Negative Aspects of Family Life

Radical Psychiatrists
Laign
Ideas
Claimed to reveal the reality behind normal family life.
Concluded the family is damaging and can cause schizophrenia.
Behaviour disorders as a response to intolerable family situatiobns such as the conflicts of parents.
'Mad' people come from 'mad' families.
Behaviour that may appear bizarre has meaning for the individual.
Criticisms
Untypical families studied.
No normal control families for comparison.
Laign retracted many of his controversial ideas before he died.

Cooper
Ideas
Adds a Marxist perspective to Laing's ideas.
Family seen as an ideological conditioning device reinforcing the power of the ruling class and crushing individual identity.
Tensions and guilt in the family and caused by capitalism and it is these chains that have to be broken to produce a creative and indepndent individual.
Criticisms
Impossible to validate.
Assumes the child is powerless.
Focuses exclusively on the negative aspects of family life.

Anthropologist
Leach
Ideas
Studied pre-industrial societies where extended kin provide emotional and practicle help.
This led him to believe isolated nuclear family is emotionally overloaded, it internalises problems and expects too much of members.
Claimed the 'family with its narrow and tawdry secrets is the source of all discontents'.

The Dark Side of the Family

Many sociologists have highlighted that all is not well within the family since there is a well documented and well published set of statistics that would seem to indicate that domestic violence is on the increase.

Sociologists have suggested that as the family becomes increasingly privatised (or shut away from larger society) there is more scope for negative experiences associated with family life. This has created a situation in which domestic violence can happen behind closed doors and this has led to an increase in this aspect of family life.

Domestic violence in all about power and control in the family. It is not just physical abuse it is also mental, psychological, emotional and also the implied threat of violence. Also this means that domestic violence is a complex part of life, which for many people can be an uncomfortable reality for them, especially if they believe that the family is a positive place to be.

A Functionalist Approach - would not really be able to explain domestic violence because it views the family as a positive centre of socialisation. Therefore in sociology, Radical Psychiatry goes a lond way towards helping us to understand domestic violence and why and how it happens within the family.

R.D Laing saw the nuclear family as being dislocated from other family members and this led to emotional overload which was a result of family expectation. This led itself off from the rest of society and it became isolated and removed from the bigger picture of society. This goes some way towards expleining how abuse can happen within the family without other people picking up on vital clues or signs.

There is a significant under-representation of domestic violence statistics reported for a number of reasons. This is particularly true for men who are victims. One sociologist (Ken Pease) believes that domestic violence figures are 140% higher than those reported in the British Crime Survey (BCS) and this is worrying and implies that there is a dark figure of domestic violence hidden within the statistics because it is happening a lot more than the figures show.

1 in 4 women will be the victims of domestic violence in their lifetime.

1 in 6 men will be the victims of domestic violence in their lifetime.

The Good Wife's Guide and The New Improved Good Wife's Guide

There are definite changes in gender roles especially with the wife's roles. In May 13, 1955 The good wife's guide was present in Housekeeping Monthly. It stated the following.

• Have dinner ready. Plan ahead, even the night before, to have a delicious meal ready on time for his return. This is a way of letting him know that you have be thinking about him and are concerned about his needs. Most men are hungry when they come home and the prospect of a good meal (especially his favourite dish) is part of the warm welcome needed.
• Prepare yourself. Take 15 minutes to rest so you'll be refreshed when he arrives. Touch up your make-up, put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh-looking. He has just been with a lot of work-weary people.
• Be a little gay and a little more interesting for him. His boring day may need a lift and one of your duties is to provide it.
• Clear away the clutter. Make one last trip through the main part of the house just before your husband arrives. Run a dustcloth over the tables.
• Over the cooler months of the year you should prepare and light a fire for him to unwind by. Your husband will feel he has reached a haven of rest and order, and it will give you a lift too. After all, catering for his comfort will provide you with immense personal satisfaction.
• Minimize all noise. At the time of his arrival, eliminate all noise of the washer, dryer or vacuum. Encourage the children to be quiet.
• Be happy to see him.
• Greet him with a warm smile and show sincerity in your desire to please him.
• Listen to him. You may have a dozen important things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time. Let him talk first - remember, his topics of conversation are more important than yours.
• Make the evening his. Never complain if he comes home late or goes out to dinner or other places of entertainment without you. Instead, try to understand his world of strain and pressure and his very real need to be at home and relax.
• Your goal: To try and make sure your home is a place of peace, order, and tranquillity where your husband can renew himself in body and spirit.
• Don't greet him with complaints and problems.
• Make him comfortable. Have him lean back in a comfortable chair or have him lie down in the bedroom. Have a cool or warm drink ready for him.
• Arrange his pillow and offer to take off his shoes. Speak in a low, soothing and pleasant voice.
• Don't ask him questions about his actions or question his judgment or integrity. Remember, he is the master of the house and as such will always exercise his will with fairness and truthfulness. You have no right to question him.
• A good wife always knows her place.

