FAMILY FORMS , POST MODERNIST FAMILY, PERSPECTIVES ON FAMILY

Types or Forms of the family

Sociologists have classified the family based on the following factors:
1. Size
2. Residence
3. Ancestors
4. Power and authority; and
5. Marriage

Before considering these factors, it can be accepted that there are other bases for classifying the family based on historical chronological. It is classified as ancient, medieval, and mode on families. Based on social ecology, the family can be divided into rural and urban families. Based on structure, it is divided into primitive agrarian and industrial families. After these indications, we can examine in detail this typology.

1 Size: A threefold classification can be discussed based on size.
a. Nuclear families
b. Extended families
c. Joint families

In a nuclear family, the husband, wife, and their children live together. According to Murdock, the nuclear family may be further divided into two types.
A) The family of orientation
B) The family of procreation:
The family of orientation is the family in which the individual is born and in which his parents, brothers and sisters reside. After marriage, the individual forms the family of procreation; he lives with his wife and children.

The nuclear family is a unit composed of husband, wife and their unmarried children. This is the predominant form in modern industrial societies. This type of family is based on companionship between parents and children. 

While discussing the nature of the nuclear families in India, Pauline Kolenda has discussed additions/modifications in the nuclear family structure. She has given the following compositional categories.

(a) Nuclear family refers to a couple with or without children.

(b) Supplemented nuclear family indicated a nuclear family plus one or more unmarried, separated or widowed relatives of the parents, other than their unmarried children.

(c) Sub-nuclear family is defined as a fragment of a former nuclear family, for instance, a widow/ widower with her/his unmarried children or siblings (unmarried or widowed or separated or divorced) living together.

(d) Single person household.

(e) Supplemented sub-nuclear family refer to a group of relatives, members of a formerly complete nuclear family along with some other unmarried, a divorced or widowed relative who was not a member of the nuclear family.

The size of the nuclear family is minimal. It is free from the control of elders. It is regarded as the most dominant and ideal form of family in modern society. The nuclear family is based on conjugal bonds. The children get maximum care, love and affection from the parents in a nuclear family. The nuclear family is independent and economically self-sufficient. The members of the nuclear families also enjoy more freedom than the members of the joint families.

ii) Extended / Joint Family: The term extended family is used to indicate the combination of two or more nuclear families based on an extension of the parent-child relationships. According to Murdock, an extended family consists of two or more nuclear families affiliated through an extension of the parent-child relationship … i.e., joining the nuclear family of a married adult to that of his parents. In an extended family, a man and his wife live with the families of their married sons and with their unmarried sons and daughters, grandchildren or great-grandchildren in the paternal or maternal line. Different types of the extended family are still common in Asia, says Bottomore. The patrilineally extended family is based on an extension of the father-son relationship, while the matrilineally extended family is based on the mother-daughter relationship. The extended family may also be extended horizontally to include a group consisting of two or more brothers, their wives and children. This horizontally extended family is called the fraternal or collateral family. In India, the family is called the joint family, whether extended vertically and/or horizontally. Strictly speaking, it is a property-sharing unit. The joint family consists of a man and his wife and their adult sons, their wives and children and younger children of the paternal couple, says M.S. Gore. The size of a joint family is considerable. Generally, the eldest male is the head of the family. The rights and duties of the members in this type of family are laid down by the hierarchy order of power and authority. Children of the joint family are children of all the male members in the parental generation. Emphasis on conjugal ties (between husband and wife) is supposed to weaken the stability of a joint family. The father-son relationship (filial relationship) and the relationship between brothers (fraternal relationship) are more crucial for the joint family system than the conjugal relationship (husband-wife relationship).

Joint families are generally big in size. Such families include many families and people of many generations. A joint family is a lively related kin’s group subject to the same household and the same authority. It possesses the following features.
a) At least three generations living together.
b) Common ancestors
c) Common duties
d) Common residence
e) Common property
f) Common kitchen
g) A traditional occupation
h) Head of the family and his authority over family members and property
Industrialization, urbanization, occupational mobility, wage-based livelihood, modern education and individualistic ideology have been instrumental in diminishing the size, functions and importance of the join family.

Residence:
The family has been classified into six based on Rules of residence.
a) Patrilocal residence
The wife goes to reside with her husband in her husband's house after the marriage. This type of
residence is widely visible in our society. Tribals, namely Santal, Munda, Lodha, etc., follow this.
pattern of residence.

b) Matrilocal residence
The husband comes to reside in wife’s house after marriage Khasi, Garo, etc., tribes provide the
examples.
c) Bilocal residence

Sometimes, the newly married couple is free to decide where they will live, whether with or near

the husband’s kin or with or near the wife.  necessity here determines the residence pattern.

This pattern of residence is termed as Bilocal residence.

d) Neolocal residence
After marriage, the couples do not live with or near the close kins of either side. They make a
completely separate entities of their own where they reside. This type of residence is called
Neolocal residence.
e) Avunculocal residence
In some societies, the newly married couple live with the wife’s uncle (mother’s brother).
Such Avunculocal residences are found in matrilineal societies. Therefore, the occurrence of this type
is relatively rare. Still, Nayers of Malabar Coast prefers them. Trobriand islanders occasionally like
to establish this type of residence.
f) Matri-Patrilocal residence
In certain societies, at first, the husband resides with his wife in her house. After sometimes, usually
After the first child's birth, he returns back to his own paternal home with his wife. This sort of
a residence is prevalent among the Chenchus of South India.

Ancestors:
Based on ancestors, the family is classified into patrilineal and matrilineal families. In the patrilineal families the ancestors are men while in the matrilineal families the ancestors are women. Most of the families in the world belong to the patrilineal system.

