people's theories

• Giddens: a social group of people made up of people who support each other in many ways like socially, economically, psychologically, or whose members identify with each other as family
• Gittins (1993): spoke about families as more of a philosophical idea
• Morgan (1999): spoke about family practices -> how people actually construct and live their family life. e.g. only child of a married mum or dad doesn't have to have the same life as another only child or a married mum or dad. all families are unique.
• Leach (1967): cereal packet image - how the nuclear family would look and get catered to e.g. a cinema ticket would be 2 adults + 2 children -> the stereotypical image in the west
• Murdock (1949): functionalist - he asks if the the nuclear family is present in every society on earth. the nuclear family exists in every society as he studied 250 different societies - he concluded that the nuclear family either existed on its own or as a part of the extended family
• Murdock argued that the family's functions are so vital that society cannot do without it
• Murdock's 4 functions;

  1. financial support - supporting the family by providing stability
  2. socialization - linking you to society
  3. reproduction - the making of the family (children)
  4. sexual gratification - intimacy between the parents
• Katheen Gough; Nayar of Kerala: a very different structure in terms of gendered roles. the Nayar girls were married to a man before puberty but the husband and wife did not live together and had no obligations towards each other. they did not cooperate economically and the husband did not contribute to the raising of the children - while wives just had to attend her husband's funeral.
• Rapoport et al (1982): argued that in the past there was a predominant norm of what a family is or should be but as we move forward, Rapoport says that plurality is more important now - diversity of forms.
• Rapoport's 5 types of plurality/diversity;

  1. organisational - how families organise their domestic roles and identities in and outside of the time
  2. cultural - can refer to culture as in countries, beliefs etc.
  3. class - variations in structures and patterns that have to do with different social class backgrounds
  4. life course - the different phases in the family e.g. like your family telling you how they were before you were born or growing up
  5. cohort - who is in that family specifically when you have different generations within one family
• Weeks et al (2004): found 3 patterns that were characteristics of same-sex relationships partly due to not being pressured by traditional gender roles. the commitment is based on their trust and communication and not by institutional law
• Weeks' 3 patterns;

  1. more opportunity to be equal - in heterosexual couples we often see significant levels of power in equality e.g. the man is the head of the household etc.
  2. more likely to work out how to share responsibilities - in many heterosexual couples there is never a discussion about who does which roles etc.
  3. more likely for emotional work to be shared - traditionally emotional work tends to be introduced by women e.g. caring for the sick, children, comforting people.. and so in same-sex relationships, it is more likely it will even out
• Morgan (1999): welfare; he argued that there is a link between the levels of social welfare available and the rates of single parenthood. social welfare is there to step in where the community cannot usually like family, friends etc. in countries where the state help is weak and there is more community help, there are lower rates of lone parenthood.
• Allan et al (2011): life with step-families is not easy, in oppose to what they call natural families, step-families might find an absence of old traditions/history and heritage. there might also be divisions between different sets of siblings. problems related to discipline, responsibilities and parenting - depends on age of the children.
• Blankenhorn (1995): the study of fatherless America. In countries where divorce is common, societies are not only losing fathers (like contact or presence) but also the concept of fatherhood. The lack of father figures in society both literally but also the loss of the idea of the role of the father, has led a lot of sociologists like Dennis and Erdos in 1992 to link a lot of social problems to the death of the dad.
• Dennis and Erdos (1992): social problems -> welfare costs (making the state have to help the mother be able to take care of her child), increase in crime (linked to the idea that the dad is the disciplinarian), psychological affects on children resulting to them having difficulty as parents and in society
• Greer; argued that this is a positive trend and is a good thing that women are mostly filing for divorce and reflects the independence of women and resistance to patriarchal domination.
• Goode and Gibson(1971 and 1994): because of declining importance of religion, marriage has a lot of its religious dimension. Gibson says that it is our consumer society that puts a lot of emphasis on choice and personal fulfilment in society.
• Beck and Beck-Gernshein (1995): post-modernists, said that the increase in divorce is a refection of greater individualisation, greater uncertainty, and greater choice in contemporary societies. nowadays, our life is not governed by these very set rules but is what we say it is - more choices and liberty and questioning. married partners now are less constrained by traditional morality, structures and norms and no longer have to say we can't get divorced because it is not right and are more likely to negotiate their role and expectations within a marriage
• Giddens (1993): said that nowadays relationships are no longer based on the notion of falling in love and staying together forever. people stay in a relationship if it gives them personal and sexual satisfaction. people choose to stay in a marriage, on condition that it continues to meet their needs. couples have a lot more liberty now to break up than they did before if they see it doesn't suit them.
• after divorce;

