F&H studies

• Defines nuclear family
• 5 characteristics 
• Monogamy

• Functional fit theory
• Fits the needs of industrial society:
• -Geographical mobility
• -Social mobility
• -Other agencies take care of extended family functions

• Disagreement to parsons
• Family responded to industrialisation by extending its network to include relatives outside of the nuclear family which continued until 1950s

• Disagreement to parsons
• Only 10% of households contained extended family before industrialisation

• Disagreement to parsons
• Found high rates of extended households post industrialisation

• Family diversity exaggerated
• Nuclear family still the most common family e.g. people not marrying but still living as couples

Women no longer economically need to marry, therefore less choose to.

Technology connects us to our families

Technology has fragmented families more and causes more conflict

• Childhood is a clear distinct life stage
• Children occupy a different status to adults

• Notion of childhood only developed over the last 150 years in western culture
• -law changes, family changes

• Children in simpler societies treated differently in 3 ways
• 1) responsibility at  a younger age
• 2) less value
• 3) Sexual behaviour viewed differently (e.g. age of consent)

• Toxic childhood
• Children given less adult time due to working parents
• Vulnerable to damage through technology
• Leads to problems such as obesity, drug abuse, early sex..

Things we see as positive care are forms of oppression and control over children

Control in 4 ways:

• 1)Bodies
• 2)space
• 3)time
• 4)access to resources

• Disappearance of childhood
• Similar rights to adults
• Access to adult world
• Children imitate adult behaviour; dress

But: childhood could be argued to be extended due to stay in education until 18, not leaving home until later in life due to economy

• Clear division between labour roles (conjugal roles) 
• Husband: instrumental role to provide for the family
• Wife: expressive role to provide primary socialisation of children and to meet family’s emotional needs
• The division is biological

But: single parent (counter arg; we don’t like single parent families they don’t function properly), same sex taking on both roles

• Disagreement to parsons because if it was a biological trait, this wouldn’t be possible
• Symmetrical family
• Roles are similar
• Women work
• Men help with house work and childcare
• Family gradually improving 
• moving away from segregated conjugal roles
• moving towards joint conjugal roles
• How did this change come about?

• Criticism of willmott and young
• Exaggerated
• husbands interviewed 'helped' their wives at least once a week - this is hardly convincing evidence of symmetry
• Dual burden
• Triple shift

• Pure relationships
• Both satisfied
• Flowing together
• Mutual satisfaction
• Joint conjugal relationships
• Responsible for making each other happy

Men made the most important decisions in middle-class families even when the wives earned money

• Men and women made decisions about different matters
• Women made frequent small decisions i.e. what to have for dinner
• Men were responsible for bigger expensive issues e.g. buying a car

• Studied families where both partners worked
• Found male domination of family decisions but noted a shift towards more equal relationships

• Studied domestic violence aimed at women
• Set off by what the husband saw as a challenge  to his authority
• Women questioning men’s authority Marriage legitimises violence due to authority given to men and dependency given to women

In families with multiple disadvantages (single parent, disabled children, unemployed) grandparents provide support

• Emotionally
• Financially
• practically

This was often at the cost of themselves in terms of time and earnings

5 different types of family diversity:

• 1)Family structures
• 2)Cultural differences (south asian more extended)
• 3)Social class differences (middle class more symmetrical because both parents work)
• 4)Life stages (newly weds, retired)
• 5)Generation differences (older gen and younger gen have different attitudes, eg. to cohabitation)

• Monogamy became essential when capitalism became essential
• So that men could be sure that the children they pass their money onto are theirs
• Women = one role in society: reproduction

Children socialised into the idea of hierarchy and inequality:

• Father
• Mother (Less power but adult authority so still more power than the children 
• children

• An illusion of safety
• Men have power in household
• Less likely to go on strike if humiliated in work place in order maintain household power
• Family soothes the stress

Domestic violence caused by working class men who take their work stresses and frustrations out on the family