Believe family is destructive and should be abolished.
From 1960 onwards there has been a growing awareness of problems in family life - domestic violence and child abuse.
Marxists reject the idea society is based on value consensus and operates for the benefits of all.
They see a conflict of interest between a small powerful ruling class and the mass of the population, the subject class or the proletariat
Family is seen as one of a number of institutions which serves to maintain the position of the ruling class.
Modern industrial societies have a capitalist economic system.
Capitalism is based on private ownerships of economic institutions - banks and factories.
In capitalist economies investors finance the production of goods and services with the aim of producing profits - investors form the ruling class.
The subject class - the workers - produce goods and services and are paid wages for their labour.
The ruling class are seen to exploit the subject class - they gain at the workers' expense since their profits come from the workers labour.
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Marxists
Argue the economy largely shapes the rest of society.
A capitalist economic system will produce a certain type of society.
Institutions such as the family, education system and political system are shaped by requirements of capitalism and serve to support and maintain it.
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Engels- The origin of the family, private property
Argued that modern nuclear family developed in capitalist society.
Private property is at the heart of capitalism and was largely owned by men.
Before 1882 in Britain, married women could not own property - it passed to their husbands on marriage.
A key concern of the capitalist was to ensure his property passed on to legitimate heirs.
The monogamous nuclear family provided the answer - gave men greater control over women.
With only one husband and one wife, doubts about paternity of children are unlikely.
Withing the nuclear family, a man could be fairly sure that he had legitimate children with a clear right to inherit his wealth.
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The family maintains capitalism
In some respects Marxists views of the family are similar to functionalists - see family as a unit which reproduces and socialises children.
Marxists see the family as benefitting the capitalist system rather than society as a whole.
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KEY STUDY - Zaretsky
Zaretsky - 1976
Examines the family in a modern capitalist society where work is alienating and providing little fulfilment.
The exploitative nature of capitalism leads to people seeking refuge in the family.
He argues that family cannot meet the high expectations placed on it.
In the 1970's Zaretsky observed how housewives kept capitalism going, performing free household tasks in the home and socialising a future generation of workers (children) into a way of thinking that suited capitalist requirements.
The family is also a unit of consumption - families buy consumer goods that need to be purchased for capitalism to survive and for profits to be maintained.
Marxists argue that family is a means for:-
Reproducing labour power - reproduces further generations of workers.
consuming the products of capitalism.
providing emotional support for workers helping them to cope with harsh realities of capitalism.
socialising children to accept the inequalities of capitalist society.
Family thus helps to maintain an unjust and explotative system.
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