Allows for transference of wealth

from generation to generation

- No real wealth
- Primitive communism - Wealth generation Fran Ansley - women as
- Collective ownership - Private Property the takers of shit
= Promiscuous hoard - Individual ownership
= Patriarchal nuclear family

pre-industrial, traidtional,
'primitive' society Emergence of Capitalism Economic relations determine
(Before capitalism)
Social relations Reserve army of labour

The economic system

determines the predominant Focus on how the nuclear family
Structural and historical approach Maintains capitalism and inequality
type of family in society Marxist Feminism

Engels - The nuclear family The basics Capitalism benefitting from

and private property unpaid labour of women

The Marxist Perspective on The Family

Privatised family is typically about

leisure and consumption

Ideological
Unequal relations between parents encourages Acceptance
Family is a 'unit of functions of the of hierarchy
'Keeping up with consumption' family
the Joneses'
Overall evaluations

In reality the family offers a 'safe

haven' away from the harsh
Advertising and 'Privatised' nuclear family exploitation under capitalism
pester power Is apolitical - helps people put up with exploitation
Economically Other family types might be
deterministic more functional for Capitalism
(e.g. Step families)
Nuclear families exist in non
capitalist societies
A criticism of the 'warm bath theory'
Engels theory fails to explain why the
family has to be Patriarchal

Non nuclear families exist in

capitalist societies