1.3.3 Families and Households: Theories of the Family Flashcards
The Marxist Perspective (families)
What are the three ways that marxists see the family as serving capitalism?
- Inheritance of weath - Engels
- Ideological functions - Zaretsky
- Unit of consumption - Capitalism needs consumers to buy its products. The family is a target for consumer goods to fund capitalism
The Marxist Perspective (families)
What function did Zaretsky say the family performs for capitalism?
- Ideological functions - ‘cult of private life’ - the belief that we can only gain fulfillment from family life
- Distracts from exploitation
The Marxist Perspective (families)
What function did Engels say the family performs for capitalism?
- Passing on wealth - As private property became more important, monogamy became needed so men know who to pass on to.
- Reinforcing inequalities over generations.
The Marxist Perspective (families)
How do Marxists view the functions of the family?
- The family is seen as an opressive institution which contributes to exploitation
- Performs functions to serve capitalism.
Feminist perspective (families)
What are the four types of feminism?
- Liberal feminists - march of progress, gender inequality is gradually being overcome
- Radical feminists
- Marxist feminists
- Difference feminists
Feminist perspective (families)
What is the perspective of difference feminism?
Argues that not all women share the same experiences of oppression so all have different perspectives.
Feminist perspective (families)
What do radical feminists say about the family?
- Men dominate women through violence or the threat of it.
- Men benefit from women’s unpaid, domestic labour.
- The patriachy must be overturned and family abolished for women to be free.
- Political lesbianism
Feminist perspective (families)
What three functions do marxist feminists argue that the family performs to serve capitalism?
- Reproducing the labour force - socialise and birth the next generation of workers.
- Arbsorbing men’s anger - Wives soak up their husband’s frustration which comes from being exploited at work.
- A reserve army of cheap labour - When not needed, women return to domestic role - e.g ww2
The functionalist perspective (families)
What are segregated conjugal roles
- Female expressive role - homemaker
- Male instrumental role - breadwinner
The functionalist perspective (families)
What is Parsons’ functional fit’ theory?
- Family structure depends on the society we live in.
- Modern, industrial society needs a socially and geographically mobile workforce, fitting a nuclear family.
- The nuclear family, therefore, has two irreducible functions - Primary socialisation, stabilisation of adult personalities.
The functionalist perspective (families)
What are Murdock’s four functions of the family?
- Stable satisfaction of sex drive
- Reproduction of next generation
- Socialisation of the young
- Economic needs
The functionalist perspective (families)
What do functionalists mean by value consensus?
That society has a shared set of norms and vlaues which enables members to co-operate harmoniously
The New Right (families)
Why do New Right believe that families should be self reliant?
- Reliance on welfare state leads todependency culture
- This undermines traditional family roles and produces family breakdowns leading to more lone parent families.
- Lone parent families are unable to socialise children properly without a male role model leading to delinquency.
The New Right (families)
What is the biologically based division of labour?
The New right believe that segregated conjugal roles are the best way to construct a family based on biology which makes the female a better home maker and the male a better breadwinner.
Personal life perspective (families)
What did Nordqvist and Smart find with donor concieved children?
- Importance placed on social relationships over genetic ones.
- Where couples knew their donor they had to decide if they counted as family.
- In lesbian couples, they were concerned that the sperm donor would be seen as the ‘real’ second parent.
