👨‍👩‍👧Ch. 3 — Family

Family refers to a socially recognised group connected by kinship, marriage, partnership, adoption, or care responsibilities. Sociologists study it as both a private relationship network and a public social institution.

A household with parents and children is a family, but so is a lone-parent household or a same-sex couple raising an adopted child.

A household is a group of people who live together at the same address, whether or not they are related. It is not the same as a family because unrelated people can share a household.

Three university students sharing a flat form a household but not usually a family.

Kinship refers to social relationships based on blood, marriage, adoption, or culturally recognised family connection. Kinship systems define who is seen as related and what obligations they have.

A grandparent, cousin, adopted sibling, or in-law can all be part of a person's kinship network.

The nuclear family consists of two parents and their dependent children living together. Functionalists often treat it as especially suited to modern industrial society.

A married couple living with their two children is a typical example of a nuclear family.

The extended family includes relatives beyond parents and children, such as grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. It may involve living together or maintaining close support networks.

A household where grandparents, parents, and children live together is an extended family household.

A lone-parent family is a family in which one parent raises one or more dependent children. Sociologists examine how class, gender, welfare policy, and stigma shape lone-parent experiences.

A mother living with her two children after divorce is a lone-parent family.

A reconstituted family is formed when adults create a new family after separation, divorce, or widowhood, often bringing children from previous relationships. It is sometimes called a stepfamily.

A divorced father remarries and lives with his new partner, her child, and his child from a previous marriage.

A same-sex family is a family in which the adult couple are of the same sex and may raise children through adoption, surrogacy, donor conception, or previous relationships. It challenges narrow assumptions about the family as heterosexual.

Two women raising an adopted child form a same-sex family.

Family diversity refers to the range of family forms and living arrangements found in society. It challenges the idea that one family type is normal or universal.

Nuclear, extended, lone-parent, same-sex, reconstituted, and childfree families all show family diversity.

George Peter Murdock argued that the family performs four essential functions: sexual, reproductive, economic, and educational. He claimed these functions explain why the nuclear family is found widely across societies.

The family socialises children, provides economic support, produces new members, and regulates sexual relationships.

The sexual function refers to the family's role in regulating sexual behaviour and providing socially approved sexual relationships. Murdock saw this as one reason family structures are socially important.

Marriage is often treated as a socially approved context for sexual relationships.

The reproductive function refers to the family's role in producing and raising children. For functionalists, reproduction ensures the continuation of society across generations.

Parents having children and raising them within a recognised family unit illustrates the reproductive function.

The economic function refers to the family's role in providing material support and organising resources for its members. Murdock saw this as one of the family's basic social functions.

Parents earning income and using it to provide food, housing, and clothing for children shows the economic function.

The educational function refers to the family's role in socialising children into norms, values, and basic behaviour. In modern terms, this overlaps with primary socialisation.

A child learning manners, language, and gender expectations at home illustrates the educational function.

Talcott Parsons argued that the family changes to fit the needs of society. He claimed the nuclear family fits industrial society because it is small, mobile, and specialised.

A nuclear family can move to a new city for work more easily than a large extended family household.

Geographical mobility means the ability to move location for work or other opportunities. Parsons argued that nuclear families support industrial society because they can relocate more easily.

A couple and their children moving for a parent's job reflects geographical mobility.

Social mobility refers to movement between social classes or status positions. Parsons argued that smaller nuclear families are better adapted to societies where achieved status matters more than inherited status.

A child from a working-class family becoming a doctor through education is an example of upward social mobility.

Primary socialisation is the early process through which children learn society's basic norms, values, language, and behaviour. Functionalists see the family as the main agency of primary socialisation.

Parents teaching a child to share, speak politely, and follow household rules shows primary socialisation.

Parsons used this term to describe the emotional support adults receive from family life. He argued that the family helps adults cope with the pressures of work and society.

A partner offering emotional reassurance after a stressful workday illustrates this stabilising role.

The instrumental role is the practical, breadwinner role traditionally associated with men in Parsons' view of the family. It focuses on earning income and linking the family to wider society.

A father working full-time to provide the main family income is an example of the instrumental role.

The expressive role is the emotional and caring role traditionally associated with women in Parsons' view of the family. Feminists criticise this as a justification for gender inequality.

A mother expected to provide emotional support and childcare while the father earns wages reflects the expressive role.