The New and Improved Good Wife's Guide

• Plan dinner for yourself and family. Even if the food has a "Mc" in front or a "King" behind, it still counts as a dinner you planned. Making reservations is also considered planning as is asking your husband to pick something up on the way home from work.
• Take a nap if possible, after all, you deserve it. Feeding, cleaning, dressing and running after children all day is hard work. Plus, if you are rested, you are less likely to take off to Vegas like you've threatened to do on more than one stressful occasion. Also to make yourself "fresh-looking", have the hubby watch the kids for you so you can take a nice relaxing bath and maybe have time to shave. He'll love that.
• Do whatever makes you happy. If you enjoy dancing around the house in your underwear then do it. And do it for yourself not for your spouse because being "gay" for his benefit is just plain gay.
• If you're lucky enough to have a "play room" then you can only hope that the majority of the toys will remain in there. If not, have the kids clean them up at the end of the day before bedtime. There's no point in putting them away while they are still playing. Randomly throwing toys into said playroom counts as cleaning up, as does piling laundry in the corner of a room. If you don't get the opportunity to clean up clutter, it's a sure fire sign that you had something better to do.
• As long as there is nothing living or breathing in the inch high dust that covers the TV, cabinets or shelves, it can wait. And if your washer, dryer or dishwasher are running when your husband comes home, well it's a sign that you've obviously been busy that day.
• Building a fire is fun if you have a fireplace. And if you do, try not to "accidentally" knock your husband into it when he picks a fight even though that might bring you "immense personal satisfaction."
• Children get dirty. If there is even a spec of mud in the backyard, they will find it. As long as their hands are clean before they eat and as long as they aren't smearing dirt on your new carpet or couch then they're clean enough for the time being. If their loud voices drive you crazy, send them outside where they can drive the neighbors crazy. And to fix any hair issues, make them wear a hat. Also, if they want to jump all over their father the minute he walks in the door, let them. After all, they've most likely been jumping all over you all day.
• Be happy to see your husband, assuming he's on time and in a good mood. Be even happier if he brought home a paycheck.
• Give him a hug when he walks in the door, if he doesn't smell of another woman's perfume, give him a kiss too. If you missed him, tell him. If you actually want to know how his day went, ask him. And if you love him, remind him.
• Make a list of all of the things you need or want to tell your husband when he comes home. In the midst of football, ballet, tuba and soccer practice you'll most likely forget. And this way you can hit every topic over dinner. Giving pop quizzes afterwards always helps to drive your points across, although it might make him mad and then he "might" have a fireplace accident.
• If you had a stressful day, you retain the right to complain about it. As your husband he has the obligation to listen and vice versa. If he goes out after work and stays out late, you also have the right to be upset. And you retain the right to turn off your cell phone the next time you're out with the girls.
• If you can make one room tranquil and peaceful then do it. You need somewhere to escape and regroup yourself. This is why men have sheds and garages.
• If he wants to go out for a few drinks after work then compromise. You should be able to go out one night also, it's only fair.
• If you've both had a rough day then having drinks prepared is not a bad idea, especially if there is alcohol included.
• Arranging your husband's pillow is a nice gesture, just try not to "arrange" it over his face. Of course if you're speaking in low, pleasant tones while you're doing it, it could still be considered a nice gesture.
• If something doesn't seem right to you, ask questions. Just because your husband is a man doesn't mean he can do whatever he wants. Remember, where there is a King of the castle, there is also a Queen......
• A good wife always knows her place, on top of her throne where she shall be worshipped by all.

The Family and Post-Modernism

Post-Modernism; the belief that there is no absolute or total truth that can be known in the world today. Only the truths that we find ourselves to explain the meanings of our own lives.

As a result of this post-modernist sociologists suggest the collapse in ultimate truth and meaning in our lives means that we cannot say that one type of family is better than another because there is no absolute truth anymore. Therefore we are free to choose the lifestyle that we want and this is the only way that we can find meaning in our meaningless lives because society is so fragmented and broken up and claims of what is 'normal' and 'natural' are no longer relevant.
According to a post-modernist sociologist it is difficult to even say what makes up a 'family today.
This is almost like a super-market of life-choices.

Decision Making and Power in Households

The concept of power is central to a sociological analysis of the family and power is the ability of a 'social actor' to carry their will, despite resistance. It is the ability to get what you want even though others may not want it.

