Sociologists and views on family structure.
For many years the majority of Sociologists accepted the following view about family structure before and after the industrial revolution. Parsons [1955] and Fletcher (1966) viewed the extended family as the dominant family form, which evolved through industrialisation into a modern, isolated, nuclear family. Essentially they were claiming that the industrialisation process created and increased the numbers of nuclear families and led to the decline in the numbers of the extended family. These are ideas are known as both the march of progress or theory of transition.
March of progress / theory of transition explanations of why the extended family developed into isolated nuclear families are as follows. The nuclear family is small, therefore more geographically mobile and could more easily move around to pursue the new opportunities available because of industrialisation. The need for extended families has been removed by the increased provision of state / government services to support the family e.g. education and health care. The status of individual family members was no longer dependent on the ascribed status of the overall family. Industrialisation increased the number and variety of job opportunities which meant that individuals could develop achieved status based on their own personal efforts. The nuclear family was a streamlined unit, which still performed essential functions such as procreation and care of children.
The Essay on Family Diversity Families Nuclear Britain
In modern Britain post WWII, the amount of the diverse families has grown due to changes over time. The invention of the pill, allowing both men and women to file for divorce without having to prove adultery and even religion not playing such an important part in peoples lives meant that changes in the family structure became more acceptable. Before this time it was the norm to be a part of a ...
Another functionalist, Goode (1963), argues that all over the world the traditional extended family form has been or is in the process of being replaced by the universal nuclear family.
However, subsequent research has produced a much more complex picture, contradicting the march of progress / theory of transition. In 1995 the historian David Starkey described this traditional picture as ‘nonsense, sentimentalism and not founded in historical fact’. He was referring specifically to the picture of a cosy, large, friendly extended family and its replacement by the nuclear family. He reflected the views of a large number of historians who have studied documentary evidence from the preindustrial period. Parish records dating from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century show how the nuclear family was the norm during this period. Workers were not tied to the land but usually rented it for money or worked as day labourers, which means they often moved in search of work, thus breaking up the extended family.
These findings were not so true for Scotland and Ireland, however, where extended families were rather more common. Overall, though, nuclear families seemed the norm.
Parish register research by Laslett [1965] for the time period 1564 – 1821 supports Starkey’s views. Laslett found that the extended family was not at all domi nant before the industrial revolution, in fact extended families were quite rare. Instead, he argues the nuclear family was the typical form — only about 10 per cent of families included kin from outside the nuclear family / were nuclear. This percentage, and the average household size of 4.75, were much closer to the pattern we are familiar with today than the previously held image of the large, extended rural family.
According to Laslett a similar situation existed in other European countries and he concludes that the nuclear family preceded industria lisation and probably also facilitated the development of industrialisation in Europe. This evidence, then, is in direct contrast to the theory that the nuclear family was the product of industrialization.
The Term Paper on Larger Picture Infection Bacteria Group
Necrotizing Fasciitis from an essay by Katrina Tram Duong, edited by S. N. Carson M. D. Necrotizing, known commonly known as 'flesh eating bacteria [infection]', occurs in a wide range of people 1. It occurs in the elderly, middle aged and younger patients. It occurs in athletes and debilitated individuals. It can occur in drug abusers with self inflicted wounds and healthy individuals with ...
