The ideology of parsons has also been critisised due to specialised agencies only took over with family functions in the very late industrial period (post 1900). The welfare state was introduced in the 1940’s and William Beverage wrote plans for it. Another criticism is that Parsons is that he ignored that women were involved with the workforce. Also, the extended family would inform other people in the family about jobs this caused people to move into towns.
Using data from an 1851 census in Preston, Michael Anderson said that 23% of households were extended. Industrialisation encouraged the extended family, as there was no welfare state. The extended family acted as a Mutual Support System. His study focused on the working class, as they need the extended family more than middle class people do.
The only problem with Michael Anderson’s analysis is that he only looked at 10% of the census and Preston may not have been the best place to take a sample from to analyse.
Peter Laslett (1965) believed that the extended family did not exist as a dominant family in pre-industrial Britain. He studied the parish records and census records from 1564-1821. He found that 10% of households were registered as having extended kin within them. This is due to early death (late 30’s – early 40’s) and late marriage. The reason for late marriage is that couples would only marry when they are in a stable relationship and could provide for the family. Another reason for all this is apprenticeships. Laslett also suggested that the dominance of the nuclear family might have led to industrialisation.
Even though Laslett claimed that the extended family did not exist, this did not mean that the horizontal family did not exist. There seemed to be evidence of co-operation between sibling’s cousins and other family members in agricultural production. Another criticism is that Parish records were not very reliable and residences may have had separate registration but linked physically.
Michael Young and Peter Willmott conducted studies of family life in London from the 1950’s to the 1970’s. They suggest that the industrial revolution led to the ‘symmetrical family’. They believed that the family has gone through four main stages. Stage one; the pre-industrial family, stage 2; the early industrial family, stage 3; the symmetrical family and stage 4 concentrates on the way family will be in the future.
Stage 1, (the pre-industrial family) is based on the unit of production; the husband wife and unmarried children work as a team to in agriculture or textiles. This slowly supplanted due to the industrial revolution.
Stage 2, (the early industrial family) began in the 19th century. Family ceased to be a unit of production.
Young and Willmott argue that the family extended beyond the nuclear family to extend networks for jobs. Extended families were female dominant and were head of the household. Women created an informal trade union, which excluded men largely. The stage 2 family started to decrease in the 20th century. Young and Willmott conducted a study in the mid 1950’s in Bethnal Green in London. At the time 2/3, married couples live within a 3-mile radius of their parents or other extended family. Married couples would use their extended family to help with services such as washing, babysitting and shopping and over 50% of them would see their mothers weekly.
The stage 3 family, (the symmetrical family) Young and Willmott believed that the stage 2 family had completely disappeared in the 1970’s. Stage 3 is largely home-centered, especially when children are young. Most people’s free time was spent doing chores and leisure was part of home life. Husbands and wives because much more companionate. In the home both husbands and wives would share time and do shared work. However, women still have the main role of holding responsibility of raising children and husbands ‘help’. Chores around the house were shared and decisions too. Conjugal roles are not interchangeable.
There were four reasons for the rise of the symmetrical family. The first was the reduction of kinship-based mutual aid groups, increase in male wage, decrease in unemployment, and more opportunities for women and benefits were provided by the welfare state. The second is the increase in geographical mobility has tended to cut kinship ties. The third is the reduction in the number of children, from five or six children per family, to two or three. The forth was as living standards rose, the husband was more drawn into the family circle. This happened when the house was a more attractive place to be as it had new technology.
There was also a stage 4 and this stage talks about the future.
Marxist believes that the extended family has been deliberately discouraged by the capitalist ruling class as it emphasises on the mutual support system and collective action encourages its members to be aware of their class position
The nuclear family unit is seen to be more capitalism-friendly as it can be used as an ideological apparatus
Marxist feminists are sceptical about Parsons Claim that the nuclear family meets the needs of the industrial society. Margaret Benston (Marxist feminist 1792) suggested that the nuclear families important to capitalism due to future workforces. Other feminists believe that the nuclear family may o not be beneficial to capitalism because of emotional support for males who could be annoyed and frustrated after work.
Radical feminists argue that the main effect of industrialisation was that women’s main functions were defined as housewife, always allowing men to dominate paid work. They also argue that both men and women are socialised into the idea that males are superior. The family is the main arena for transmitting patriarchal ideology. Women and primarily sexual objects, mothers and housewives. This means that the family is essentially a patriarchal institution that exploits women and oppresses them
It seems as though industrialisation has made a massive impact on the family, as it has encouraged changes in common family structures, which were mainly either nuclear or extended families, due to social or economic reasons during the industrial revolution. Also has also had an impact on the family roles, which can change to support the family and fit in with social prospects. However, we would never really be able to examine the statement fully due to ther amount of ways industrialisation has affected the family.