The family is a key part where power is exercised and exerted and sociologists will see inequalities within the family differently based upon their theoretical perspective on how power is distributed.

The functionalists will take a very traditional approach to the family and they will suggest that there is a natural division of labour based upon biological differences. Talcott Parsons believed that women are suited better for caring because of their expressive roles as carers and they naturally care for children and also provide emotional support for the family.

Marxist Feminists; they believe that men are the main cause of the inequalities by reproducing the workforce and the inequalities within the family. The family then acts like a filter by which the anger of oppression felt by men in the workplace comes out within the family and this creates inequalities in the distribution.

Radical Feminists; they believe that the family and the female role is created by men to enable them to go to work without the burden of childcare or domestic work, which is completed by their partners i.e the women.

Patriarchy; this is male power and dominance and this is why many women accept male power without question because they have been socialised into accepting male authority and into not questioning it. This means that women will accept responsibility for things like care, housework and childcare without question and this is also why some women are made to feel guilty for working outside of the home because they are made to believe that their absence somehow damages their children. Finally it could also be said that the state in many ways encourages women to be econominally dependent upon men and this also reinforces some of the inequalities in power distribution within the family. For example, in the case of maternity leave.

Gender Roles within The Family

Conjugal Roles; the roles by a man and a wife within a marriage and this applies specifically to who does what when it comes to domestic labour.

Separate Conjugal Roles; when men and women's roles within the home are clearly defined and separated. The women are expected to be homemakers and the men are the 'breadwinners'.

Joint Conjugal Roles; when the roles within the household are shared equally between men and women. This is also referred to as the symmetrical family or 50:50 family.

Double Burden; both the wife and man work and the wife is expected to come home to care for the children and to also cook the food.

Triple Burden; the woman works, cooks and cares for the children and also looks after the emotional well-being of all the family members.

Domestic Labour and Gender Roles in the Family

Decision making and power in households
‘Power is the probability that one actor within a social relationship will be in a position to carry out his will despite resistance, regardless of the basis on which this probability tests’

Stephen Edgell (1980) researched this and found the following.
There are many ways that decision making and power are exercised in the family:

• How financial power is exercised – meaning that decisions such as where to live, which car to buy or where to go on holiday are usually made by the man (the major wage earner).


• Women only make minor decisions such as food purchases and children’s clothes.

Later John Pahl (1993) examined who controlled the money within the household. He separated the couples that were being interviewed into two groups:

1. Those that had joint named accounts


2. Those that had separate bank accounts

He made another split between those where the husband made the important financial decisions and those where the wife performed this function. Pahl found the following from the 102 couples who were interviewed:

• Husband Controlled Pooling (most likely relationship) 39 out of 102 couples were using this method to control their money. This method means that the couple have a joint bank account and the husband controls the most important financial decisions.


• Wife Controlled Pooling (second most common)
  27 out of 102 couples were using this method.
  The couple have a joint bank account but the wife has the control over major expenditure. This tended to be the case in middle-class couples, particularly when the woman had a higher income than the man.


• Husband Control
  22 out of 102 couples were using this method.
  This methods sees the husband to have his own account and took control of the major financial issues in the family.However, this method was only found when the male had a high income, it was also the case in lower-class families where the wife doesn’t need an account as most of her income is spent in cash.

Christine Delphy (1992) also noted that when men buy products for themselves, the often spend more than their wives. Delphy calls this ‘differential consumption’

• Wife Control (least likely arrangement)
  14 out of 102 couples were using this method.
  This was commonly found in low-income couples where neither of them had a bank account and the woman controlled the earnings to pay the bills.
  

This study reveals the complexities of financial arrangements within different families. It also shows that most of the major decisions are made by the men but women do have some control, particularly in managing accounts on a daily rather than monthly basis. Pahl found that the most equal type of control is wife controlled pooling. He also found that in ¼ of all families the couple had similar incomes which meant decisions tended to be made jointly and equally, suggesting that, in domestic financial arrangements. Just like many other areas of life, women do not have equality in the family.

In addition, further evidence of lack of equality is provided by the Fawcett Society’s report, Home Truths (Geethika et al., 2002), which found that some women resorted to stockpiling their own savings without the knowledge of their husbands to provide a nest egg for their own financial security, with some women being afraid that their husbands might spend their money if they had found out about it. The report commented that despite a perception that many couples were now sharing financial decision making, men still made the decisions, particularly in low-income families.

Men also appear to have control when it comes to the importance of their job. In A tale of two nations? Juggling work and home in the new economy (2003), Irene Hardill wrote that women would often result in following their husband to a new part of the country, leaving their jobs and friends to further his career. Also in the past men often expected their wives to further enhance their careers by offering support and attending to their husband’s functions to help them appear more powerful.