Quick Quiz 4

Quick Quiz 4 - Marxism and The Family Here you are, a very quick quiz on the Marxist view of the family; or at least, a bit of it. Fill in the gaps, answers will follow in a later posting - probably tomorrow - with an obvious heading so you can find it. It’s important in sociology to learn the technical vocabulary and use it; it makes life easier for you - believe it or not - and helps convince examiners that you actually know what you’re talking about. Don’t read too much into the length of the gaps - that just reflects the practical difficulties in producing a test like this.

Good luck.

The Marxist View of the Family

Marxists view the structure of capitalist society in terms of the …………………. model, in which the features of the………………….. are shaped (or determined) by the economic base of society. Whilst for some this exaggerates the importance of economic factors, it can nevertheless provide perceptive ways of viewing familiar institutions. The family provides one excellent example. Marxists argue that the family is part of the superstructure and it therefore inevitably reflects the economic base of capitalist society.

In practice this means that Marxism suggests that we need to see the modern nuclear family as ideally meeting the needs of capitalist society. The family reproduces …………of ……….. as well as the two social classes themselves; ……………. and ……………
.
This occurs since families tend to transmit privilege and wealth for the bourgeoisie, whilst for the proletariat the family simply acts to ………….their ………… power. Engels argues that this explains how and why the nuclear family was created.