The most famous form of commune is the kibbutz of Israel. Marriage is not regarded as important, couples can simply share rooms if they wish, and children don’t live with their parents but others of their age group. According to the kibbutz philosophy, children should not see themselves as possessions of their parents but as independent members of kibbutz. These are only few examples but we can see that how differently people treat Marriage as their own customs. In Britain, Marriage is regarded as the union of a woman and a man. Who care about each other? In old age there was a perfect picture of family for example, two kids two parents, but now there is no such thing as a set pattern Marriage. In Britain Marriage is in danger, the ideal picture of family is no more; people don’t live with each other for their whole life, if they feel that they are trapped in empty shell marriages. There there are divorces, partnerships, lone parent families, stepfamilies etc.
In Britain, for many, the family seems familiar and comfortable institution. Sociologist considered that the influence of society penetrates deeply into the family. There is no strict interpretation. It has and will continue over time. There are four interpretation found. The first one is the functionalist interpretation. Functionalists regard the family as an important organ in the body of society. It is what the family does or the functions of the family that most interest them. George Murdock (1949), an early functionlaist, considered the four basic functions of the family to be the sexual, the reproductive, the socializing and the economic .The basic family function is to provide food and shelter for its member. Family members give love, care, company and security to each other. The second function mentioned is, adult needs emotional security, by Marriage. He said that adults need a shoulder to cry on hard times and someone to talk and share, and only Marriage can fulfill these needs. There is some criticism also on this type of family for example some sociologist says that family often create pain for some people and especially for woman, sometimes people lives in unwanted marriage. The second interpretation which sociologist sees is phymnological interpretation. Sociologist researched and said that in these types of families everyone is not happy, family means different to everyone. There are no set meanings of family. For some people family is damaging experience, may be by Marriage, by education etc. In phemonological families people don’t think that families are fulfilling all functions which have been discussed in functionalists families so everyone has there own point of view for their family. Sometimes families are broken in this interpretation. If we look around us or in our families we will feel that most of us belong from this form of family where people are not happy, they go to live on their own. People leave home because they think that the care and support, which they should have, they are not getting. R .D Laings work was based on the study of families where one member was diagnosed as schizophrenic. He thinks that there is no need of family and when there is no need of family then there is no need of Marriage. In Britain one person families has increased 8%from 1961 to 1995.These statistics shows us that people take care about their career and for them, Marriage is no longer a key of happiness.
The third interpretation which sociologist has researched is Marxist perspectives on the family. Marxists reject the functionalist view that society is based on functions. They think that Marriage exploit society and women. Marriage doesn’t fulfill all functions described in functionalist families. The fourth interpretation is feminist. In this interpretation the sociologist say feminist see the exploiter as a male-head of home in capitalist society. Male is the main power in home. Women are to produce children. Feely 1972 see the family as an authoritarian unit dominated by the husband.
Family is changing daily. In old ages people were use to work in fields, children not going to school, women not working, there was no divorce at that time. But now family has changed. The way the family has changed, it did have an affect on Marriages or we can say as the Marriage value changed, families also started changing with it. The early age family is called the pre-industrial family. Marriage was very stable in pre-industrial families. There was no divorce those days. A new family started shaping up, which was called industrial family. Jobs in agriculture were declined and factory jobs expanded rapidly so that people were forced to move into towns. By the nineteen of century, the industrial family has become common amongst working class .In that century sociologist found an average size of family containing three children and parents. In other words the normal family type appear to be nuclear family. The industrial family started moving to nuclear family. So smaller nuclear families developed.
By the early 1970 the family disappeared and another family came which was called symmetrical family. In this family, free time is spent doing chores and odd jobs, and leisure is mainly home-based. Young and Wilmot use the term symmetrical family to describe this group because the rise of symmetrical family was a reduction in the need for kin-ship based support because of rising wages and welfare state, increased geographical mobility. Then another form of family came which was called asymmetrical family. In these families husbands were busy in business, women doing jobs, they both visit their families once in a week. We can see as the families have changed, the Marriage values have also changed. Now women don’t sit in home producing kids, they are more careers oriented. Now joint family system is gone because people prefer themselves then families and Marriages. There is no concept in Britain for woman to work all day in home. The old joint family system has gone because now Marriage is not the main important task for people, they have other priorities.
We know that the family pattern have changed, like marriage has changed in Britain. Many societies have expressed concern about what they see as a decline of Marriage. Many see this as a threat to family. Which in return they see as a block of civilized society. A number of threats to Marriage have been identified. They fall into two categories, threats resulting from alternatives of Marriages, and threat result from the breakdown of Marriages. The alternatives of Marriages are many, for example cohabities, swingers, polygamous, serial monogamy, and bisexual partnership. Women are educated they know there rights. Suffering in an unwanted Marriage is no longer there. People get divorce quickly if they don’t get along with each other. In 1981 the Marriage rate in the Britain was 7.1% but by 2001 it was down to 5.1 %. In 2002 according to general household survey those aged 16-59, 25 % were cohabiting. General household statistics on cohabitation have been collected since 1979.Between 1979 and 2001 the proportion of 18-49 years old cohabiting has increased from 11% to 32%/. There is no doubt that cohabitation has become increasingly common. Partricia Morgan (1999) sees this as a part of a worrying trend in which Marriage is going out of fashion and the family is in serious decline. However, Chester (1985) argued that in most cases cohabitations is only a temporary phase most of those who cohabit get married eventually.
