Views of the family Flashcards
(20 cards)
What is the difference between a family and a household?
A household is a group of people that live together whereas a family are related
What are the 5 types of family?
- nuclear family (parents and children)
- traditional extended family (3 generations living together)
- attenuated extended family (nuclear families that live apart but are in contact e.g children moving out)
- lone-parent families
- reconstituted families (stepfamilies)
What is the functionalist view on the family?
- Murdock - the family is essential for the smooth running of society
- always focus on the positives
What was Murdock’s theory of the family?
The family has 4 functions: sexual, reproductive, economic and education/socialisation
What was Parson’s theory of the family?
it has 2 functions: primary socialisation for kids and emotional support for adults
How can the functionalist theory of the family be criticised?
Ignores the negative aspects of the family:
- Morgan - neither Murdock or Parsons look at conflict, class or violence
- feminists say they ignore the exploitation of women
What is the Marxist view of the family?
- They see the family as a tool of capitalism - it benefits the bourgeoisie and disadvantages the proletariat
- Women’s roles as housewives is a free way of keeping workers healthy
- The family is a unit of consumption
What was Engels’ view on the family? (marxist)
It has an economic function - keeps the money in the family through inheritance
What is Zaretsky’s view on the family? (marxist)
It relieves the tension of the working class as the man ‘the king of his own castle’
What are the criticisms of the marxist approach?
- focuses on benefits to the economy and not on benefits to individuals (macro)
- assumes the worker is male and the housewife is female
- doesn’t explain why families work in communist countries too
What is the feminist view of the family?
- helps to maintain social order which is patriarchy
- family reproduces gender inequalities
- oppresses women as they are taught to be dependent on men
- there is an ideology about men/women’s roles
What do marxist feminists argue about the role of the family?
- exploitation of women is essential to success of capitalism - women care for workers for free
- men are paid but women are not paid for housework
What do radical feminists argue about the role of the family?
- housework exploits women
- women do most of the work and men get the credit
- men always oppress women
What do liberal feminists argue about the role of the family?
- norms and values are reinforced in the family
- supports mainstream culture which is sexist
- believe that social changes is possible
- put pressure on policies to be changed
Why can the feminist theory be criticised?
- assumes women are passive
- assumes power is never shared
- doesn’t consider lesbian/gay families
- doesn’t address that women from ethnic backgrounds have different life experiences
What is the new right view on the family?
- the nuclear family is the bedrock of society
- think social policies (divorce, welfare etc) undermine the family
- don’t agree with single parenthood
- step families and divorce has broken down the nuclear family
What is Murray’s view of the nuclear family? (new right)
He thinks the nuclear family is under threat because benefits are too high which creates dependency on the state
How can the new right be criticized?
they blame the victims for their problems
What is the postmodernist view of the family?
- there’s a wider range of living options nowadays
- Stacey - there’s so many family types that there will never be one dominant family type
- modern living is flexible
What are the criticisms of the postmodernist view?
They exaggerate the variety of family types, most people only go through one or two family types.
