The Changing Nature of Family

The  Changing Nature of Family

A family is a group of  two or more people who reside together and who are related by birth, marriage, or adoption .Family and household structures have changed significantly over the past 50 years and this looks set to continue. At the same time, family structures are becoming more complex. The study of the changing nature of  kinship and family relations is one of the key areas of 'traditional' social anthropology. Family is considered the basic societal unit, however the nature of the 'typical' family has changed over the decades. Families are no longer comprised of the same number of individuals as they used to be and it is thought that this is due to the impact of contemporary social forces upon individuals and their consequential effect on family structure.

In the light of the  modernization, industrialization and capitalist relations of production, one of the most pressing questions concerns the changes which are taking place in 'family' and household forms around the world, and whether the 'nuclear' family, with a joint congugal fund and neolocal residence, is emerging as the dominant form or not.

The rise of the nuclear family:

The term nuclear family was developed in the western world to distinguish the family group consisting of parents and their children, from what is known as an extended family. According to Merriam-Webster, the term dates back to 1947 and is therefore relatively new, although nuclear family structures themselves are not.

Margaret Mead, based on her anthropological research, affirmed the centrality of the nuclear family in human society.

A nuclear family is a family group consisting of a pair of adults and their children. It is in contrast to a single parent family, to the larger extended family, and to a family with more than two parents. Nuclear families typically centre on a married couple. The nuclear family may have any number of children. There are differences in definition among observers; some definitions allow only biological children that are full-blood siblings, but others allow for a stepparent and any mix of dependent children including stepchildren and adopted children.

Anthropological studies from around the world document changes in the structure and nature of the family. One of the common themes identified in such studies is the declining importance of the corporate lineage and the increasing significance of the elementary or 'nuclear' family.

Refer to the recent studies on West Africa show that the increasing personal choice in spouse selection, a growing tendency for couples to reside in their own homes rather than with parents or kin, and an increasing emphasis on love and companionship between spouses as a basic criterion for marriage.

The study about elite marriage in Saudi Arabia also documents changes in marriage practices, recording an increase in physically separate entrances and exits in the household or separate residences altogether for married children, growing demands to see prospective spouses prior to marriage, and a reduction in contacts with kin .The study show  that increasing neo-local residence where married couples live in their own homes - corresponds with a decline in the segregation of women, so that husbands and wives spend more time together and engage in more joint decisions. West Africa and Saudi Arabia are not unique, for studies from many areas of the world have produced similar conclusions.

Other notable changes in marriage practices, which have received considerable attention in anthropology and which appear to be linked to processes of 'modernization', are a decrease in polygyny and an increase in divorce rates. It should be borne in mind, however, that data concerning these last two points have rarely been adequately collected over long periods of time, and many studies record such increases and decreases as they appear at particular moments in time, and as they are perceived by particular groups of individuals. The position is further complicated by the fact that the interrelation between divorce and number of marriage partners is extremely complex, with high rates of divorce and remarriage producing a phenomenon known as serial monogamy .which obviously affects any straight forward statement about polygyny giving way to monogamous marriage.

The study evidence which supports the argument that family forms are changing, but the question remains as to how we make sense of the changes we observe. A brief look at the history of the family in Europe is useful in this regard, provided we do not assume that contemporary developments in very different areas of the world will necessarily follow the same pattern. The most illuminating points which arise from a consideration of the European material concern the critical role of class in any analysis of changing 'family' forms, and the absolute necessity of maintaining a clear distinction between the 'ideology' of the family and the structure and organization of the household.

The historical study of the changing 'family' in Europe and America has produced lively debate. Peter Laslett has argued that industrialization did not produce the 'nuclear' family structure, and he supports this with evidence which demonstrates that the 'nuclear' family existed among the rural working population long before the advent of industrialization and the rise of an urban proletariat. It is clear from a variety of studies that in Europe and America the idea of the 'nuclear' family supported by a male wage earner arose as part of nineteenth-century middle-class ideology. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, there was a rapid development of capitalism coupled with a growth in urbanism. These factors, taken together with the spread of wage labour , resulted in the development of a rural and urban proletariat and an urban bourgeoisie.