Power and authority:
Based on power and authority, families can be divided into patriarchal and matriarchal categories.
Patriarchal Family:  Patriarchal family is a family in which all authority belongs to the paternal side. In this family, the eldest male or the father is the head of the family. He exercises his authority over the members of the family. He presides over the religious rites of the household; he is the guardian of the family goods. In the developed patriarchal system of the past, the patriarch had unlimited and undisputed authority over his wife, sons and daughters. There have been various forms of the patriarchal family. Sometimes it is part of a joint family, as in India. Sometimes it is part of a ‘stem-family’, with only one of the sons bringing his family within the paternal household.

Matriarchal family: It is a form of family in which authority is centred on the wife or mother. The matriarchal family system implies the rule of the family by the mother, not by the father. In this type of family, women are entitled to perform religious rites, and the husband lives in the wife's house. Matriarchal family is also called mother-right family or maternal family under which the status, name and sometimes inheritance is transmitted through the female line. This type of family is now found among the Khasi and Garo tribes of Assam and Meghalaya, among Nayars of Malabar in Kerala.

Marriage
 Sociologists have divided families based on marriage also. Based on marriage family has been classified  into three types :
a) Polygamous family;  This type of family comprises two or more nuclear (monogamous) families affiliated by several marriages. The essential feature is this, one of the spouses remain common to all monogamous families inside a polygamous family. Polygamous families may be of two types – polygynous and polyandrous.

i) Polygynous family

This type of family is based on the polygynous form of marriage i.e., where a man marries more than

one woman and leads a life in the same household with all his wives and children. Such families have been noted among the Kulin Brahmins of Bengal and among the Muslim community. In the tribal groups, Naga of North-East India, Gond and Baiga of Middle India present this type of family. Outside of India, polygynous families are found among the Eskimo tribe, Crow and Hidatsa of North America, especially African Negroes.

Polygynous families in a society often arise following a situation of excess number of
women over men. This also indicates an inferior social position of women; men’s position
remains prestigious because they can afford many wives at a time.

ii) Polyandrous family
This type of family is the resultant of polyandrous forms of marriage. Here a woman marries.
Several men and lives together with all husbands and children. Polyandrous type of families is not.
predominant at all; rather they are confined to small pockets. According to nature, polyandrous.
families can be divided into two groups- fraternal (adelphic) polyandrous family and non-fraternal
polyandrous family.

A fraternal polyandrous family is a family where a woman marries two or more brothers. A belt
is found in Northern India from Janusar-Bawar to Hindu Kush range through Kangra valley
Where the families are chiefly polyandrous. Marquesans of Polynesia also exhibit such types of
families. In India, Khasa of Uttar Pradesh, people of Kinnaur, Lahaul and Spirit of Himachal
Pradesh, Sinhalese of Sri Lanka, some of the Tibetans and Toda of Nilgiri Hills show this type of
families.
In a non-fraternal polyandrous type of family, the husbands are not essentially the brothers. Such
families were once widespread among the Tibetans and Nayers of Kerala.

b)  Monogamous family 

This type of family is based on monogamous marriage i.e., marriage between a man and a

woman. It is the simplest among all types of a family as it consists of a man; his wife and children.

Here the husband or wife cannot remarry till the spouse is alive. The other names of this family

are elementary family, basic family, conjugal family, immediate family, primary family, etc. since

this type of family serves as the nucleus of all other types of family, it is also popular in the name

of nuclear family. Different tribal groups of India e.g. Santal, Lodha, Kharia, Birhor, Chenchu,

Khasi, Kadar, etc., show this sort of family in their community. Monogamous family structure is

also common among the Australian aboriginals,

Joint family/ Extended family

In certain types of families, the nucleus is extended with some closely related kins and the family is

called an extended family. Sometimes it is also referred to as a joint family. According to the

handbook, Notes and Queries of Anthropology (1874), a joint family forms when “two or more

lineally related kinsfolk of the same sex, their spouses and offsprings occupy a single household

and are jointly subject to the same authority or single head”. This means that the joint family is a

the large group extended up to two, three or more generations with lineally related members the

spouses and children.

Joint families arise and persist as the members carry out their activities in a cohesive manner

under the leadership of the eldest person of the household. Cooperation and mutual support are

the keywords here. Critical economic factors play a behind the formation of joint families

                            Structural and functional changes system of family.

The system of the family has undergone qualitative changes because of Industrialization,

urbanization, migration, a revolution in transport and communication, increasing influence of the state and the influence of the individualization philosophy of life. The changes have been so fast in some parts of the world. With the advent of industrial civilization with modern technology, the structure and functions of the family fatedly changed. Today, most of the family's traditional activities were transferred to outside agencies; this further weakening the bonds that in the past kept the family together. There occurred a reduction in the family's educational, recreational, religious and protective functions, which have been more or less taken over by various institutions and agencies created for that purpose. The school, the commercial and communal, recreational facilities, church, hospitals, etc., perform many tasks earlier performed by the family. Some of the major changes in the family are discussed below.

a) Changes in family

The family, which was a principal unit of production, has been transformed into the

consumption unit. Instead of all members working together in an integrated economic enterprise, a

few male members go out of the home to earn the family’s living. These affected family relations.

b) Factory employment
Factory employment has freed young adults from direct dependence upon their families. This functional independence of the youngsters has weakened the authority of the head of the household over those earning members. In many cities, even women too joined men in working outside the families on a salary basis.

c) changes in a social situation
In the changed social situation, children have ceased to be economic assets and have ceased.
To be economic assets and have become liabilities. Children’s educational requirements have
Increased. They are to be supported for a long time till they get into some good job.

d) Industrialization
Industrialization separated the home from work. This had made the working members bear themselves all the burdens and headaches connected with their job. Their families can hardly.
Lend support in this regard.

e) Influence of urbanization.

