A Sociology of Family Life. Deborah Chambers

studies triggered an academic reconsideration of the notion of a past ‘ideal family’. Historians and sociologists discovered that family life was much more complex and diverse than previously assumed. For example, before the twentieth century, the adoption of relatives’ children was common; a high level of cohabitation without marriage occurred; and men often left former partners to form new intimate relationships and households with other women without supporting first wives and children (Bailey 2003; Davidoff et al. 1999; Klein 2005). By the 1970s, feminist critiques were challenging many of the assumptions associated with the functional approach that had elevated a particular model of ‘family’ as standard. However, since the functionalist approach was highly influential in its time, it had an enduring negative effect not only on the way that gender relations were studied, but also on the ways in which minority ethnic families and same-sex unions were researched, as addressed below.

Companionate marriage

      Although Parsons argued that the modern nuclear family had adapted its functions to support capitalism, this ideology generated anxiety among many sociologists. It was feared that the values of materialism and consumerism, associated with urban society, would contribute to a fragmentation of family life. Carle Zimmerman (1947) considered the urban American family of the 1940s and 1950s to be a disturbing sign of family disintegration. Zimmerman argued that the family could no longer adequately carry out vital functions such as reproduction and socialization, stating that ‘unless some unforeseen renaissance occurs, the family system will continue headlong its present trend towards nihilism’ (1947:808). Burgess and Locke (1945) claimed that the model of the American family was transforming from an institution to a relationship of companionship, in response to the disintegration of the traditional systems of control that had once stabilized the extended version of the family. Individuals expected more personal autonomy in their lives and fewer family restrictions. The loss of the economic function of families coincided with a stronger accent on the cultural purpose of families in fostering individual fulfilment. This shift was also linked with the resettlement from sociable rural communities to more anonymous urban and suburban settings.

Burgess (1973) argued that, together with the rise of outside influences such as the media and popular culture, widespread social changes were causing family instability. Women were targeted as particular problems to society. They were becoming more self-seeking and individualistic through a loosening of patriarchal ties that had traditionally bound them to their families. Women’s increasing independence endangered the permanence of the nuclear family, which was structured to address men’s, not women’s, personal needs. In response, the companionate marriage was an ideology deployed to defuse feminine individualism and evoke a new kind of egalitarian family (Cheale 2002; Finch and Summerfield 1991). The ideology of ‘companionship’ in marriage emerged, then, out of these concerns to forge an ideal of conjugal friendship. The aim was to protect the family against an invasion of selfish individualism. In the wake of traditional community decline and the rise of more alienated modes of urban living, the companionate marriage was treated as a kind of insurance: a necessary constituent of married life that glued heterosexual couples together.

      This conjugal friendship marriage promoted the idea of an exclusive relationship that was to be mutually satisfying at an emotional and physical level for both partners. It evoked an egalitarian rapport between the spouses. Yet this egalitarian ideal was bolted on to a traditional patriarchal model of the family, defined by a male head of household as the ‘breadwinner’ with a dependent female homemaker. Paradoxically, this ideal was evoked in societies where women could not vote and had restricted access to both education and employment (Smart 2007). The apparently incompatible features of patriarchal power and control were combined with private, sexual and emotional dimensions of conjugal relationships. Public acceptance of the companionate marriage fostered the idea of a separation of reproduction from sexual pleasure. This elevation of sexual pleasure signified a fundamental shift in thinking because it promoted the belief that marriage was not simply a means to having children, even though this was still perceived as a key function of ‘the family’. As David Cheale (1999) argues, the companionate marriage was an antidote to the encroaching values of individualism, but married couples could only make this transition with the help of experts. An army of family experts, such as sexologists, child guidance clinics, marriage counselling centres, psychiatrists and clinical psychologists were at hand to sort out the emotional problems of children and adults.

Community and kinship studies

Ideas about the decline of communal relations, the privatization of social life and a disintegration of family values continued to dominate academic and public debates of the 1950s and 1960s. Since industrialization, traditional commitments were being replaced by new kinds of loyalties and commonalities influenced by wider social and economic changes beyond the family, such as consumerism and geographical and social mobility. Changes in the structure of housing were also thought to be changing social ties. For example, after World War II, between the late 1940s and 1960s, the clearance of slum areas in Britain and other parts of war-torn Europe coincided with the building of new housing estates on the edge of urban areas, which weakened traditional working-class communities (Crow and Allan 1994). Governments and academics feared that higher standards of new housing stock were accompanied by lower levels of social participation and less informal support, so that families often felt isolated (Crow and Allan 1994; Mogey 1956; Willmott 1963; Willmott and Young 1960).

      During the mid twentieth century, sociologists expressed concern about the decline of civic participation and the sense of atomization associated with isolated nuclear families that had become more inwardly focused on domestic matters, as well as the ‘problem’ of marriage breakdown and divorce. However, a series of classic kinship studies conducted in Britain during that period indicated that the notion of a ‘decline’ or ‘death’ of kinship had been overstated. Studies documented changes in the context of modernity and uncovered the richness of family life, highlighting the strength of generational ties. For example, Young and Willmott’s classic study of Family and Kinship in East London (1957, 1987) underlined the importance and positive value of extended family bonds despite widespread social change, as did Townsend’s The Family Life of Old People (1957). Kinship support was accepted as a normal aspect of everyday life, particularly among working-class communities, and there was little evidence of segregated nuclear family units.

      Communities of the 1950s were proven to have close-knit and supportive networks. For example, in his study of a group of residents from a block of flats in a working-class area of South London, Raymond Firth (1956) found that individuals had more extensive knowledge of their kin than first thought. Although people knew little about distant ancestors and could only trace their lineage back to grandparents, they had a remarkably broad knowledge of living relatives. Many of these kin were important to their lives because they were the people they could call on for help in times of crisis. Several of these classic studies demonstrated that membership of extended families was more complex than initially thought. Rather than being static, these kin relationships were adaptable and permeable. In this respect, public anxieties about the decline of kinship cohesion were found to be misleading.

Nevertheless, the degree of social participation in the past can be overstated because social divisions between people are often overlooked (Devine 1992). Research from the 1950s indicates important gender differences, with women’s lives often more home-centred, and men’s leisure activities typically more communal and located in public areas such as pubs and clubs. This is shown by classic research such as a study of a Yorkshire mining community, Coal is Our Life, by Dennis and colleagues (1956). For women, the sense of social isolation was often apparent, given that organized female sociability in public settings was traditionally regulated and restricted. During this period, gender was a major factor affecting individuals’ opportunities for sociable interaction, as well as social class. In terms of class, many forms of working-class employment continue to restrict the time and economic resources needed to engage in various kinds of leisure. However, from the mid twentieth century, the home had become a progressively more socialized space among both working-class and middle-class families (Franklin 1989), especially given the rise in the so-called ‘network society’