In the latter half of the nineteenth century, workers' unions gave a great deal of emphasis to the establishment of a 'family. The demand for a 'family wage' became one of the ideals of the organized trade union movement, and it happened to meet with the 'approval' of the new middle classes who were extolling the virtues of a 'family' where women and children were the dependants of the father/husband.

This middle-class view of 'family' life was supported by the economic and political power of the middle class, whose beliefs and values were strongly reflected in legislation of the period. It is important not to imagine this 'imposition' as a totally one-sided process, because the organized working class were able to use this emerging familial ideology to their own ends in their struggle to secure a 'family wage'. The end result of this process, however, was that a particular idea of the 'family' became established as both desirable and 'natural'.

Whatever the power of middle-class beliefs and values, the situation for the majority of the population was very different. The poor, the divorced, the widowed and the unmarried could not support their households on the wage of a single individual, while the women and children remained at home as dependants. For these families it was still necessary for as many household members to work as possible. Reflecting on the circumstances of the majority - the middle class and the organized working class were numerically small - it is clear why it is necessary to maintain a distinction between 'family' ideology and the actual structure and economic circumstances of the household. The middle class succeeded in establishing a definition of 'natural' family life as based on a male breadwinner with dependent wife and children, and they succeeded in defining the family as a place of private, personal relations distinct from the public arena of commercial life.

But while this ideology was powerful and desirable, there was – and still is an enormous gap between the pervasiveness and power of the ideology, and the actual household structure and economic circumstances of the majority of the population. The questions of class difference, and of the relationship between family ideologies and the social and economic realities of household organization, are crucial in any attempt to analyse changes in 'family'/household structures.

The variety of household structures and  family forms:

Empirical studies from Africa, South America and South Asia support the argument that there is no necessary link between urbanization, modernization and the rise of a 'nuclear' family. The very large increase in female-headed households in Africa and South America, the impact of migration and economic recession, and the reported rise in the number of women choosing not to marry at all, are all factors which undermine any straight forward theory about the increasing

'nuclearization' of family forms.

it is clear that family forms in the region are very diverse. 'Nuclear' families, matrifocal families, extended families, single-parent families and female-headed households all exist. Many women, as in other parts of the world, are rejecting marriage .This plurality of family forms is not just characteristic of  less developed countries, but is also a notable feature of the urban societies of  Europe and North America.

Joanna Liddle and Rama Joshi review the literature on the family and social change in India, and they note that the 'nuclear' family form is one among a variety of family structures. However, they dispute the idea that professional women tend to form 'nuclear' families because they are imitating a Western model, and they suggest instead that the 'nuclear' family form is attractive to such women because it allows them to escape from the demands of  kin, and most particularly from the authority of their mothers-in-law. Traditionally, young wives moved into their husband's home and came immediately under the control of the mother-in-law, who ran the household.

At the present time, many younger women are only too glad to escape the constraints and conflicts of this relationship. A desire to escape from the constraints of kinship is a theme which arises in many studies of changing family forms around the world. Obligations to kin are often a source of serious conflict between spouses. However, Liddle and Joshi also note that, in spite of these tensions, the extended or joint family is not necessarily disappearing in urban areas, but is instead adapting to changing circumstances. The main reasons for this appear to be economic. An increase in the employment of middle-class women has led to problems concerning household management and childcare. These problems are solved by living in a joint household, where parents or in-laws can help with domestic tasks, but where the traditional authority of the mother-in law has been broken down. In some cases, young married couples invite their in-laws or parents to come and live with them, rather than the young wife going to reside in her parents-in-law's home,an arrangement which looks like the traditional joint family on the surface, but which is actually slightly different .

