There are a number of factors that have contributed to the increasing diversity of family and household forms; every thing in society has a function to perform. In sociological theory Sociological Action theorists support the belief that human action is based on choice. This approach emphasizes that people can chose/negotiate alternative lifestyles in the light of their understanding of their situation, and within the limits that their circumstances allow. People choose the sorts of family arrangements that they want. We now have more freedom because choice is now written in our social scripts, it’s allowed. We are not slaves to our tradition. Values have changed, for example: Giddens, The Transformation of Intimacy (1992) argues that pre-modern couples married for economic reasons, modern couples married for romantic reasons and late modern couples co-habit or marry because they ‘want’ to. The only thing that keeps modern couples together is the existence of a ‘good deal’. It is judged to be worth it. If it’s no longer worth it then leave it. Each of us produces a route through life, a life course. Some routes we choose, some just happen. A consequence of choice and the pursuit of individual happiness is risk. Like Giddens, Beck (1995) emphasizes choice, but the choice is exercised on the basis of individuals exercising responsibility for themselves and thinking about what is good for them as individuals. But if we freed from previous constraints we are also cut loose from previous certainties.
Material factors have lead to greater affluence, greater geographical and social mobility. The greater independence of women has also contributed to increased diversity in families and households. The rights of women are also becoming more widely recognized, in respect to both the initiation of marriage and decision-making within the family.
Inequalities in lifestyle possibilities have increased since 1980. Wealth and income have an obvious impact in terms of type of housing, room size/number, and financial problems, holidays etc. The life course within a family can vary significantly. This can reflect choice or circumstances. This covers such factors as the number of children, divorce, remarriage, and widowhood.
Eversley and Bonnerjea (1982) argue there are distinct regional variations in household type within Britain. They argue there are distinct patterns of household form in different parts of Britain. For example; they describe the ‘sun belt’ families of the affluent south east as family builders. The south coast towns, where many elderly retired live, are named the ‘geriatric wards’. Inner city areas tend to have more lone parents, and ethnic minority households.
During the19th century there were alternatives to marriage and the family. Oneida Community of New England in the USA set up a commune in the 19th century; it was based on the religious beliefs of John Humphrey Noyes. Every man in his community married to every woman, and all supposed to be parents to the communities’ children had responsibility in upbringing. After various initial difficulties the group expanded to include about 300 people and endured for about 30 years before breaking up. Many other communities have been formed since then, in Britain as well as many other Western countries. Giddens A (1997).
People living together in a sexual relationship without being married. Over the past 40 years there has been a 40 percent increase in the number of people in the UK cohabiting before marriage. Only four percent of women born in the 1920’s cohabited and 19 percent of those born in the 1940’s – but nearly half of women in the 1960’s. Giddens A (1997).
Many homosexual men and women now live in stable relationships as couples, and some gay couples have been formally ‘married’ even if these ceremonies have no standing in law. Techniques of artificial insemination mean that gay women may have children and become gay parent families without any heterosexual contact. Weeks et al (1999) argue that there are many more openly gay or lesbian households than there were in the past. These are because of a growth in choice and relaxation of tradition. Such households, argues Weeks, do see themselves as families, and would even include friends as members of ‘chosen families’. For Weeks, such relationships are founded on commitment rather than ascription.
New reproductive technologies permit new types of family and family relationships Macionis and Plummer (1997). There is now the possibility of surrogate motherhood, and of test tube babies. This is bound to add to the range of possible family diversity.
Increased lifespan has meant that the population has aged. This is one of the most important reasons for the increase in one-person households – old people living alone.
One-person households increased particularly rapidly during the twentieth century. In 1901 about one in 20 households in Great Britain comprised one person living alone; this had increased to just under one in three by 1998-99. In 1971, two-thirds of one-person households comprised people over pensionable age. However, by 1998-99 this proportion had fallen to around a half. The increasing proportion of one-person households who are under pensionable age reflects the decline in marriage, an increase in the average age at marriage, and the rise in separation and divorce. (Households: by type of household and family, 1961 to 1998-99: Social Trends 30 Census, Office for National Statistics; General Household Survey 1998-1999).
One noticeable change in the last couple of decades has been the increase in lone mother families. In 1971, seven per cent of families with dependent children were lone mother families; by 1998-99 this had trebled to 22 per cent. Before the mid-1980s much of the rise in lone parenthood was due to divorce, while since then single lone motherhood (never-married, non-cohabiting women with children) grew at a faster rate. Lone parenthood is not just a recent phenomenon. There is some evidence that lone parent families were just as frequent in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as they are now although they declined in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. However, widowhood was usually the cause for these families then, whereas today there are relatively few widowed lone parents.
Many people today live in step-families, which is created when a parent with a child or children either remarries or cohabits with a new partner and adoption which is a method by which non biological makes up in some way for the lack of genetic connection, by making a public declaration of affiliation to the child.
There is another viewpoint, that the family has not changed much and that the predominant form of family organization continues to be the traditional nuclear family. Robert Chester, The rise of the Neo-Conventional family, New Society (9.05.85) argues that:
Most adults still marry and have children.
Most children are reared by their natural parents.
Most people live in a household headed by a married couple.
Most marriages continue until parted by death.
Chester argues that no great change in family organization has occurred. There is, in general continuity with the past.
Silva and Smart (1999) conclude that there are strong continuities in British family life, but at the same time there was a drift towards more varied forms of family organization based they argue on more freedom of ‘personal choice’.
Conclusion
The shackles of social convention have been loosened; there is a more liberal and open attitude towards sexuality, steeply climbing divorce rates and a general seeking for personal happiness at the expense of older conceptions of family duty. A large number of people do still seem to prefer relatively conventional/traditional relationships, although with modifications in one aspect or another. We have lost some of our traditional family values, but would it, if possible be a good thing to recover a more moral sense of family life? Should we reinstate the traditional family? This was a much more stable and ordered life than the web of relationships in which most of us find ourselves now? However is the diversifying of the family such a bad thing? We should actively encourage a variety of family forms and sexual life, rather than supposing that everyone has to be compressed into the same mould. Social changes have transformed earlier forms of marriage and the family, most of which are irreversible. Women won’t return in large numbers to a domestic situation from which they have painfully managed to extricate themselves. There is a much wider tolerance of difference. Men and women can remain single if they wish to, without having to face the social disapproval that once came from being a bachelor, even more a spinster. Couples in live-in relationships no longer face social rejection by their more ‘respectable’ married friends. Gay couples can bring up children without the level of hostilities they would have faced in the past. Overall there are clear patterns of continuity with the past, but within an overall trend towards increased diversity.
Bibliography
Allan. G (1985) Family Life, The Bath Press, Avon
Giddens.A (1997) Sociology, Polity Press, Cambridge
Gittens.A (1993) The Family in Question, Macmillan Press, London
Jorgensen, N (1995) Investigating Families and Households, Collins Educational, London
Poster.M (1978) Critical Theory of the Family, Pluto Press Limited, London
Stones, C (1994) Focus on Families, Macmillan Press, London
(08.01.2003) www.statistics.gov.uk/STATBASE/xsdataset.asp?vlnk=250
(08.01.2003)
(20.01.2003) www.esher.ac.uk/scextranet/sociology/family_diversity.htm
