Stage three was named the symmetrical family. By the early 1970’s stage two had disappeared, this involved the “separation of the immediate, or nuclear family from the extended family” Haralambos, 1990, Sociology themes and perspectives. Husbands and men had returned to the family and life became more home based this included chores, spare time, leisure and odd jobs. The family is now described as “a largely self-contained, self-reliant unit”. Haralambos, 1990, Sociology themes and perspectives. Husband and wives roles were much more similar in this stage than in the previous two stages and this is the reason Willmott and Young called it the symmetrical family. They shared more decisions and jobs in the home such as childcare and housework although they still completed their own tasks, which they felt related to their sex.
Finally, Willmott and Young believed in 1990 that the family would still exist in the future but those members would be based more centrally around work. There predictions were criticised, but looking at their predictions now they are partly true because I believe that people choose how involved they are in a job but also due to the rates of pay people must put in the hours to achieve a good standard of living.
My research of the four stage shows that industrialisation had a big impact on the family, type of work and the setting in which they work in, made each family different. As jobs have changed, so has the family structure. For instance, Today a member of the family may have to commute to work, spend long hours in the office and have appointments after office hours such as dinner with a client or even weekend appointments. This would all attribute to spending less time at home and in which case they may decide not to have children.
On the other hand, a family member working in a factory may have unsociable hours but once their hours are completed, they are free to go home and spend quality time with their families.
One of the biggest changes recently is the divorce law. The 1969 divorce reform act changed in 1971 to simplify the divorce proceedings, this allowed people to obtain a divorce “on the grounds of irretrievable breakdown of marriage” Townroe and Yates, Sociology, 1995. The law was changed again in 1984 to allow divorce to be available after just one year instead of being three years previously. In 1970, another law was passed the matrimonial proceedings act, which allowed wives an equal share in ownership of the marital home. This allowed financial security for both partners and along with benefits such as income support and the availability of council flats, these changes influenced the rise in single parent families. This was seen as a big step as in the past families had relied on each other and pulled together to make money in family ventures and businesses such as in the cotton mills and farming. Besides the laws passed society began to accept divorcees without any stigma and this allowed them to remarry and have a second family.
I have also found in my research that the media seems to promote the importance of “romance and personal happiness” Townroe and Yates, Sociology, 1995. However, if family members are working long hours, as I briefly discussed before, then there would be limited time spent at home and this would effect
In addition, with other factors this has influenced the standards expected from marriage, and many people ask themselves, why get married? Throughout time, there have been many answers to this question as shown in the cartoon below.
In modern society, many of these reasons have changed. Society no longer frowns upon different types of family such as the single parent family, so it is not necessary to marry due to religion, pregnancy or pressure from society, many members of society are even proud and look up to single parents. However, this is not to say that everyone thinks this way as many people still conform to these ideas.
Another development in British society is the use and availability of contraceptive pill. Since 19 women have been able to determine when they start their family and how big that family will be. Therefore, this allows them to develop a career, which an ever-increasing amount of women are doing, and then having a family later on in life. This has effected marriage because combined with the extended life expectancy it allows women and men alike to concentrate on climbing the career ladder and worry about finding a suitable partner and starting a family later, if they chose to at all. Even if they do marry women are increasingly more independent so unhappily married women are much more likely to divorce now as “The wife is less dependant on her husband and has fewer children to support than would have been the case a hundred years ago”. Gleeson, 1990, Sociology, a modern approach.
In 2001, a report on the BBC news informed us that marriage has become low on our list of priorities in Britain, even when we plan to have a family. The following bar chart shows people’s attitudes to marriage and the results formed part of the eighteenth British social attitudes report.
One of the researches, Alison Park, commented “cohabitation is widely accepted as a prelude to marriage and as an alternative, even where there are children involved.” BBC website, 2001, Internet resource. She also suggests that as a society our values are constantly changing to directions that are more liberal both now and in the future.
A problem that the researchers discovered was that as ninety one percent of cohabitants do not have any form of written agreement concerning shares in the ownership of their home, if anything was to happen to their partner or relationship they would be left with nothing. As a solution to the problem, the report clearly states that “Politicians should respond to the public opinion and modernise family law to give cohabitants the protection available to married couples”. BBC news, 2001, Internet resource. More recently, this has also been said of people in same sex relationships.
Gay couple, Ian Burford and Alexander Cannell, were two people who felt that they would be affected by financial concerns later in life due to the law. After a thirty eight-year relationship, they became the first couple in Britain to register their partnership in a civil ceremony organised by London mayor Ken Livingstone. They felt that their main problems would include transferring pensions and property and also “When one of them dies, the other will face an inheritance tax liability on their jointly owned home” GFN.com, 2001,internet resource. This would not be the case however if they were man and wife.
Recent laws have also made it possible for people in a same sex relationship to adopt children, therefore changing their family to become as equal as the idea of a nuclear family, in the eyes of the law. I personally believe that in the majority of cases once a law is passed society are more likely to accept this as another social norm, without any social stigma it may have previously attached to. Another illustration of this would be divorce, as I previously discussed.
In conclusion to my paper, there are many different changes in British society recently that has led to a greater diversity of family types. However, as I have only explored a few of the main changes such as divorce and the contraceptive pill I have found it hard to discover the extent all recent changes in British society have had on the diversity of family types. Societies attitudes are constantly changing and therefore different laws are proposed such as laws regarding same sex relationships.
I have found in my research that the idea of what is acceptable as a family unit is constantly changing and therefore the diversity of family types is being influenced by these new ideas and is also constantly changing. “Clearly families will keep on evolving, changing and rebuilding themselves, while participants go on loving, hating and despising one another, sometimes all at the same time” Benardes, 2001, Sociology review.
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Bernardes, J 2001, Sociology review, Volume eleven, Number one.
Gleeson, D 1990, Sociology, A modular approach.
Haralambos, 1990, Sociology themes and perspectives.
Moore, S 1987, Sociology alive.
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