It should be clear from the arguments made in this chapter that such hierarchies are usually premised on gender and age. If we accept that 'nuclearization' is one strategy among several, then we must also acknowledge that it is not a strategy open to all. The poor, the single, the widowed and others cannot afford to abandon the 'web of kinship' which provides their safety-net. It is for this reason that the 'nuclear' family form is associated with emerging class interests, as well as with economic growth. The converse of this, as Mann makes clear in her study of colonial Lagos, is that in times of economic recession the advantages of 'nuclearization' become less apparent, and it may be abandoned or partially abandoned in favour of other strategies.

However, economic growth and the penetration of capitalism do not always give rise to 'nuclear' family forms. In many parts of rural sub- Saharan Africa successful entry into cash-cropping has been achieved by those individuals who have used kinship links to retain their rights over the labour of others. Among the cocoa farmers of West Africa, where men have had trouble for some time in getting their sons to work for them, access to labour and to other resources through the utilization of kinship links is still absolutely crucial to successful commercial enterprise (Berry, 1984). Data from around the world are very uneven, but what there are suggest that there is very little evidence, as in Africa, that the penetration of capitalism into rural areas is necessarily giving rise to the 'nuclear' family. This is not just because the processes of capitalization are uneven and incomplete, but because, given the nature of the pre-existing forms of production, reproduction and consumption, there is no necessary link between these processes and the rise of the 'nuclear' family.

'Nuclear' family forms certainly exist in many rural areas of the world, but it is important when analysing such households to be aware of the relationship between the ideology of family life and the actualities of household economics and organization. Fathers and sons, who apparently run separate farms, may 'share' expensive agricultural machinery, and co-operate over work tasks in a variety of ways. Even when the children are not farmers, they may continue to help their parents on the farm during peak periods of labour demand, and women who are married to non-farmers may continue to help their own parents with farming tasks. Under such circumstances, grandmothers become heavily involved in the care and socialization of young children.

The most difficult thing to explain is not the cooperation between households, which clearly has economic, social and psychological benefits, but the fact that, despite these advantages, people continue to behave as though they wanted to live in separate 'nuclear' families, they build expensive new houses when they marry, and they keep up an ideology of separateness while in fact maintaining intense contact and co-operation.

New ideologies and forms of state authority on the organization of domestic life and the nature of gender relations. The sexual division of labour in the 'home' is related in complex and multifarious ways to the sexual division of labour in the workplace and in society at large. Women's subordinate position is the product both of their economic dependence on men within the 'family'/household and of their confinement to a domestic sphere by ideologies of mothering, caring and nurturing.

The feminist anthropological position on these issues is not clear-cut, partly because the available data are of such extraordinary richness and complexity that they defy even the most serious attempt at synthesis, let alone generalization. However, it is clear that any straightforward explanation of women's subordination which does not take into account the enormous variation in women's circumstances and in gender and 'familial' ideologies would be not only reductionist but extremely ethnocentric. In the following chapter, I re-examine some of the issues raised here by looking at the role of the state in regulating 'family' life and gender relations, as well as by examining some of the ways in which women have responded to the imposition of state authority.

A strong nuclear family in these modern times presents each member with peers that they are able to confide in, and a social support network they are able to rely on in times of stress. The rise of single parent households present certain dangers of spending too much time in the work area, away from their children. A strong nuclear family allows everyone to take care of each other. The nuclear family is important in the development of children. Early morals and ethics are instilled in children at an early age from those closest to them, which begins with their family. A strong, supportive nuclear family is beneficial to the mental and emotional health of children. The extended family augments the nuclear family in many cultures. They remain an important part of the nuclear family dynamic. They provide support and care to each nuclear family member while not necessarily adopting a position as part of the central nuclear family. In particular, grandparents offer a unique form of support to the family, both to the parents and to the children.

When a newly married couple moves far away from their parents, establishing their own nuclear family, isolation from their extended family may prove stressful. Families in which three generations interact in close harmony provide the greatest support for successfully raising children. Such children are then ready to relate to people of all ages in society, and are substantially connected to traditions and beliefs of their lineage.

Refference:

Feminism and Anthropology

HENRIETTA L. MOORE

University of Minnesota Press Minneapolis

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Nuclear_family