Chapter Summary for Chapter 9
Many types of family forms have existed in different times and places. The developed societies today are characterized by a plurality of different and socially acceptable forms, so we should talk of ‘families’ not ‘the family’. The notion that marriage should be based on romantic love or sexual attraction is not universal and is a phenomenon specific to modern societies.
Commonly-held images of ‘traditional families’ pre-dating industrialization as large, closed and long-lasting are misguided and largely mythical. Recent research strongly suggests the nuclear form was more common in the past. Globally, there is a general trend towards the breakdown of kinship ties and extended family forms. The strict gender division between ‘housewife’ and ‘breadwinner’, aspired to in the 1950s, masked enormous discontent behind the closed doors of the home. Therborn argues that the institution of the family has been characterized by: patriarchal power, marriage and non-marriage in regulating sexual behaviour and fertility and birth control in shaping demographic trends.
In most European and Western societies, families tend to be characterized by monogamy, marriage and the idea of romantic love; they are also patrilineal and neo-local and the nuclear family remains the dominant form, though this may be changing. However, there is now much more family diversity than in previous times with regard to family organization, cultures, class divisions, life-course and effective cohort connections. Family diversity is evident for example, in South Asian families, which maintain ideas of family loyalty and strong familial bonds and within African-Caribbean families, many of which are headed by single women who typically receive support from a network of relatives.
Although women have made major strides towards equality in many areas of social life, it remains stubbornly the case that women continue to undertake more housework, caring for relatives and provision of emotional labour than men within the family. Domestic violence against women and the sexual and physical abuse of children, both overwhelmingly committed by men, exist alongside the ideals of marriage and the family.
In many developed countries, divorce rates have been rising significantly for over half a century. Some of the reasons for this trend include: legislative changes enabling divorce, women’s improved economic position, a decline in the stigma attached to divorce, and the desire for personal satisfaction within marriage. Divorce ends a marriage but not necessarily a parenting relationship: after separation, many parents seek to act responsibly with regard to their children. Reconstituted families are created through remarriage or the formation of new cohabiting relationships by adults with children.
Lone-parent families are typically headed by women and can be formed by the death of a partner, separation, divorce or by mothers who were never in a cohabiting relationship. The ‘absent father’ of the period 1930–70 described a man physically and emotionally unavailable to his children, who typically spent his work and leisure time outside the home. Today’s absent father is likely to be away from the home as the result of separation or divorce and some conservative commentators link this trend to problems associated with boys and young men, such as underperformance in school.
Recent family research has looked at other types of kin relations such as those between sisters and brothers. Cohabitation has also become more common, though this appears to be mainly an experimental stage in advance of marriage.
Gay and lesbian partnerships do not have the same legal status as heterosexual marriage, although progress towards equality, including civil partnerships, has been made in many countries. Free from the gendered expectations of heterosexual relationships, gay and lesbian partnerships tend to display greater levels of equality, more conscious negotiations of roles, and commitment based on mutual trust and joint responsibility for emotional labour.
An increasing proportion of households consist of only one person. There are several reasons: young singles seeking independence; separation or divorce; the death in later life of a partner.
Functionalist theorists in the 1950s saw the two main functions of the family as primary socialization and the stabilization of adult personalities. Functionalists saw the division of labour in the family where men performed instrumental roles and women performed emotional roles as a good adaptation for modern societies, but overlooked family forms other than the nuclear family.
Feminists criticized early theorists of the family for normalizing women’s oppression. They stress that women carry the burden of domestic labour and the caring and emotional work in the family, and are oppressed in an unequal power relationship.
Recent theorists argue that intimate relationships are going through big structural changes as societies become more individualistic, fluid and loosely tied together. Giddens argues that a new relationship ideal – ‘the pure relationship’ – has emerged based on equality and negotiation. The relationship will last only for as long as it continues to offer personal fulfilment to both partners. Beck and Beck-Gernsheim argue that the search for love as a source of fulfilment has become heightened because the world has become overwhelming, impersonal, abstract and rapidly changing. Bauman points to the tensions between seeking personal freedom (which implies disposable relationships) and security (which implies long-lasting relationships), arguing that a form of ‘liquid love’ has emerged in intimate relationships.
Smart argues that such individualistic theories exaggerate the extent of family fragmentation and relationship commitment, and underplay the extent of connectedness in people’s personal lives. Such connectedness is still evident in generationally transmitted collective memories and social structures, within which families are embedded.
Debates on family values and the family in crisis have been polarized, but it is very unlikely that we could ever return to the families of the past. We will need to find ways of reconciling our individual freedoms with the need for stable relationships.