The phenomenon of urbanization has become now widespread. The studies made by Aileen Ross, M.S. Gone, Milton Singer and others have revealed that city life is more favourable to small nuclear families than too big joint families. Based on the studies, it could be said that urban living weakens joint family patterns and strengthens nuclear family patterns.

f) Changes in Marriage System.

Changes in the age of marriage, freedom in mate selection, and attitude towards marriage have also affected our family system. Parents’ role in mate selection has diminished; marriage is not considered a religious affair but only a social ceremony. Modern marriage does not symbolize the superior authority of the family head over other members.

g) Legislative Measures.

The impact of legislative measures on the family system cannot be ignored. Prohibition of early marriage and fixing the minimum age of marriage by the child marriage Restraint Act, 1929, and the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 have lengthened the education period. The freedom of mate selection and marriage in any caste and religion without the Parent’s consent after a certain age is permitted through the special Marriage Act, 1954. Other legislation such as the Widow Remarriage Act, 1856, Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, Hindu succession Act, 1956, all have modified interpersonal relations within the family, the composition of the family and the stability of the joint family.

h) Other causes.

a) Influence of western values: The influence of western values relating to modern science,

rationalism, individualism, equality, free life, democracy, freedom of women etc., have exerted a

tremendous change on the joint family system.

b) Awareness among women: Increasing female education, employment opportunities for

women created awareness among the women. They also sought the chance of becoming “free” from

the authoritarian hold of the joint family.

Factors affected the family

A) The consanguine Family declines:

The consanguineous or joint family tended to disappear, especially in the western world. The conjugal or nuclear family has become predominant with the increasing urbanization and industrialization. People are less subject to Parental control, which lessens social control. Women have attained a new legal status in which there is less discrimination between them and men.

B). Increasing Rate of Divorce: Divorce is the most obvious symptom of family disintegration. Economic freedom, new lifestyle, new idealities together create an idea of free life. The traditional joint family system in India has undergone profound changes. They have definitely affected its structure and functions. Milton singer has identified most there are; Education, Industrialization, Urbanization, changes in the institution of marriage.

C. Influence of education

Modern education affected the joint families in several ways. It has brought about a change in the attitude, beliefs, values and ideologies of the people. Education which is spreading even amongst the females, has created and aroused individualistic feelings. The increasing education brings changes in the philosophy of life of men and women and provides new opportunities for employment to women. After becoming economically independent, women demand more freedom in family affairs. They refuse to accept anybody’s domination over them. Education in this way brings changes in relations in the family.

D. Impact of Industrialization

The new system of production based on factories and new joint families have disintegrated considerably.  The impact of Economic and Technological changes: Industrial development and the application of new advanced techniques reduced the economic functions of the family. The technological changes took both the work and workers out of the home.

E. Changes in the position of women:

The chief factor causing changes in the position of women in our society lies in her changing economic role. The new economic rule provided a new position in society and especially in their relation to men.

F. The crumbling patriarchal foundation.

The foundations of the patriarchal system have crumbled considerably. The cultural conditions grew less in harmony with the attitudes and the prerogatives of the patriarchal system.

G. The Reduction in the size of the family

One important change which has occurred in modern times is the diminution in the size of the household. The family is now shaped closer than ever before around marital pair.

H. Changes in the Central Social Functions of the Family

Various social organizations have been developed to aid the family in the fulfilment of its principal functions. This includes the maternity hospitals, crèches and kindergarten etc.

I. Romantic love as a Basis Marriage

It is to be expected that in marriage today, the flectional element should be emphasized. No doubt romantic love is emphasized. Nowadays, marriage and family is more based on love and affection than the traditional rules of marriage.

J. Decreased control of the Marriage

The marriage contract today is entered into more autonomously by both men and women. Organizations and management completely changed the traditional occupational system that existed in India. Many of the traditional skills, crafts and household industries associated with the joint family have declined because of the onslaught of the factory system.

Social Processes affecting Family

An elementary family can be defined as a social group consisting of a father, mother, and children. In his definition of the family, Bohannan emphasized the functional as well as the structural roles of the family. According to him, a family contains people linked by sexual and affinal relationships and those linked by descent who are linked by secondary relationships that are by chains of primary relationships.

According to William J Goode, at least two adult persons of opposite sex reside together. They engage in some kind of division of labour i.e. they both do not perform exactly the same tasks. They engage in many types of economic and social exchanges, i.e. they do things for one another. They share many things in common, such as food, sex, residence, and goods and social activities. The adults have parental relations with their children as their children have filial relations with them; the parents have some authority over their children, and both share with one another while also assuming some obligations for protection, cooperation and nurture. There are sibling relations among the children themselves with a range of obligations to share, protect and help one another. Individuals are likely to create various kinds of relations with each other. Still, if their continuing social relations exhibit some or all of the role patterns, in all probability, they would be viewed as the family.

A host of inter-related factors like economic, educational, legal and demographic like population growth, migration and urbanization etc. have been affecting the family structure in India. Many published accounts demonstrate that changes have taken place in the family structure due to exposure to the forces of industrialization. The nuclear status of the family is considered as the outcome of its impact. Such an interpretation presupposes the existence of a non-nuclear family structure in such societies. Empirical evidence sometimes does not support this position. Further industrial establishments have their own requirements of human groups for their efficient functioning. As a result, people are migrating to industrial areas and various kinds of family units have been formed added extra-ordinary variety to the overall situation.

Due to the influences of urbanization, the joint family structure is under severe stress, and in many cases, it has developed a tendency toward nuclear families. When there is no disagreement on the authenticity of such a tendency, the traditional ideal joint family was perhaps not the exclusive type before such influences came into existence.

