Zaretsky

• Marxist perspective on families


  Critical of the nuclear family and its role in maintaining the capitalist system
• Nuclear family


  • Recreates inequalities between social classes over time
  • Members of the bourgeoisie (the owners of the means of production) can buy their children a privileged education and pass on their wealth to the next generation
  • Through socialisation, working-class children learn to accept their lower position in an unequal society and to see the system as fair
• Zaretsky's account of the family


  1. Before the early 19th century, the family was a unit of production

  2. The rise of industrial capitalism and factory-based production led to a split between family life and work

  3. The family and the economy are now seen as two separate spheres: the private and the public sphere
• Separation of home and work

  Women became responsible for personal relationships and for family members' emotional well-being
• Nuclear family


  • Has an economic function that serves the interests of capitalism
  • Women undertake unpaid labour within the home (such as child-rearing and cleaning) and maintain daily life
  • The system of wage labour relies on this unpaid domestic labour
  • Domestic labour is devalued because it is seen as separate from the world of work
• Through the family


  1. Each social class reproduces itself over time

  2. The bourgeois family transmits its private property from one generation to the next (through inheritance)

  3. The proletarian family reproduces the labour force by producing future generations of workers
• Family


  • A vital unit of consumption for capitalism
  • Families buy and consume the products of capitalism and enable the bourgeoisie to make profits
• Zaretsky believes that only socialism can end the artificial separation of family life and public life, and make personal fulfilment possible
• Criticisms of the Marxist approach to families and Zaretsky


  • Marxists ignore the fact that many people are satisfied with family life and marriage
  • Feminists argue that Marxists work with the traditional model of the nuclear family- that of the male breadwinner and female housewife, and ignore family diversity
  • Some feminists see female oppression as linked to patriarchy rather than to capitalism
  • Marxists tend to focus on negative aspects of the nuclear family but functionalists see it as meeting the needs of individuals and society
• Critics argue that Marxists overlook people's satisfaction with marriage and family life
• Domestic labour


  Devalued because it is seen as separate from the world of work