How the family changed over time Essay

How the family has changed over time? The institution of the family has changed dramatically over last 50 historic period and the of import sociological perspectives, functionalism, Marxism, feminism and interactionism have described this changes in terms of family structure, divorce rates, marriage rate and gender fibers. Defining family in Britain is problematic as until 1960s few sociologists questioned the importance of the benefits of the family. Family is a group of multitude living together related by blood or marriage who support themselves economically and ablazely.It was assumed that the family was evolving with the change in Britain. From the 1960s , with increasing divorce rates, living together before marriage, single p arnt families, one person households , separation and migration, family traditionally seen as nuclear (based on ii adults and children) became harder to define. Sociologists have concluded that the family has be add harder to define in the more tra ditional sense. A family can now be of any group of people living together and/or bringing up children.This could separate due to divorce and another family created through remarriage or cohabitation, with the approach of step children or children born to the new p bentage resulting in another family unit although the first one still technically exists. There are two basic types of family structure extended and nuclear. Functionalists say industrialization changed the function of the family. In pre-industrial high society the extended family was near prevalent. Families break downd and collaborated in engendering wells and crops to live from, taking the surplus to market.In industrial society, the nuclear family becomes ascendant. Status for an individual in pre-industrial society was ascribed. Talcott Parsons (1956) presumed that in industrial society an individuals status is achieved by their prosperity. The nuclear family is the surpass way to achieve prosperity as individ uals. Family structure adapts to the changing circumstances. Changes in economic, political, and moral approach led to the transformation of the family structure.Postmodern times in which we live in a time of tolerance, emancipation of women, legalization and acceptance of homosexual relationships. All these changes meant that more and more people moved away from the traditional simulation of the family, universal fifty years past. Statistics indicate an increasing number of households about 9. 2 million since 1961 but that is due to the increase amount of the divorce, migration, remarital people, single people and increase in length of life.At the same time the increase amount of households decreased their size and the average number of children due to widespread entrance fee to the contraception, abortion, aging population and costs associated with childrens maintenance. More women are also delaying having children because they focusing on work and education seeing role of the mother as a barrier. It is related to child centric model of the family, which learn society to treat childrens as the most precious , whom one must all conform their lives to them . Most mothers deciding to give a birth at age 30-34.Although, life style changes have also caused decrease in married couples amount which is also related to religious approach, because from 1981, when only 49% of all marriages were civil marriages, at 2010, already 68,2 % of all marriages where civil marriages. However, married couple are still the most common type of the family. The functionalist scenery of the role of the family in society is that it maintains favorable order for benefits of all. The family is a tool for primary affableization and a key social institution in sustaining the value consensus (Harambolos 2008).Murdock (1949) claimed that family was universal. It is defined as a social group characterised by common residence, economic co-operation and reproduction. A family lives in th e same home, has economic co-operation usually through the component of labour where the man will take on the instrumental role and provide for the family while the char will adopt the expressive role and take care of the home and family members. Unfortunately, thats the most common image of division of labour for as much, men, are more identically to help at housework or child care presently, it still seen as a responsibility of women.Marxists would contest this viewpoint, arguing that the division of labour is capitalist dogma used to control the labour force and stop them from developing class consciousness. Marxism looks at the methods of control of the ruling class (bourgeoisie) in determining the way society is organised. The family is seen as part of the structure of society and is one of a number of social institutions which helps maintain the capitalists system. Marxists raise that it is the requirements of the system that has come to shape the family in modern societie s.From this perspective view, society revolves around the infrastructure and social superstructure. The family helps to maintain this system. Fried loaded Engels (1884) provides a basis for the Marxist view of the family were strongly conjugated to the evolution of the capitalist system. He also explored the concept of monogamy and argued that the monogamous nuclear family developed with the emergence of private ownership of the means of production. Engels verbalize that this system is maintained by the socialisation of capitalist social norms and values.Marxists do not see this as benefitting the family at all, only