Both modernization and urbanization are considered as the major contributing factors toward modernization. In fact, modernization as a social–psychological attribute can be in operation independent of industrialization and urbanization.

With time through exposure to the forces of modernization, family structure underwent multiple changes. One of the important features of family studies in India has been concerned with whether the joint family system is disintegrating and a new nuclear type of family pattern is emerging. According to Augustine, it seems almost unrealistic to think of a dichotomy between the joint and nuclear families. This is especially true given the rapidity of social change that has swept our country. In industrialization, urbanization and social change, it is tough to think of a dichotomy between the joint and the nuclear family in India. In the present context, these typologies are not mutually exclusive. Social change is an inevitable social process that can be defined as observable transformations in social relationships. This transformation is most evident in the family system. However, because of structures, traditionally, these transformations are not easily observable.

According to Augustine, the concept of transitionality has two dimensions – retrospective and prospective. The retrospective dimension implies the traditional past of our family and social system, while the prospective one denotes the direction in which change occurs in our family system. Transitionality is thus an attempt to discuss the crux of the emergent forms of family. The studies conducted in several parts of the country show that the joint family system in India is undergoing a structural transformation due to modernization, industrialization, and urbanization. A nuclear family develops into a joint family after the marriage of a son. Hence, the process of fission and fusion takes place in the family system for various reasons. In most parts of India, where patriarchal families exist, sons are expected to stay put together with the parents till the marriage of the children. After this, they tend to separate. Thus, the process of fission occurs, and the joint family is broken into a relatively smaller number of units –sometimes into nuclear units. Based on his study in rural West Bengal, Nicolas concludes that a joint family between a father and his married sons divides a joint family among brothers rarely survive. The father seems to be the keystone of the joint family structure. Despite the solidarity among the male siblings after the father's death, many forces tend to break the joint family into separate units.

Significant numbers of studies have been conducted on the urban family structure in India. T.K Oomen in his article Urban family in Transition, points out that most of these studies have been obsessed with a single question is the joint family in India breaking down and undergoing a process of nuclear due to urbanization? Scholars point out that industrial urbanization has not brought disintegration in the joint family structure. Milton Singer studies the structure of the joint family among the industrialists of Madras City. He finds that the joint family system has not been a blockade for entrepreneurship development. Rather it has facilitated and adapted to industrialization. Ramakrishna Mukherjee in 'Sociologists and Social Change in India Today' finds that the joint family is overrepresented in the trade and commerce sector of the national economy and in the high and middle-grade occupations and the nuclear family is over-represented in the rural rather than in the urban areas. Based on his study on the family structure in West Bengal, he concludes that the central tendency in Indian society is to pursue the joint family organization. T.K Oomen believes that so far, urban family has been viewed from within as a little society. For a proper understanding, the urban family should be placed in a broad social context. For this purpose, urban families should be placed in a broad social context. The urban families are to be distinguished through the mode of earning a livelihood and sources of income, structure of authority, urban social milieu and social ecology and the emerging value patterns.

The socio-ecological factors like the settlement patterns, cultural environments of the urban migrants and associations to various occupational, political, ideological, cultural, economic groups influence and reorient the style and pattern of urban families. The urban centres are melting pots of traditional and modern values. Individualism is growing at a significant speed in urban areas. Individualism is against the spirit of the joint family and questions the established authority of the patriarchal setup.

In the context of rapid technological transformation, economic development and social change the pattern of family living has been diverse in urban India. Life is complex both in the rural and in the urban areas. In the urban areas and even in the rural areas, many couples are in gainful employment. They depend on others for childcare. With the structural breakdown of the joint family, they face a lot of difficulties in raising their children. For employment, many rural men come out of the village, leaving behind their wives and children.

In the process of structural transformation, the old structure of authority and value has been challenged. The growing individualism questions the legitimacy of the age-old hierarchic authority. The old value system also changes significantly. However, this transformation system has minimized the importance of mutual respect, love and affection among the family members belonging to various generations. 

Postmodernist family

C. Wright Mills (1959) described the post-modern period as one in which the economy would shift employment from heavy industry to non-unionized clerical, service, and new industrial sectors. He foresaw the rise of multinational corporations, trouble in the social welfare system, and a decline in human freedom and choice. At that time, he wondered how the human family would respond to and adjust to this new period in world history.

Post-modernism, by no means simple to define, is characterized by a "close reading" of small units rather than general theorizing about big ideas. The postmodern tends towards elaboration, eclecticism, ornamentation, and inclusiveness; it dismisses the existence of absolute reality and is deeply suspicious of the concept of human progress (Doherty 1991). If we define the current ongoing effort to remake contemporary family life as the post-modern family, such a definition carries with it overtones from the definition of postmodern art and literature. In these fields, the term post-modern signals the end of a familiar pattern of activity and the emergence of new areas of endeavour whose activities are unclear and whose meanings and implications are not yet well understood. Thus, the post-modern is characterized by uncertainty, insecurity, and doubt (Stacey 1990).

Full consensus on the definition of the emerging post-modern family structure has not been reached, despite recognising the need for a better understanding of the variety of human families in the post-modern period and insight into how large-scale social patterns affect personal and domestic relationships (Hossfeld 1991). The post-modern world is shaped by pluralism, democracy, religious freedom, consumerism, mobility, and increasing access to news and entertainment. Residents of this post-modern world can see many beliefs, multiple realities, and an exhilarating but daunting profusion of world views - a society that has lost its faith in absolute truth and in which people have to choose what to believe (O'Hare and Anderson 1991).

