Personal Life Perspective

• Clarke


  Marriage relationships have different interactions and roles

  Its how marriage makes sense to the couple
• Stacey


  > divorce extended family - stay in contact with exs family

  > fictive kin - friends considered family
• Nordquist and Smart


  Donor conceived family - donated sperm/egg

  > some emphasised social relationships, some found difficult emotions for non-genetic parent

  > can construct and define families rather than being traditional
• Leach


  > nuclear family isolated from wider community

  > ‘privacy is a source of violence and fear’

  > family = ’overloaded electrical circuit’

  > stress causes conflict
• Laing


  > schizophrenia caused by family experiences

  > nuclear family is intense

  > gangsters offer mutual protection to use against others

  > mutually suspicious of motives > breakdown and arguments
• criticisms


  > too broad of a view

  > ignore special parts of relationships based on blood and marriage

  > functionalists : nuclear family is essential