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Families andhouseholds
CHAPTER
8
 It is no longer possible to pronounce in some binding waywhat family,marriage,parenthood,sexuality or love mean,what they should or could be;rather these vary in substance, norms and morality from individual to individual and from relationship to relationship.
Beck and Beck-Gernsheim,1995
460
Is the family universal?
462
The family – a functionalist perspective
464
Marxist perspectives on the family
465
Feminist perspectives on the family
466
Marxist feminist perspectives on the family
467
Radical feminist perspectives on the family
470
Difference feminism
473
The family,industrialization and modernization
482
Family diversity
495
The changing functions of the family
497
Conjugal roles
501
Marriage,marital breakdown and family decline
508
The family,politics and social policy
512
Families,modernity and postmodernity
 
 C H A P T E R  8 
F  ami  l  i   e s  an d h  o u s  eh  ol   d  s 
Introduction
The family has often been regarded as the cornerstone of society.In premodern and modern societies alike it has beenseen as the most basic unit of social organization and onewhich carries out vital tasks,such as socializing children.Until the 1960s few sociologists questioned theimportance or the benefits of family life.Most sociologistsassumed that family life was evolving as modernityprogressed,and that the changes involved made the familybetter suited to meeting the needs of society and of familymembers.A particular type of family,the
nuclear family
(based around a two-generation household of parents andtheir children),was seen as well adapted to the demands of modern societies.From the 1960s,an increasing number of criticalthinkers began to question the assumption that the familywas necessarily a beneficial institution.Feminists,Marxistsand critical psychologists began to highlight what theysaw as some of the negative effects and the ‘dark side’of family life.In the following decades the family was not just underattack from academic writers.Social changes also seemedto be undermining traditional families.Rising divorcerates,cohabitation before marriage,increasing numbers of single-parent families and single-person households,andother trends all suggested that individuals were basingtheir lives less and less around conventional families.Some have seen these changes as a symptom of greaterindividualism within modern societies.They havewelcomed what appears to be an increasing range of choice for individuals.People no longer have to base theirlives around what may be outmoded and,for many,unsuitable conventional family structures.Others,however,have lamented the changes and worried abouttheir effect on society.Such changes are seen as both asymptom and a cause of instability and insecurity inpeople’s lives and in society as a whole.This view has beenheld by traditionalists who want a return to the ideal of the nuclear family.For them,many of society’s problemsare a result of increased family instability.Some postmodernists argue that there has been afundamental break between the modern family and thepostmodern family.They deny that any one type of familycan be held up as the norm against which other familytypes can be compared.While modern societies mighthave had one central,dominant family type,this is nolonger the case.As a result,it is no longer possible toproduce a theory of ‘the family’.Different explanationsare needed for different types of family.Alongside these developments in society and sociology,family life has become a topic of political debate.What wasonce largely seen as a private sphere,in which politiciansshould not interfere,is now seen as a legitimate area forpublic debate and political action.As concern has grown in
459
 
some quarters about the alleged decline of the family,politi-cians have become somewhat more willing to comment onfamilies.Sometimes they have devised policies to try to dealwith perceived problems surrounding the family.In short,the family has come to be seen as moreproblematic than it was in the past.The controversies thathave come to surround families and households are thesubject of this chapter.We begin by examining theassumption of the ‘universality’of the family.
Is the familyuniversal?
George Peter Murdock:the family – a universal social institution
In a study entitled
Social Structure
(1949),George PeterMurdock examined the institution of the family in a widerange of societies.Murdock took a sample of 250societies,ranging from small hunting and gathering bandsto large-scale industrial societies.He claimed that someform of family existed in every society,and concluded,onthe evidence of his sample,that the family is universal.Murdock defined the family as follows:
The family is a social group characterized by common residence,economic cooperation and reproduction.It includes adults of both sexes,at least two of whom maintain a socially approved sexual relationship,and one or more children,own or adopted,of the sexually cohabiting adults.
Murdock,1949
Thus the family lives together,pools its resources andworks together,and produces offspring.At least two of theadult members conduct a sexual relationship according tothe norms of their particular society.Such norms vary from society to society.For example,among the Banaro of New Guinea,the husband does nothave sexual relations with his wife until she has borne achild by a friend of his father.The parent–child relation-ship,therefore,is not necessarily a biological one.Itsimportance is primarily social,children being recognizedas members of a particular family whether or not the adultspouses have biologically produced them.
Variations in family structure
The structure of the family varies from society to society.The smallest family unit is known as the
nuclear family
and consists of a husband and wife and their immatureoffspring.Units larger than the nuclear family are usuallyknown as
extended families
.Such families can be seenas extensions of the basic nuclear unit,either
verticalextensions
– for example,the addition of members of athird generation such as the spouses’parents – and/or
horizontal extensions
– for example,the addition of members of the same generation as the spouses,such asthe husband’s brother or an additional wife.Thus thefunctionalist sociologists Bell and Vogel define theextended family as ‘any grouping broader than the nuclearfamily which is related by descent,marriage or adoption’.Either on its own or as the basic unit within anextended family,Murdock found that the nuclear familywas present in every society in his sample.This led him toconclude:
The nuclear family is a universal human social grouping.Either as the sole prevailing form of the family or as the basic unit from which more complex forms are compounded,it exists as a distinct and strongly functional group in every known society.
Murdock,1949
However,as we will discover in the following sections,Murdock’s conclusions might not be well founded.
Kathleen Gough – the Nayar
Some societies have sets of relationships between kinwhich are quite different from those which are common inBritain.One such society was that of the Nayar of Keralain southern India,prior to British rule being established in1792.Sociologists disagree about whether this society hada family system or not,and thus whether or not it disprovesMurdock’s claim that the family is universal.Kathleen Gough (1959) provided a detailed descriptionof Nayar society.Before puberty all Nayar girls wereritually married to a suitable Nayar man in the
tali
rite.After the ritual marriage had taken place,however,the
tali
husband did not live with his wife,and was under noobligation to have any contact with her whatsoever.Thewife owed only one duty to her
tali
husband:she had toattend his funeral to mourn his death.Once a Nayar girl reached or neared puberty she beganto take a number of visiting husbands,or
sandbanham
husbands.The Nayar men were usually professional warriorswho spent long periods of time away from their villagesacting as mercenaries.During their time in the villages theywere allowed to visit any number of Nayar women who hadundergone the tali rite and who were members of the samecaste as themselves,or a lower caste.With the agreementof the woman involved,the
sandbanham
husband arrived atthe home of one of his wives after supper,had sexualintercourse with her,and left before breakfast the nextmorning.During his stay he placed his weapons outsidethe building to show the other
sandbanham
husbands thathe was there.If they arrived too late,then they were freeto sleep on the veranda,but could not stay the night withtheir wife.Men could have unlimited numbers of 
sandbanham
wives,although women seem to have beenlimited to no more than twelve visiting husbands.
An exception to the family? 
Sandbanham
relationships were unlike marriages in mostsocieties in a number of ways:
1
They were not a lifelong union:either party couldterminate the relationship at any time.
2
Sandbanham
husbands had no duty towards theoffspring of their wives.When a woman became
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