In the 1970s, Shorter (1975) may have been the first to describe the emerging post-modern family. He noted three important characteristics: adolescent indifference to the family's identity; instability in the lives of couples, accompanied by rapidly increasing divorce rates; and destruction of the "nest" notion of nuclear family life with the liberation of women. At that time, Shorter noted little change in patterns of child socialization. The dramatic shift from mothers caring for young children in the home to paid providers occurred soon after in the developed world, reflecting mothers' increasing workplace participation.

While single-parent, surrogate-mother, and gay and lesbian families, and other variants of the post-modern family may be viewed as the negative results of the trends described above or as breakdown products, they also reflect the following:

1. Disillusionment with the optimistic assumptions of human progress and with the universality and the regularity of the laws of science; hence, lack of faith in the previously established order.
2. The uncoupling of economic forces underlying social conformity, such as the need for women to marry advantageously to survive financially and to transmit their class status to the next generation, or the need to bear children in wedlock for them to inherit family land or other property that would be their source of livelihood.
3. The influence of the electronic media, which both reflect and legitimize family diversity.

On-site daycare, personal computers, electronic communications that permit work at home, and the lack of a defined working day for the higher occupational classes progressively blur the boundaries between the workplace and the home. This interpenetration of home, work, and global media coverage create the permeability of the post-modern family. The media gather the post-modern family around the campfire of the global village, bringing the outside world into the living room and the bedroom. Gergen (1991) has described the emerging family form as "the saturated family," whose members feel their lives scattering in intensified busyness. In addition to absorbing exposure to myriad values, attitudes, opinions, lifestyles, and personalities, family members have become embedded in a multiplicity of relationships. The technologies of social saturation (e.g. the car, telephone, television, and jet plane) have created family turmoil and a sense of fragmentation, chaos, and discontinuity. The home, no longer a refuge of harmony, serenity, and understanding, may become the site of confrontation between people of different ages and genders, who have personal ideologies and social affiliations as diversely suspended as exotic species in a tropical rain forest. Human potential organizations, such as Landmark Education, ease this jangling overload by holding workshops where participants learn to perceive their past history as mechanical and meaningless as television images. The human potential movements redefine personal identity in terms of the individual's commitment to future goals.

Postmodernists argue that we no longer live in the modern world with predictable, orderly structures, such as the nuclear family. Instead, society has entered a new, chaotic postmodern stage. In postmodern society, family structures are incredibly varied. Individuals have much more freedom of choice in aspects of their lives that would have been relatively constrained in the past, i.e. lifestyles, personal relationships, and family arrangements.

Postmodern society has two key characteristics

1. Diversity and fragmentation
Society is increasingly fragmented, with a broad diversity of subcultures rather than one shared culture. People create their identity from various choices, such as youth subcultures, sexual preferences and social movements such as environmentalism.

2. Rapid social change
New technology such as the internet, email, and electronic communication have transformed our lives by dissolving time and space barriers, transforming work and leisure patterns and accelerated the pace of change-making life less predictable.

As a result of these social changes, family life has become very diverse, and there is no longer one dominant family type (such as the nuclear family). This means that it is no longer possible to generalise society in the same way that modernist theorists such as Parsons or Marx did in the past.

Examples of Two Post-Modernist Thinkers

Stacey (1998) “The Divorce-Extended Family”

Judith Stacey argues that women have more freedom than ever before to shape their family arrangements to meet their needs and free themselves from patriarchal oppression. Through case studies conducted in Silicon Valley, California she found that women rather than men are the driving force behind changes in the family. She discovered that many women rejected the traditional housewife role and had chosen extremely varied life paths (some choosing to return to education, becoming career women, divorcing and remarrying). Stacey identified a new type of family “the divorce-extended family” – members are connected by divorce rather than marriage, such as ex in-laws or former husbands' new partners.

Hareven (1978) “Life Course Analysis”

Tamara Hareven advocates the approach of life course analysis. Sociologists should focus on individual family members and the choices they make throughout life regarding family arrangements. This approach recognises that there is flexibility and variation in people’s lives, for example, the choices and decisions they make and when they make them. For example, when they decide to raise children, choosing sexuality or moving into sheltered accommodation in old age.

Criticisms of Postmodernism

• Late-Modernists such as Anthony Giddens suggest that even though people have more freedom, a structure still shapes people’s decisions.
• Contemporary Feminists disagree with Postmodernism, pointing out that in most cases traditional gender roles which disadvantage women remain the same.
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•                                 Functionalist perspective on family

Functionalists focus on the positive functions of the nuclear family, such as secondary socialisation and the stabilisation of adult personalities. Functionalists regard society as a system made up of different parts which depend on each other. Different institutions each perform specific functions within a society to keep that society going. The different organs of the human body perform different functions to maintain the whole.

In functionalist thought, the family is a fundamental institution as this is the ‘basic building block’ of society which performs the crucial functions of socialising the young and meeting the emotional needs of its members. Stable families underpin social order and economic stability.

George Peter Murdock – The four essential functions of the nuclear family -Looked at 200 different societies and argued that family was universal (in all of them)Murdock suggested there were ‘four essential functions of the family:

1. Stable satisfaction of the sex drive – within monogamous relationships
2. The biological reproduction of the next generation – without which society cannot continue.
3. Socialisation of the young – teaching basic norms and values
4. Meeting its member's economic needs – producing food and shelter, for example.

Criticisms of Murdock

1. Feminist Sociologists argue that arguing that the family is essential is ideological because traditional family structures typically disadvantage women.
2. It is feasible that other institutions could perform the functions above.
2. Anthropological research has shown that some cultures don’t have ‘families’ – the Nayar for example.