The Marxist view argues that the family helps maintain capitalism by reproducing labour power, supporting inheritance, and encouraging consumption. It sees the family as linked to class inequality.

Parents raising children to become disciplined future workers reflects the Marxist idea of reproducing labour power.

Friedrich Engels argued that the monogamous family developed alongside private property and inheritance. He saw the family as connected to male control over property and women's subordination.

A legal system that passes property through the male line reflects the kind of inheritance structure Engels criticised.

Inheritance is the transfer of wealth, property, or status across generations. Marxists argue that the family helps preserve class inequality by passing advantages from parents to children.

Wealthy parents passing property and investments to their children helps reproduce class privilege.

Reproduction of labour power means the family maintains and produces workers for capitalism. It does this by caring for current workers and socialising children into future work roles.

A household feeding, caring for, and emotionally supporting a wage worker helps them return to work each day.

The family can be seen as a unit of consumption because it buys goods and services together. Marxists argue that capitalism profits from family spending and advertising aimed at households.

Families buying cars, holidays, toys, school equipment, and household appliances shows the family as a consumer unit.

The feminist view argues that the family can reproduce patriarchy by placing unequal burdens of housework, childcare, and emotional labour on women. Feminists challenge the claim that family life benefits all members equally.

A woman working full-time but still expected to cook, clean, and organise childcare shows a feminist concern.

Patriarchy is a system of male dominance in which men hold greater power in social institutions and relationships. Feminists argue that family life can reproduce patriarchal power.

A household where the father controls money and major decisions while women do unpaid care work reflects patriarchy.

Ann Oakley is a feminist sociologist known for criticising claims that the family has become symmetrical. She argued that women still perform most housework and childcare.

Oakley's critique challenges Young and Willmott's argument that husbands and wives increasingly share domestic roles equally.

Housework is unpaid domestic labour such as cleaning, cooking, washing, and household organisation. Feminists argue that housework is often undervalued because it is unpaid and associated with women.

A mother doing most cooking and cleaning after paid work illustrates the unequal division of housework.

Domestic labour refers to unpaid work carried out in the home, including cleaning, childcare, cooking, and caring for family members. Feminists argue that it is central to gender inequality.

Looking after children, preparing meals, and caring for an elderly relative are all forms of domestic labour.

Emotional labour in families means managing feelings, relationships, and emotional support for others. Feminists argue that women are often expected to perform this hidden work.

A mother remembering birthdays, soothing arguments, and checking on everyone's wellbeing performs emotional labour.

Christine Delphy and Diana Leonard argued that the family can be an economic system in which men benefit from women's unpaid work. Their view treats domestic labour as a source of exploitation.

A husband benefiting from meals, cleaning, and childcare he does not equally provide reflects their argument.

The triple shift refers to paid work, domestic work, and emotional work often carried out by women. It extends the idea of the dual burden by adding emotional responsibility.

A woman completing paid work, doing housework, and managing children's emotional problems is experiencing the triple shift.

The dual burden refers to women carrying responsibility for both paid employment and unpaid domestic labour. It shows that paid work does not automatically create equality at home.

A woman working in an office all day and then doing most childcare and cooking in the evening has a dual burden.

The symmetrical family is Young and Willmott's idea that modern family roles have become more equal and shared. They argued that husbands and wives increasingly share domestic work, leisure, and decision-making.

A couple both working, sharing childcare, and spending leisure time together reflects the symmetrical family ideal.

Young and Willmott argued that the modern family had become more symmetrical, with greater sharing of domestic roles and joint conjugal roles. Their view is often contrasted with Oakley's feminist critique.

Their claim that husbands were becoming more involved in housework is challenged by feminist research on unequal labour.

Joint conjugal roles occur when partners share tasks, leisure, and decision-making within a relationship. They contrast with segregated conjugal roles.

A couple cooking together, sharing childcare, and making financial decisions jointly shows joint conjugal roles.

Segregated conjugal roles occur when partners have clearly separated responsibilities and leisure activities. They are often associated with more traditional gender divisions.

A husband spending leisure time with male friends while his wife stays home with children shows segregated conjugal roles.

Childhood as a social construction means ideas about childhood are shaped by society rather than fixed by biology alone. Expectations of children vary across cultures and historical periods.

A society that expects children to work from a young age constructs childhood differently from one that requires long schooling.

Philippe Aries argued that childhood, as a distinct protected life stage, developed historically rather than existing in the same form in all societies. His work supports the view that childhood is socially constructed.