Family types have been affected with cohabiting. Now there are more families with two or one children or couples who are not married to each other. Life expectancy has increased because people live long, they marry late they enjoy good health facilities and they don’t suffer from empty shell marriages depressions and stress. People want to marry in late age. Marriage is no longer required, divorce is a normal issue. The type of households and families that peoples live in are becoming more diverse, reflecting changes in partnership formation and dissolution. People live in variety of household types over their lifetime. They may leave parental home, form partnerships, marry and have children. They may also experience separating and divorce, lone parenthood and the formation of new partnerships leading to new households and second families. People are spending more time living on their own; either before forming relationships or after a relationship has broken down. We can see this by these statistics, in Britain one-person families were 18% in 1971 but in 2003 the number has increased and gone to 29%now. Two person families were 20%in 1961 but in 2003 it’s gone up to 35%. Three and four person families have gone down, in 1971 these families were 8%but now they are 2%. Lone parents number has also increased. It was 10%in 1971 but in 2003 it went up to 18%.
Women handle majority of the one-parent families because after divorce children stay with mother. These types of families are concentrated in inner cities. They experience poverty because there are not two people in family who are earning. And mostly they live in council houses. In 2000,there were over 1.5 million lone parent families in Britain, with more then 2.8 million children living in such families. In 1972 lone parent families were 25% in 1981 they were 4%then by rising increasingly every year, in 2001 their number went up to 8%.
There is another family type, which has come after the increase of divorce. It is called reconstituted family. This term refers to families, which are composed of individuals forming new relationships and bringing with them dependent children from previous relationship. Stepfamilies are formed when parents remarry or live together or lone parent live with someone else. In 1992 children from previous Marriage were 86% but in 2003 they were 83%. The fall in percentages tells us clearly that people don’t get married, women give priority to themselves.
As the Marriage is decline families have changed in ethnic group as well. For example south again families tend to be larger than average and live in households of two or more familes. They are also less likely to live in one parent households than those classified by the governments office for national statistics as white or black .22 %of white families are lone parent families, the figure is only 9% for Indians and 17%for Pakistani or Bangladeshi families. The figures for those classified as black indicate that lone parents head 55%. Ethnic minority families have not just contributed to family diversity through each group having its own diverse family patterns. They have also contributed to it through developing diverse family patterns within each ethnic group.
These all families change as the value of Marriage has changed and the attitude towards divorce has changed. The changing attitude towards divorce has been institutionalized by various changes in the law, which has made it much easier to obtain divorce. In Britain before 1857 a private act of the parliament was required to obtain a divorce. This was an expensive procedure. Since 1857 the cost of obtain divorce have been reduced and the grounds for divorce have been widened. The divorce cost is 5 thousand in Britain but if people are on benefits, it’s easy for them. In 1981 divorce was 2.8% in Britain. It increased 9.3%in 1992.
Marriage is out dated because it cost 13 thousand in the church. So people start getting late because they cant afford it. In 1971 the marriage age was 22.8 now its 29.5.Britain has higher percentage of divorce as compare to other European countries.
In 2002, Britain was among the European countries with highest levels of births outside Marriage, together was in Sweden with 56% of birth occurring outside marriage. The proportions of births outside marriage differ across regions of Britain. In 2001 the northeast at 51%had the highest proportion of births outside Marraiges, 16%points higher than the southeast, which had the lowest at 35%. Most of the increase in the number of births outside the marriage since the late 1980in the Britain has been in cohabiting couples. In 2002 nearly 64%of all live births outside Marriage were jointly registered by parents living at the same address, more than twice the proportion in 1986.
We can see by percentages of children born with out Marriages that how Marriage value has changed. Now Marriage is not necessary to give birth to children. And there is no stigma to live in partnership. Cohabitation has become increasingly widespread in most western societies. Partnership in Britain today seems to be for the most part an experimental stage before Marriage. Young people live together without Marriage. People experience partnerships and don’t decide to get married until they aware satisfied that their Marriage would work out. Over the past forty years there has been a 400 % increase in the number of people in Britain cohabiting before Marriage. As in other countries in Europe, the majority of cohabiting couples marry after a certain time, or when they have children. Partnership has quite often been given a legal status, such that, should a relationship break up, individuals can sue for property settlement.
We can see by these all evidences that Marriage is in danger. The ideal picture of family is also gone. People prefer careers and their lives. Marriage is not a growing acceptance. Some people say that this is a bad sign because if Marriage is collapsing than a proper family is also collapsing and family is the base of the society. My personal opinion is that Marriage always doesn’t produce happy families. I also strongly agree that one should give priority to career and if Marriage is not working, people should get divorce immediatly. Bad Marriage ruins person’s life. Sometimes a happy person alone itself can make the society a better place to live. So if there is a threat to Marriage it means there are many reasons behind it. This life is not given us to suffer and ruin it by Marriage and remarrying and remarrying again.
Reference’s
Chester R, (1985) The One Parent Family, As cited in, Haralambos; M, (1997) Sociology a new approach, London, London press limited, Page 71
Murdock, G.P (1949) Social Structure, As cited in, Collins;(2004) Sociology themes, London, London press limited, Page 14
Young, M &Willmott, P;(1962) Family and Kinship, As cited in, Taylor; P (2002) Sociology in Focus, Bristol. Causeway Pres Limited, Page 232
Morgan, D.H.J (1990) Developments in Sociology, As cited in, Anthony; L, (1998) Sociology, London, London press limited, Page 121
Cohen; R (1992) Hardship Britain, As cited in, Taylor; P, (2002) Sociology in Focus, Bristol. Causeway Press Limited, Page 241
Bibliography
Taylor P (2002) Sociology in Focus, Bristol, Causeway Press Limited