Talcott Parsons –  Functional Fit Theory

Parson’s has a historical perspective on the evolution of the nuclear family. His functional fit theory is that as society changes, the type of family that ‘fits’ that society and its functions change. Over the last 200 years, society has moved from pre-industrial to industrial – and the main family type has changed from the extended family to the nuclear family. The nuclear family fits the more complex industrial society better, but it performs fewer functions.

The extended family consisted of parents, children, grandparents and aunts and uncles living under one roof, or in a collection of houses very close to each other. Such a large family unit ‘fitted’ pre-industrial society as the family was entirely responsible for children's education, producing food and caring for the sick. Basically, it did everything for all its members.

In contrast to pre-industrial society, in industrial society (from the 1800s in the UK) the isolated “nuclear family” consisting of only parents and children becomes the norm. This type of family ‘fits’ industrial societies because it required a mobile workforce. The extended family was too difficult to move when families needed to find work to meet the requirements of a rapidly changing and growing economy. Furthermore, there was also less need for the extended family as more and more functions, such as health and education, gradually came to be carried out by the state.

Criticisms of Parson’s Theory of Functional Fit

Basically – it’s too ‘neat’ – social change doesn’t happen in such an orderly manner: Laslett found that church records show only 10% of households contained extended kin before the industrial revolution. This suggests the family was already nuclear before industrialisation. Young and Wilmott found that Extended Kin networks were still strong in East London as late as the 1970s.

Parsons – The two essential or irreducible functions of the family

According to Parsons, although the nuclear family performs reduced functions, it is still the only institution that can perform two core functions in society – Primary Socialisation and the Stabilisation of Adult Personalities.

1. Primary Socialisation – The nuclear family is still responsible for teaching children the norms and values of society, known as Primary Socialisation.

An important part of socialisation, according to Functionalists, is ‘gender role socialisation. If primary socialisation is done correctly, boys learn to adopt the ‘instrumental role’ (also known as the ‘breadwinner role) – they go on to work and earn money. Girls learn to adopt the ‘expressive role’ – doing all the ‘caring work’, housework and bringing up the children.

2. The stabilisation of adult personalities refers to the emotional security achieved within a marital relationship between two adults. According to Parsons, working life in Industrial society is stressful. The family is where the working man can return and be ‘de-stressed by his wife, which reduces conflict in society. This is also known as the ‘warm bath theory.’

General criticisms of the Functionalist perspective on the family

It is imperative to be able to criticise the perspectives. Evaluation is worth around half of the marks in the exam!

1. Downplaying Conflict   Both Murdock and Parsons paint a very rosy picture of family life, presenting it as a harmonious and integrated institution. However, they downplay conflict in the family, particularly the ‘darker side’ of family life, such as violence against women and child abuse.

2. Being out of Date
Parson’s view of the instrumental and expressive roles of men and women is very old-fashioned. It may have held some truth in the 1950s, but today, with the majority of women in paid work and the blurring of gender roles, it seems that both partners are more likely to take on both expressive and instrumental roles

3. Ignoring the exploitation of women
Functionalists tend to ignore the way women suffer from the sexual division of labour in the family. Even today, women still end up being the primary child carers in 90% of families and suffer the burden of extra work that this responsibility carries compared to their male partners. Gender roles are socially constructed and usually involve the oppression of women. There are no biological reasons for the functionalist’s view of separating roles into male breadwinner & female homemaker. These roles lead to the disadvantages being experienced by women.

4. Functionalism is too deterministic

This means it ignores the fact that children actively create their own personalities. An individual’s personality isn’t pre-determined at birth or something they have no control in. Functionalism incorrectly assumes an almost robotic adoption of society’s values via our parents; clearly, there are many examples where this isn’t the case.

                                            Feminist perspective on family

Almost all feminists agree that gender is socially constructed. This means that gender roles are learnt rather than determined by biology, and the most significant institution where we are socialised into our appropriate roles and norms of behaviour in the family.  The proof for this theory is found in the sometimes radically different behaviour we see between women from different societies, i.e. different societies construct being “women” in different ways (This is obviously true for men).

Feminism and the Family

Feminists have been central in criticising gender roles associated with the traditional nuclear family, especially since the 1950s.  They have argued the nuclear family has traditionally performed two key functions which oppressed women:

a) socialising girls to accept subservient roles within the family, whilst socialising boys to believe they were superior – this happens through children witnessing then recreating the parental relationship

b) socialising women into accepting the “housewife” role as the only possible/acceptable role for a woman. Indeed it was the only way to be feminine/to be a woman. Essentially, feminists viewed the function of the family as a breeding ground where patriarchal values were learned by an individual, which in turn created a patriarchal society.

Feminism today tends to be split into three distinct branches: Liberal Feminists, Marxist Feminists and Radical Feminists. They differ significantly over the extent to which they believe that the family is still patriarchal and the underlying causes of the existence of patriarchy. Remember – all the theories below are discussing the “nuclear” family.

Liberal Feminism

Causes of inequality in relationships – A combination of two things – (1) Mainstream working culture which requires long and inflexible working hours which are still based on the idea of the main breadwinner, (2) Men refusing to pull their weight in relationships.

Solutions to Inequality – Greater gender equality in the public sphere -achieving equal access to education, equal pay, ending gender differences in subject and career choice won primarily through legal changes.

A key thinker who can be characterised as a liberal feminist is Jennifer Somerville (2000) provides a less radical critique of the family than Marxist or Radical Feminists and suggests proposals to improve family life for women that involve modest policy reforms rather than revolutionary change. Somerville argues that many young women do not feel entirely sympathetic towards feminism yet still feel some sense of grievance. To Somerville, many feminists have failed to acknowledge progress for women such as the greater freedom to go into paid work, and the greater degree of choice over whether they marry or cohabit, when and whether to have children, and whether to take part in a heterosexual or same-sex relationship or to simply live on their own.

