views 


  -families aren’t just a feature of capitalist societies.However,Parsons himself argued that the privatised nuclear family was a product of and particularly suited to,an industrialised society.

  -despite some experiments with communal living in the early years of the Russian revolution,communist societies have been based around family life too

  -zaretskys 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
• Feminists


  Think that conventional families maintain the status quo, which is a patriarchal (male-dominated) society
• Liberal feminists


  • Focus on legal equality between the sexes
  • Recognise there is still a long way to go, especially in terms of domestic labour, and the way boys and girls are socialised differently (canalised into their gender roles)
  • Argue that families can be equal and unoppressive, while still serving the patriarchy
• Legal battles won by feminists

  • Outlawing marital rape in 1991
  • Reforms to divorce laws
  • Reforms to abortion laws
• Radical feminists


  Argue that changes to law will never be enough to end the oppression of women
• Radical feminists


  • Propose alternative ways of living including some calling for gender separatism
• Radical feminists


  Argue that girls and women are socialised to accept oppression and therefore do not recognise it (similar to the Marxist concept of false consciousness)
• Marxist-feminists


  Argue that women are exploited both by patriarchy and by capitalism and therefore the family best serves the interests of men and bosses
• Marxist-feminists


  • Argue that capitalism gets the benefit of women's unpaid labour (maintaining the workforce and the next generation of workers) and suggest women also serve as a reserve army of labour (available to work if necessary, therefore keeping wages low)
• Marxist-feminists point out that women workers are often the lowest paid and most insecure, with the least rights
• Some suggest feminists paint too gloomy a picture


  Some families are much more equal and not all women and girls are oppressed by their husbands and fathers
• Radical feminists are criticised


  For seeing women as passive victims of patriarchy
• Postmodern feminists argue


  That women can make choices and assert their power
• Some feminist theories are seen as outdated, describing a society of traditional nuclear families with working husbands and stay-at-home wives
• Contemporary families are more diverse
• Sociologists and thinkers from the New Right

  See the nuclear family (two married, heterosexual parents with a small number of children) as essential for society
• In contemporary society (due to government policies)

  The nuclear family has been undermined
• Charles Murray


  Writes about the welfare state providing perverse incentives for people to form lone-parent families e.g. receiving benefits and leading to children growing up in workless households and forming an underclass in society
• Many sociologists strongly disagree with New Right views


  Which they see as "blaming the victims" of poverty for their own poverty
• Some would argue that the New Right is not really a sociological perspective at all, but instead it is a political perspective
• Marxists argue the New Right is just an ideological justification for pro-capitalist policies (e.g. cutting public spending and reducing taxes on the wealthy)
• Pre-industrial families


  Large, extended families where the family acted as a unit of production working in agriculture
• Industrial revolution


  Required people to move to urban areas
• Nuclear families


  More geographically mobile and also socially mobile (in that there was less expectation for a son to keep doing what his father did)
• Urban nuclear families


  People had an achieved status rather than the ascribed status (it was more meritocratic)