Text 10 the family unit

The family is an important subject in itself. It is not simply one among many social institutions. Instead, it is a central human organization in most – probably all – societies. Firstly, children grow-up within some family structure. Through their experience in this social group children make their first contacts with a wider society and are introduced to the cultural traditions, values and norms of the community they will eventually enter as adults. Due to this primary socialisation, the family plays a vital role in framing the way people develop individually (in terms of their personality) and socially (in terms of relationships with others).

Secondly, the family is the cornerstone of social organisation and, as such, its breakup would have grave consequences for social life. Thus, many people believe that lack of parental control and guidance is the root cause of many contemporary social ills, from vandalism to drug addiction.

Therefore the family tends to occupy an elevated position within the rhetoric of all major political parties. In a similar manner, notions of the family are closely linked with debates over national identity and cultural cohesion; commitment to the family values is frequently evoked as a source of national unity.

Moreover, the state of the family manifests the direction of historical change, as the quality of familial relationships is the test of society’s well-being.

Since the industrial revolution, rapidly changing employment patterns coupled with demographic and social movements have challenged the beliefs, laws and customs governing notions of family and gender. Women's greater participation in public as opposed to domestic life has been a key factor in generating fears about the collapse of the family throughout the past century. Shifting conceptions of gender identity and a decline of the ‘male breadwinner family’ were accompanied by an erosion of the traditional family patterns.

The first to go was the extended family, with parents and even grandparents, uncles and aunts living in close proximity to their grown-up children, which was the dominant form of family structure at least until the mid-twentieth-century. It is now found mainly in soap operas based in traditional working-class communities.

Furthermore, there has been a long series of legal reforms affecting sexual behaviour, kinship structures and the social status of women. On the one hand, these reforms resulted from humanitarian social movements such as feminism, which secured rights of guardianship, property ownership, political representation and reproductive control for British women. On the other hand, the ‘permissive’ legislation, reflecting the higher priority awarded to personal choice and freedom as opposed to morality and duty, brought about even more drastic changes in the domestic sphere. But the last thirty years have witnessed a particularly turbulent period in the family history, and specifically the reversal of gender roles.

Perhaps one of the most significant shifts over the last decades has been in attitudes towards marriage. Since the law made it easier to get a divorce, the number of divorces has dramatically increased. In fact, one marriage in every three now ends in divorce. This means that there are a lot of one-parent families. Society is now more tolerant than it used to be of unmarried people, unmarried couples – cohabitees and single parents.

Formalizing a couple’s relationship with marriage vows has become unattractive to many people, more men and women opt to live together without constraints. New research by Mintel shows that only 65% of parents are married or co-habiting, about five million British parents (35% of the population) live in ‘non-traditional’ family set-ups. As a result, one in three children is now born out of wedlock. Actually, the decline in registered marriages is mirrored by a sharp increase in marital breakdown.

There is still a more alarming tendency. A new research dispels the myth that the decline of marriage can be blamed on increasing numbers of couples choosing to cohabit. It reveals that half of men in their twenties are commitment-phobic. A decade ago only a third of young men stayed single. There has also been a slight rise in the number of young women shunning serious relationships. But the findings show that while women are merely delaying commitment until later in life, increasing numbers of men are not settling down at all.

Another change has been caused by a greater longevity, and many old people live alone following the death of their partners. As a result, there are many households which consist of only one person or one person and children.

In addition to this, the last decades have witnessed a growth of childfree couples (20 %). This is largely attributed to both improvements in female education and career prospects and greater social acceptance of contraception. Childbearing is frequently postponed until the late twenties or early thirties and the majority of women work outside of the home both before and after having children, regardless of marital status. Consequently, only 24 % of contemporary British households fall into the ‘two adults plus dependent children’ nuclear model, and this figure includes not only married couples but the increasing number of long-term cohabitees.

All this is indicative of erosion of the traditional nuclear family, as well as of increasing diversity in family forms. In fact, there is now a much more complex structure of family life than there has ever been before. Rising divorce rates and growing pressures in the workplace make parents pass on childcare responsibilities to other relatives. ‘Communal parenting’ is becoming common in many families with siblings, grandparents and aunts stepping in. According to a recent survey, more than two million families in Britain already rely on the older generation for help with childcare while about 200,000 grandparents are sole carers.

Overall, gender roles are becoming somewhat more flexible and the two-parent, patriarchal family is gradually becoming less dominant. This has produced a variety of responses. Right-wing politicians and Church leaders tend to blame liberal reforms and permissive legislation for the moral decay and decline in traditional family life. From this perspective, the nuclear family unit is evoked as a symbol of social cohesion. Others argue that if permissiveness weakened the family, it was Thatcher's right-wing revolution which really killed it off and actually led to a more atomized, alienated society. The rampant individualism and consumer greed associated with the 1980s economic boom are, in this version, responsible for undermining the moral values necessary to sustain family life.

Anyway, probably the most important factor in the transformation of British gender identities has been the long-term and seemingly irreversible trend towards female participation in the paid labour force. Sociologists and psychologists never stop warning about the dangers of maternal deprivation caused by the working mother's absence. Fears concerning the welfare of so-called ‘latchkey kids’ reinforced the notion that children could not be properly cared for without a home-based mother, heightening public hostility towards ‘career women’. But in spite of these attitudes, women's paid employment is now an accepted fact of modern life.

Nevertheless, if the statistics indicate a rapid decline in allegiance to the traditional family these figures do not reflect the symbolic or ideo­logical importance of the conventional family unit, which remains strong despite its minority status. The two-parent, patriarchal family continues to be regarded by many as the most important of all social institutions bearing the brunt of responsibility for producing well-adjusted, law-abiding citizens. Marriage is still popular: around 75 % of people marry at least once. The majority of divorced people marry again, and they sometimes take responsibility for a second family.

According to a recent survey by Vodafone, one in five British families liken themselves to the Royal Family, while just one in six see a likeness between their own family and The Simpsons. The strong traditional values of the Waltons make it the family that over half of Britons would like to emulate even though only 16% can say they are actually like them. However, 92% of people have a good idea of what makes traditional family values.

One consequence of the decline of the patriarchal family was the emergence of stronger friendship networks and of a more ‘companionable’ idea of marriage. The contemporary companionate model, based on mutual respect, emotional fulfilment and shared ‘quality-time’ has, at least partly, replaced the model which assumed separate spheres and female dependence. Relationships within the family are also different now. Parents treat their children more as equals than they used to, and children have more freedom to make their own decisions. The father is more involved with bringing up children, often because the mother goes out to work.

There is also evidence to suggest that new, more flexible family structures and systems of community support are beginning to take its place. Single mothers, for example, often rely heavily on one another for both childcare assistance and emotional support. Similarly, while children of divorced parents are generally regarded as disadvantaged, it has also been suggested that many actually benefit from drawing on a wider support network of two families.

Even if current trends hold, the conventional, two-parent families are likely to remain in the majority. In overall perspective, families still play a central role in providing for the health, income and security of both older and younger members.

Marriage and family themselves do not magically transform society for the better, though there are doubtless links. The characteristics which make up a successful marriage or family – love, commitment, compromise, forgiveness, respect – can also help to hold together a successful community or society.