Anthropology Optional (Family as a Social Institution) by Sourabh Mishra

Model Answer

Question #1. Explain the impact of feminist movement on universality of marriage and family structure.

Introduction:

The feminist movement has effected change in Western society, including women's suffrage, greater access to education, more equitable pay with men, the right to initiate divorce proceedings, the right of women to make individual decisions regarding pregnancy (including access to contraceptives and abortion); and the right to own property.

Various feminist researchers across the world brought forth those women who take on the lion’s share of domestic and caring giving work which is not recognized as productive labor with any market value. Women are socialized into acceptance of feminine domestic roles in marriage which makes them good and respectable wives. (Friedan, 1963).

Case Studies: Feminism associated with Marriage and Family Structure:

• At the same time when they go for work outside home, they are paid much less than men. There is continuity between women’s subordination within the private sphere of marriage and family and the public sphere of wage work.
• When women go out to work in similar positions as men, they are still burdened with house work performing second shift, one shift at office and another taking care of home and family by doing housework.
• Based on the Studies feminists argue that they advocating of gender division of labor in marriage harms the position of women as a whole, merely by constraining their options and ambitions. Confining them to domestic sphere and placing on them the exclusive burden of housework, gender division of labor limits women’s choices and life chances.
• They become economically, socially and politically dependent on men hampering their self-confidence, forcing them to tolerate discrimination and violence. Thus, gender division of labor directly and indirectly coerce women to accept subordination in marriage.
• Amongst the different strands of feminism, Marxists feminists argue that monogamous marriage is a social institution that has nothing to do with love and everything to do with private property. Thus, marriage benefits the capitalist class and women’s subordination within marriage can be overcome only by overthrowing. It is the exploitative system of private property.
• For radical feminists, marriage is a tool of patriarchy which through its heterosexual norms keeps women subordinated. Patriarchy is the first form of social exploitation. In this system of patriarchy, men as a group hold power over women. Power lies with men (Abbott et al. 2005).

Feminist Understanding of Family in India:

Feminism in India assumed the experiences of Hindu upper caste, middle class, urban women to be the experiences of all women.

• Guru (1995): Dalit Bahujan feminists argued that the difference is essential for understanding the Dalit women’s subjugation.
• Queercritique questioned Indian feminist negligence of the role sexuality played in determining family form, and the unequal distribution of power within. They argued against feminist non-questioning of heteronormativity.
• According to queer critiques, feminist questioned gender roles, subordination of women, violence against women, unequal rights to property and decision making and others within family.
• Rinchin (2005)writes ‘within the family’ violence is seen as a serious concern but never as a threat to the validity, relevance and existence of the institution itself.
• According to her, ‘members of the family are burdened with the duty of replicating the structure. Families are also not open for any and every one as the gates for entry are birth and marriage. The use of force and violence for submission and compliance is not unknown

Conclusion:

An egalitarian harmonious institution but that which is fraught with contradictions. According to feminists, marriage is a hierarchical institution whereby women are given secondary status. Gender division of labor, capitalist economy, unpaid housework, unequal wage system in paid work, heterosexual norms, control over women’s sexuality, eulogizing of masculinity and femininity, violence, unequal property, and other rights, along with discriminatory laws make marriage an unequal exploitative institution.

Question #2. Discuss different theories to study Family. Explain how modes of production impacts structure of family.

Approach:

• Introduce the family systems theory
• Describe functionalism theory with example
• Symbolic theory and conflict theory with example
• Marxist theory of family
• Impact of modes of production on structure of family
• Conclusion

Hints

Family Systems Theory

When understanding the family, the Family Systems Theory has proven to be very powerful. Family Systems Theory comes under the Functional Theory umbrella and shares the functional approach of considering the dysfunctions and functions of complex groups and organizations. Family Systems Theory claims that the family is understood best by conceptualizing it as a complex, dynamic, and changing collection of parts, subsystems and family members. Much like a mechanic would interface with the computer system of a broken down car to diagnose which systems are broken (transmission, electric, fuel, etc.) to repair it, a therapist or researcher would interact with family members to diagnose how and where the systems of the family are working and where they are in need of repair or intervention.

This theory also addresses the issue of boundaries. Boundaries are distinct emotional, psychological, or physical separateness between individuals, roles, and subsystems in the family. Boundaries are crucial to healthy family functioning.

Functionalism

• When considering the role of family in society, functionalists uphold the notion that families are an important social institution and that they play a key role in stabilizing society. The family—and its members—perform certain functions that facilitate the prosperity and development of society.
• Sociologist George Murdock conducted a survey of 250 societies and determined that there are four universal residual functions of the family: sexual, reproductive, educational, and economic.
• According to Murdock, the family (which for him includes the state of marriage) regulates sexual relations between individuals. He does not deny the existence or impact of premarital or extramarital sex, but states that the family offers a socially legitimate sexual outlet for adults. This outlet gives way to reproduction, which is a necessary part of ensuring the survival of society.
• Once children are born, the family plays a vital role in training them for adult life. As the primary agent of socialization and enculturation, the family teaches young children the ways of thinking and behaving that follow social and cultural norms, values, beliefs, and attitudes.

For example, in some families, parents teach their children manners and civility believing a well-mannered child reflects a well-mannered parent.

