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Marxist Perspectives on the Family  

Frederick Engels ? the origins of the family  

Evolutionary view of the family, attempting to trace its origins and evolution through time.  

Primitive communism ?characterized by promiscuity. No rules limiting sexual relationships and society was in fact the family.  

K. Gough (1972) argues that this picture may not be far from the truth. Studies of chimpanzees live in ?promiscuous hordes?.  

Next stage was polygyny to its present stage of monogamous nuclear family.  

Monogamous nuclear family developed with the emergence of private property. The state then evolved to protect the system of private property and promote the rules of monogamous marriage.  

It is based on the supremacy of the man, the express purpose being to produce children of undisputed paternity; such paternity is demanded because these children are later to come into their fathers property as his natural heirs. (Engels 1972)  

Eli Zaretsky (1976) ? personal life and capitalism  

Family creates the illusion of ?private life?. Of family separate from the economy.  

In a society in which work is alienating the family was put on a pedestal because it apparently ? stood in opposition to the terrible anonymous world of commerce and industry?.  

Zaretsky welcomes the increase in the possibility for a personal life offered by the reduction in working hours since the 19th century. However he feels that the family is unable to provide for the psychological and personal needs of individuals.  

?it simply cannot meet the pressures of being the only refuge in a brutal society?.  

The family is also seen as a major prop to the capitalist economy.  

Housewives produce future generations of workers. The family is a vital unit of consumption.  

Only socialism will end the artificial separation of family private life and public life, and produce the possibility of fulfillment.  

Functionalist  

social system  

individual  

Universal Functions  

Sexual  

Reproductive  

Economic  

Educational  

Exclusively  

Marriage  

Spouses  

'control and expression'  

inevitably  

institution  

harmonious  

division of labour  

basic and irreducible  

Primary socialisation  

Stabilization of the adult  

Internalization  

culture  

independence  

achievement motivation  

emotional security  

stresses and strains  

isolated  

childish whims  

stabilize their personalities  

Idealizing  

Classes  

Necessarily  

one way exchange  

institutions  

Evolutionary view  

Primitive communism  

promiscuous hordes  

monogamous nuclear family  

private property  

supremacy of the man  

natural heirs  

illusion of ?private life?  

alienating  

reduction in working hours  

only refuge  

vital unit of consumption  

artificial separation  

 

 

G.P. Murdock (1949)  

Talcott Parsons  

D.H.J. Morgan (1975)  

Engels 1972  

Eli Zaretsky (1976)  

K. Gough (1972)

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