The increased choice for women and the rise of the dual-earner household (both partners in work) has helped create greater equality within relationships. Somerville argues that ‘some modern men are voluntarily committed to sharing in those routine necessities of family survival, or they can be persuaded, cajoled, guilt-tripped or bullied’. Despite this, however, ‘women are angry, resentful and above all disappointed in men.’ Many men do not take on their full share of responsibilities, and often these men can be ‘shown the door’.

Somerville raises the possibility that women might do without male partners, especially as so many prove inadequate, and instead get their sense of fulfilment from their children. Unlike Germain Greer, however, Somerville does not believe that living in a household without an adult male is the answer – the high figures for remarriage suggest that heterosexual attraction and the need for intimacy and companionship mean heterosexual families will not disappear. However, it remains the case that the inability of men to ‘pull their weight in relationships means that high rates of relationship breakdowns will continue to be the norm which will lead to more complex familial relationships as women end one relationship and attempt to rebuild the next with a new (typically male) partner.

What Feminists thus need to do is to focus on policies that will encourage greater equality within relationships and to help women cope with the practicalities of daily life. One set of policies that Somerville thinks particularly important are those aimed at helping working parents. The working hours and culture associated with many jobs are incompatible with family life. Many jobs are based on the idea of a male breadwinner who relies on a non-working wife to take care of the children. Somerville argues that to achieve true equality within relationships, we need increased flexibility in paid employment.

Evaluation of the Liberal Feminist Perspective on the Family

• Sommerville recognises that significant progress has been made in both public and private life for women. It is more appealing to a wider range of women than radical ideas. It is more practical – the system is more likely to accept small policy changes, while it would resist revolutionary change. Different Feminists argue that this is an ethnocentric view – it reflects the experiences of mainly white, middle-class women.  Her work is based on a secondary analysis of previous works and is thus not backed up by empirical evidence. Radical Feminists such as Delphy, Leonard and Greer argues that she fails to deal with the Patriarchal structures and culture in contemporary family life.
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•                                                               Marxist Feminism

Marxist feminists argue the main cause of women’s oppression in the family is not men but capitalism. They argue that women’s oppression performs several functions for Capitalism

1. Through their unpaid domestic labour, women reproduce the labour force by socialising the next generation of workers and servicing the current workers (their husbands!)
2. Women absorb anger – Think back to Parson’s warm bath theory. The Marxist-Feminist interpretation of this is that women are just absorbing the anger of the proletariat, who are exploited and who should be directing that anger towards the Bourgeois
3. Women are a ‘reserve army of cheap labour’ – if women’s primary role is domestic, and they are restricted from working, this also means they are in reserve, to be taken on temporarily as necessary by the Bourgeois, making production more flexible.

Key thinker – Fran Ansley (1972) argues women absorb the anger that would otherwise be directed at capitalism. Ansley argues women’s male partners are inevitably frustrated by the exploitation they experience at work, and women are the victims of this, including domestic violence.       

Marxist Feminism – Solutions to Gender Inequalities within the family

For Marxist Feminists, the solutions to gender inequality are economic – We need to tackle Capitalism to tackle Patriarchy. Softer solutions include paying women for childcare and housework – thus putting an economic value on what is still largely women’s work; stronger solutions include the abolition of Capitalism and the ushering in of Communism.

Radical Feminists

Radical feminists argue that all relationships between men and women are based on patriarchy – essentially, men cause women’s exploitation and oppression. For radical feminists, the entire patriarchal system needs to be overturned, particularly the family, which they view as the root of women’s oppression.

Against Liberal Feminism, they argue that paid work has not been ‘liberating’. Instead, women have acquired the ‘dual burden’ of paid work and unpaid housework, and the family remains patriarchal – men benefit from women’s paid earnings and domestic labour. Some Radical Feminists go further arguing that women suffer from the ‘triple shift’ where they have to do paid work, domestic work and ‘emotion work’ – is expected to take on the emotional burden of caring for children. Radical Feminists also argue that, for many women, there is a ‘dark side of family life’. According to the British Crime Survey, domestic violence accounts for a sixth of all violent crime, and nearly 1 in 4 women will experience DV at some point in their lifetime and women are much more likely to experience this than men.

Solutions to gender inequality

In short, Radical Feminists advocate for the abolition of the traditional, patriarchal (as they see it) nuclear family and the establishment of alternative family structures and sexual relations. The various alternatives suggested by Radical Feminists include separatism – women-only communes and Matrifocal households. Some also practise political Lesbianism and political celibacy as they view heterosexual relationships as “sleeping with the enemy.”

Patriarchy’s chief institution is the family. It is both a mirror of and a connection with the larger society, a patriarchal unit within a patriarchal whole. Mediating between the individual and the social structure, the family affects control and conformity where political and other authorities are insufficient. As the fundamental instrument and foundation of patriarchal society, the family and its roles are prototypical. Serving as an agent of the larger society, the family encourages its members to adjust and conform and acts as a unit in the government of the patriarchal state, which rules its citizens through its family heads.

Traditionally, patriarchy granted the father nearly total ownership over wife or wives and children, including physical abuse and often even those of murder and sale. Classically, as head of the family, the father is both begetter and owner in a system in which kinship is property. Yet, in strict patriarchy, kinship is acknowledged only through association with the male line.

In contemporary patriarchies, the male’s priority has recently been modified by granting divorce protection, citizenship, and property to women. Their chattel status continues in their loss of name, their obligation to adopt the husband’s domicile, and the general legal assumption that marriage involves an exchange of the female’s domestic service and (sexual) consortium in return for financial support.