  Smart and Neale (1999): wanted to study patterns of parenting after divorce (couples that have kids and don't) and whether there were changes maybe in parenting styles, roles etc. they first found that there was a difference between parents' expectations and the reality and there was a constant need of adjustment and re-evaluation. it was not only in terms of important decisions but also just in terms of logistics (responsibilities)
• Smart and Neale (1999) cont.: things that worked before might not work the same way after separation. parents often felt and feel guilty and worried about the effects of divorce on their children but did not always know how to deal with the feelings. contrary to what media projects, they found that parents still acted within a framework of morality. they also found that post-divorced parents need constant negotiation and communication
• Crompton (2006): the way we can get rid of this problem is by completely deconstructing the division of labour for genders (to stop calling jobs 'men jobs' and 'women jobs') it was believed that men would contribute more to house work if women went out to work (balance).
• Crompton: Eurostat collected information that says the highest gaps in households are in Greece, Italy and Bulgaria and the countries with the best are Sweden, Latvia, and Denmark. it is also women who are meant to find childcare for their children and are also the ones who take time off of work to take care of sick children and relatives (emotional work tends to be given to women)
• Oakley (1973): it was consistently shown that women do double shifts even when women work full-time, earn the same as men, or do high level work. men and women both find it different to challenge the sexist roles which are looked at as 'natural' by people. this debate regarding the family life, men and women, started in the 70s
• Young and Willmott (1973): started to look at the trends of London families in the 70s and found that there was a greater commitment by men towards family life -> the symmetrical family
• the symmetrical family; both men and women were spending time at home and contributing to the family, both spouses were likely to have paid jobs at the time and the conjugal bond was more based on sharing than domination. it was assumed that in the symmetrical family, the homes were becoming more comfortable and become more financially independent. this type of family also reduce contact with extended family because they were nuclear (since they were individualistic)
• Hochschild (1989): tired to explain the imbalance and said that one reason for the imbalance of gender was economic exchange - women do the housework and men support them financially. since women tend to earn less than men, they tend to remain somewhat dependent even when they are working
• Devault (1994): published a book, "feeding the family" about the division of household labour and she argues that women have long been associated with caring which is not a new thing.
• Miller (2011): there tends to be a difference to what men claim they contribute to vs what they actually contribute to - after marriage and children for example. they tend to fall back into gender stereotypes. the new dad still practices things that show the gender roles that are unfair
• Gelles and Straus (1988): "the family is the most violent group in society with the exception of the police and military, you are more likely to get killed, injured or physically attacked in your home by someone you are related to than in any other social context"
• Leach (anthropologist): argues that the isolation, privacy and secrecy of the family creates barriers between the family and others. this situation creates pressure, when family has no one to turn to, they tend to turn it onto each other.
• Murdock; the functions of the family (1949): He studied 250 societies and he concluded a couple of things; the nuclear family is universal either by itself or as part of the extended family, the little unit of family is universal.
• murdock's 4 functions of the family;

  1.  Sexual – the family provides an environment with regulating sexual desires, in a socially approved space for sex (marriage) between the couple.

  2. Reproduction – the family provides stability for the reproduction and rearing of children 

  3. Economic – the family provides food and shelter for the family members along with money which you need for survival.

  4. Socialization – children learn the norms and values of society which is important to them but also important for society
• Parsons' 2 functions (1955/65)

  1. socialisation of children - i.e. primary socialization
  2. the stabilisation of adult personalities
• Parsons look at what Murdock said and argued that it is also happening in the US and idealizes the family - without the family, Parsons says that society wouldn't exist and the culture of society would die out
• Parsons and Murdock agree that the primary socialization for children is given by family - provide them with norms and values. it also helps you to structure your personality which comes from how you were raised (what you were praised for, told off for etc.)
• Parsons compares families to factories, producing human personalities. once the personality is structured during childhood, it now needs to be kept stable, within family, husband and wife provide each other with social security - the family is a refugee from the stresses of everyday life.
• the experience of raising children helps adults in their growth as adults and therefore adults are also strengthened by living in families but also strengthens their personalities.
• Parsons had a very traditional view of gender roles within the family -> the instrumental vs expressive