the system, and therefore this helps support their theory that family exists as a largely negative institution. Both of these sociological perspective see the role of the family in the opposite way, but in the meantime some(prenominal) of them describing family as a unit of socialization. On the other hand functionalists assume that the family is a positive and bene ficial institution in which family members receive nurturing, care and imperative love which helps keep society functioning well.However, this is not always the case, when it comes to domestic violence, divorce and child abuse. All couples and families who were nuclear families or had potential to be were cosmos ruined each day, providing that the functionalists view of a beneficial family was much overestimated. In comparison, Marxists state that family helps to maintain class differences in society as the rich can afford to give their children a better start in life than the poor, such as. pay for a better education, and get them a good job either in their own business or their friends business.Marxists believe the family socializes the working class to accept that it is fair that the classes are unequal. A diverse view on the family, presented by Feminists, focuses also on socialization but sees its effects in division of labour and gender role stereotyping. They states that f amily is bad for women. Girls and boys learn their different gender roles within the family through socialization. Girls copy their mothers, doing housework, whilst boys copy their fathers, doing DIY. They then learn that this is how male and female roles should be.Feminists believe that the family is male dominated- the term for this is patriarchal. Their theory is still relevant nowadays, because although more women are having careers its still expected from them to take care of childrens and home. Perceptions of roles is so deeply rooted in society that, despising the saturnine image of a woman liberated, having range of capabilities which can freely pursue her dreams when in the end ,is still required from her to perform, in the meantime, the role of housewife.In contrast, interactionist state that the family assists in the construction of the identity for the social individual and looks at the society at a micro scale. In this perspective the family, through interaction helps the social individual to understand self when feminists could argue that vision of how one should look like and behave originates from socialization. They also believe that family helps the social individual identify her/his social role without considering how institutions, class conflict and gender stereotyping influence on creation of those roles.In Great Britain the family is built on the concept of marriage with children had a precise well-established position but during last century divorce rates increased 200%. Which is also reflected in the number of separations reported annually by 150,000 to 200,000 pairs per year. somewhat researchers place the cause of increased divorce on higher expectations (Fletcher, 1966). And given the rates of remarriage it is not the institution of marriage, or the ideology picturing lifelong joy that is rejected, but an insufficient partner.(Denny1984) regards western style marriages based on romantic love as fragile because they are only held together by emotional ties. Another reason why divorce rates increased is that now considerably less social stigma and blame is attached to divorce. One of the main reasons for this phenomenon are changes in divorce law making it much easier to divorce now then for example 50 years ago. Statistics show that the number of children in divorcing couples declined from 153,000 to 104,000. However, this data does not take into account cohabitating couples whose separation is not recorded.The amount of cohabiting couples has increased significantly in recent years. In the majority of relationships still the most important are childrens. The average time spent with children nowadays by mothers is 2h 32 minutes and by fathers 2h 16 minutes when 50 years ago that that was only 25 minutes per day for both parent. Currently fathers are more involved in bringing up children, and the belief in the society that children are an extension of us and their success is our success modernized power image of the families. Is widely spread on the increasing number of single fathers to 178,000 from60,000 from 1670. This shows how evolved the role of the father in the family. Increasingly, we find also reconstituted families where the connection partners cohabitation or marriage jointly raise children from a previous relationship. That happens because of the increased amounts of divorce and remarriage trends. Humans as far didnt create any more successful structure than family. But is nowadays family a well-functioning institution ? Very big influence on how present family looks like has mass media which are creating image how does family should look like which society is fallowing.Traditional family model become a consumption unit which glorifies children and parents are responsibility to make them happy and fulfill their all desires. All values and norms changed dramatically over time and people lost respect to institution like marriage. In conclusion family is still a basic part of the society but it evolved creating new forms of it. References Haramolos, M & Holborn, M (2008) 7th Ed. Sociology, themes and perspectives, Harper Collins capital of the United Kingdom Scott,J. & Marshall, G (2009) Oxford dictionary of sociology , Oxford University Press Oxford