Aries suggested that medieval European children were often treated more like small adults than modern protected children.

Social policy refers to government laws and measures that affect family life. Policies on divorce, welfare, childcare, education, and domestic abuse can shape family behaviour and family forms.

Divorce law reform can affect how easily couples leave marriages and form reconstituted families.

The New Right view argues that the conventional nuclear family provides social stability, moral guidance, and effective child socialisation. It is critical of family diversity when seen as weakening social order.

New Right writers often argue that lone-parent families are linked to social problems, although critics see this as blaming families.

Charles Murray is associated with New Right arguments about welfare dependency and the underclass. His view has been used to criticise lone-parent families, especially where welfare is seen as reducing responsibility.

Murray's argument would link welfare support for lone parents to dependency, while critics argue this ignores poverty and inequality.

The postmodern view argues that family life has become more diverse, fluid, and shaped by individual choice. It rejects the idea that one dominant family form explains modern society.

People choosing cohabitation, same-sex parenting, childfree partnerships, or blended families reflects postmodern family diversity.

Judith Stacey argued that family life has become increasingly diverse and cannot be understood through one traditional model. Her work is often linked to postmodern approaches to family change.

Stacey's approach helps explain why blended, same-sex, and non-traditional families should not be treated as abnormal.

Individualisation refers to the idea that people increasingly make personal choices about relationships, marriage, parenting, and identity. It is linked to changing family forms and weaker traditional expectations.

Choosing cohabitation instead of marriage because it fits personal values reflects individualisation.

Cohabitation means living together as a couple without being legally married. Rising cohabitation is often used as evidence of changing attitudes to marriage and family life.

A couple living together for years before deciding whether to marry are cohabiting.

Divorce is the legal ending of a marriage. Sociologists examine divorce as evidence of changing gender roles, expectations of marriage, legal reform, and individual choice.

Rising divorce rates may reflect reduced stigma, greater female economic independence, or higher expectations of emotional satisfaction.

Secularisation is the declining influence of religion in society. It can affect family life by reducing religious pressure to marry, stay married, or follow traditional gender roles.

A couple choosing cohabitation despite religious traditions favouring marriage may reflect secularisation.

A beanpole family is a long, thin extended family structure with several generations but fewer members in each generation. It is linked to increased life expectancy and lower fertility.

A child with living parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents but few siblings or cousins is part of a beanpole family.

A transnational family has members living across national borders while maintaining emotional, financial, and care relationships. It is shaped by migration and globalisation.

A parent working abroad and sending money home while relatives care for children is part of a transnational family arrangement.

An empty-shell marriage is a marriage that continues legally but has little emotional connection or intimacy. It is used to show that marriage statistics may hide unhappy relationships.

A couple who remain married for financial reasons but live separate emotional lives may be in an empty-shell marriage.

Family ideology is a set of beliefs that presents one family form as natural, normal, or superior. Sociologists use the concept to question assumptions about the nuclear family.

Media images that portray married heterosexual parents with children as the ideal family promote family ideology.

The dark side of the family refers to harmful aspects of family life, including domestic abuse, control, neglect, and inequality. It challenges idealised views of the family as always loving and supportive.

Domestic violence within a household shows that family life can involve power and harm as well as care.

Domestic abuse involves controlling, coercive, threatening, violent, or abusive behaviour within intimate or family relationships. Feminists often analyse it as connected to power and patriarchy.

A partner controlling money, isolating the other partner, and using violence is committing domestic abuse.

Ethnicity can shape family structures, values, kinship obligations, and household patterns. Sociologists avoid treating ethnic groups as fixed and instead examine diversity within and between groups.

Some families may place strong emphasis on extended kin support, but patterns vary by class, migration history, and generation.

Class affects family life through income, housing, education, work patterns, and access to support. Marxists especially link the family to the reproduction of class inequality.

Middle-class parents using private tutoring and networks to support children's education shows class shaping family advantage.

Gender socialisation is the process through which children learn expectations attached to masculinity and femininity. Families often play a key role through toys, chores, language, and role models.

A girl being encouraged to help with childcare while a boy is encouraged to be assertive shows gender socialisation.

Conjugal roles are the roles performed by partners within a marriage or cohabiting relationship. They are usually discussed as either joint or segregated.

One partner managing bills while the other does childcare shows how conjugal roles can be divided.