The chief contribution of the family in patriarchy is the socialisation of the young (largely through the example and admonition of their parents) into patriarchal ideology’s prescribed attitudes toward the categories of role, temperament, and status. Although slight differences of definition depend here upon the parents’ grasp of cultural values, the general effect of uniformity is achieved, to be further reinforced through peers, schools, media, and other learning sources, formal and informal. While we may niggle over the balance of authority between the personalities of various households, one must remember that the entire culture supports masculine authority in all areas of life and – outside of the home – permits the female none at all.

Although there is no biological reason why the two central functions of the family (socialisation and reproduction) need be inseparable from or even take place within it, revolutionary or utopian efforts to remove these functions from the family have been so frustrated, so beset by difficulties, that most experiments so far have involved a gradual return to tradition. This is strong evidence of how the basic form of patriarchy is within all societies and how pervasive its effects are upon family members.

                                                             Fictive kinship 

Fictive kinship: patterned on kin-like relations but not actually based upon blood or marriage. Fictive kinship involves extending kinship obligations and relationships to individuals specifically not otherwise included in the kinship universe. In its many manifestations,  Godparenthood (or parenthood, is the most commonly cited illustration, but there are numerous other examples. In many societies, people have "aunts" or "uncles" who are merely their parents' closest friends. Members of religious movements may refer to each other as "brother" or "sister" while observing the rules and prohibitions attached to those statuses. Crime networks and youth gangs employ kinship bonds and ideas of "blood brotherhood" as organizing principles. Nontraditional family forms such as gay and lesbian unions may be defined in traditional kinship terms.

Nonetheless, all fictive kin relationships have one element in common: They are defined by criteria distinct from those establishing blood or marriage relationships. Fictive relationships may mimic the ties they copy, but they are defined in their own terms. These terms may have a religious or economic component, be predicated on existing social networks, or manipulate reality to fill gaps in real kinship networks. Fictive relationships broaden mutual support networks, create a sense of community, and enhance social control. In essence, fictive kin ties elaborate social networks and regularize interactions with people otherwise outside the boundaries of family. Unlike true kinship bonds, fictive kin ties are usually voluntary and require the consent of both parties in establishing the bond. The idea that you cannot pick your relatives does not apply to fictive kin.

The concept of godparenthood (sometimes called co-parenthood) is certainly the best-documented example of a fictive kin relationship. Compadrazgo, as it occurs throughout Mexico and Latin America, is an elaboration of the Catholic concept of baptismal sponsorship blended with pre-colonial religious beliefs. However, it is less a relationship between godparents and godchild than a tie between them. By linking nonrelated families, compadrazgo extends formalized social networks. Individuals often seek to establish ties with wealthier families, establishing sponsorship and providing the possibility of upward social mobility for the child (Foster 1967; Kemper 1982). Similar relationships exist in many other societies, including dharma atmyo in Bangladesh (Sarker 1980), kumstvo in the former Yugoslavia (Halpern 1967; Hammel 1968), and kivrelik in Turkey (Magnarella and Turkdogan 1973).

Another common form of fictive kinship involves extending brotherhood roles and obligations between unrelated males of the same generation. For example, among the Azande in Africa, the concept of blood brotherhood was well established (Evans-Pritchard 1963). In its strictest sense, blood brotherhood ties are sealed by ingestion or some other "mixing" of each other's blood, but this need not always be the case. For example, among the Serbs in Europe, blood brotherhoods (pobratimstvo) were traditionally established when a person was seriously ill or believed himself to be near death. The ceremony, performed at a gravesite, involved no exchange of blood. Pobratim were supposed to behave toward one another as brothers for life, and their children were prohibited from marrying each other (Halpern 1967). Other forms of less rigid brotherhood extension are also common and are better described as partnerships. Among the Netsilik of North America, such partnerships (niqaitorvigit) defined an elaborate pattern of sharing relationships. These sharing relationships were a permanent way of distributing meat and helped spread the risk generated by unpredictable food resources (Balikci 1970). Many important social relationships are established through marriage. In some instances, a tie established through marriage may be crucial to inheritance (providing continuity to a descent group) or maintaining social bonds. In cases where families do not have children to marry, fictive marriage may serve as a substitute. Among the Kwakiutl of North America, status was passed from grandfather to grandson through the son-in-law. A man without daughters might "marry" a son to another man to create this important link. If he had no children, the marriage tie might be created to a body part as, for example, a marriage between a son-in-law and his father-in-law's leg (Boas 1897). The Nuer of North Africa "marry" a woman to a man who has died without producing heirs (the ghost marriage). The woman is actually married to the ghost through a living male relative, and any children resulting from the bond belong to the ghost father and inherit his property (Evans-Pritchard 1951). Another traditional form of fictive marriage existed among the American Plains Indians in the institution of the berdache. In the berdache, a man might assume both the dress and a woman's role, often "marrying" another man.

In postindustrial societies, it is possible to argue that fictive kinship ties have taken on increased importance. Social and geographic mobility, soaring divorce rates, and nontraditional family forms have produced social networks based on voluntary ties than on traditional bonds of blood and marriage. There is, for example, a growing body of literature describing the importance of fictive kin ties in U.S. African-American urban communities and their effects on everything from child care to educational achievement (Fordham 1986; Johnson and Barer 1990). Some researchers have gone so far as to describe ethnicity as being an elaborated form of fictive kinship (Yelvington and Bentley 1991). At the same time, nontraditional families, such as gay or lesbian couples in which children may have two fathers or mothers, can also be characterized as having elements of fictive kinship. Gerontologists and social workers have also emphasized the importance of fictive kin networks to medical treatment and mental health as individuals seek to fill gaps in their existing support networks (Gubrium and Buckholdt 1982; Wentowski 1981).

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