Revising Theories of the Family

As the exam looms I will be providing a few brief comments and tips on the key topics. Today I’ll make a few points about the theories of the family.

For my money questions on the theories are good value, because you can apply your theoretical knowledge to whatever topic it happens to be - in this case the family. But then, I like sociological theory.

The key theories you need to know about are Marxism, Functionalism, and Feminism. In addition to that, I think you need to say a bit about postmodernism and be aware of the critique of the family made by Laing and others.

Questions on the theories of the family - or the relationship between family forms and social structures as the specification says, often require you to show that you can evaluate the theories. You don’t have to be a genius to do this; a few points for and against, and a decent attempt at a logical and coherent conclusion will get you a long way.

As I’ve said though, your general theoretical knowledge can be very useful in helping to bind your knowledge together.

Here are a few general points to help you evaluate:

Remember, both Marxist and Functionalist theories of the family tend to assume that the nuclear family is the dominant family form and therefore neglect diversity.

Marxist approaches are often criticised for being economically reductionist - seeing the family solely in terms of its economic functions for society. It can be reasonably argued that family structures are also the product of culture, not just economic relations.

Functionalism gives an extremely optimistic view of family life - but it isn’t always like that - as Laing and a body of empirical evidence - on child abuse, violence against women, divorce statistics, and so on, indicates. Functionalists neglect the dysfunctional aspects of the nuclear family.

Both structural approaches to the family - Marxism and Functionalism - can be deterministic, and this can make their analyses inaccurate and maybe over-generalised.

Feminists, interactionists and the radical psychiatrists of the 1960s (Laing, Leach and Cooper) have all helped to correct these weaknesses.

Postmodernism has helpfully emphasised diversity, but it can be argued that it goes too far, ignoring the evidence of structural trends and dominant norms in our society.