• Parents also teach children gender roles.
• Gender roles are an important part of the economic function of a family.
• In each family, there is a division of labour that consists of instrumental and expressive roles. Men tend to assume the instrumental roles in the family, which typically involve work outside of the family that provides financial support and establishes family status. Women tend to assume the expressive roles, which typically involve work inside of the family which provides emotional support and physical care for children.
• According to functionalists, the differentiation of the roles on the basis of sex ensures that families are well balanced and coordinated. When family members move outside of these roles, the family is thrown out of balance and must recalibrate in order to function properly.

For example, if the father assumes an expressive role such as providing daytime care for the children, the mother must take on an instrumental role such as gaining paid employment outside of the home in order for the family to maintain balance and function.

Conflict Theory

• Conflict theorists are quick to point out that U.S. families have been defined as private entities, the consequence of which has been to leave family matters to only those within the family.
• Many people in the United States are resistant to government intervention in the family: parents do not want the government to tell them how to raise their children or to become involved in domestic issues.
• Conflict theory highlights the role of power in family life and contends that the family is often not a haven but rather an arena where power struggles can occur. This exercise of power often entails the performance of family status roles.
• Conflict theorists may study conflicts as simple as the enforcement of rules from parent to child, or they may examine more serious issues such as domestic violence (spousal and child), sexual assault, marital rape, and incest.

Symbolic Interactionism

• Interactionist view the world in terms of symbols and the meanings assigned to them.
• The family itself is a symbol. To some, it is a father, mother, and children; to others, it is any union that involves respect and compassion.
• Interactionist stress that family is not an objective, concrete reality. Like other social phenomena, it is a social construct that is subject to the ebb and flow of social norms and ever-changing meanings.
• Consider the meaning of other elements of family:in the past, “parent” was a symbol of a biological and emotional connection to a child. With more parent-child relationships developing through adoption, remarriage, or change in guardianship, the word “parent” today is less likely to be associated with a biological connection than with whoever is socially recognized as having the responsibility for a child’s upbringing. Similarly, the terms “mother” and “father” are no longer rigidly associated with the meanings of caregiver and breadwinner. These meanings are more free-flowing through changing family roles.
• Interactionists also recognize how the family status roles of each member are socially constructed, playing an important part in how people perceive and interpret social behaviour.
• Interactionists view the family as a group of role players or “actors” that come together to act out their parts in an effort to construct a family.
• These roles are up for interpretation.
• In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, a “good father,” for example, was one who worked hard to provide financial security for his children.
• Today, for some, a “good father” is one who takes the time outside of work to promote his children’s emotional well-being, social skills, and intellectual growth—in some ways, a much more daunting task.

Marxism – The family as an Ideological Apparatus

• The modern nuclear family functions to promote values that ensure the reproduction and maintenance of capitalism. The family is described as an ideological apparatus – this means it socialises people to think in a way that justifies inequality and encourages people to accept the capitalist system as fair, natural and unchangeable.
• One way in which this happens is that there is a hierarchy in most families which teaches children to accept there will always be someone in “authority” who they must obey, which then mirrors the hierarchy of boss-worker in paid employment in later life.

Family as a Unit of Consumption

Capitalists/business owners want to keep workers’ wages down so they can make a profit, but to do so they must also be able to sell the workers goods i.e. they must create demand for their products. The family builds demand for goods in a number of ways

• Families must keep up with the material goods/services acquired by their neighbours and peers e.g. family holidays, cars – this is known “Keeping up with the Joneses”. There are significant amounts of advertising and TV programmes influencing parents in this way.
• The media and companies target children in their advertising who then persuade their parents through pester power to buy more expensive items. This is particularly bad in the UK where there few legal restrictions on adverts aimed at children; in Sweden advertising aimed at children under 12 is illegal.

Impact on family due to change in modes of production

Decline of Extended Family System:

• With the impact of technology and industrial change, there is a breaking down of the traditional extended (joint) family system and other types of kin groups.
• Now, there is a trend towards smaller family, i.e., fewer uncles and aunts and other relatives.
• Newly married couples establish their own family either in the same house or in the same city or in some other city or village. But relations are not totally severed.

Changing Authority Pattern:

• There is a change in the division of labour and authority in the family. Male authority is declining in the modern family.
• The concepts of ‘symmetrical family and ‘egalitarian family’ are taking place of traditional patriarchal family.

Changing Status of Women:

• The rights of women are becoming more recognized in respect to both initi­ation of marriage and decision-making in the family.

Changing Economic Functions:

• The modern family is no longer united by shared work on the farm.
• It is now a unit of consumption instead of a unit of production as it was in the agrarian society.
• It is now united by feelings of companionship, affection and recre­ation only.

Decline in Family Size:

• Most married couples want to have children, but economic considerations force them to have smaller family with one or two children. 
• Children are no more economically necessary, unlike in an agrarian society.
• Neo-localism is devel­oping in which married couples live alone wherever they wish.
• Couples prefer to have a ‘car’ rather than a ‘child’ these days.

Declining Trend in Non-essential Functions:

• The most of the socializing functions today, like child raising, education, occupational training, caring of elderly, etc., have been taken over by the outside agencies,

For example: Such as creches, media, nursery schools, hospitals, occupational training centres, hospice institutions, funeral contractors, etc. These tasks were once exclusively performed by the family.

• The protective functions of the family are on the verge of decline.

For example, the function of providing help and shelter to the sick, aged and handicapped has been taken over by agencies like health institutions, old-age houses, deaf and dumb institutions, etc.

Conclusion:

The traditional family organization is changing its character very fast due to various modern factors. This change is pronounced in all over the world but more pronounced in western countries than eastern countries.