Changes in the Family and Household Structure over Time
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Michael Yong and Peter Willmott, The Symmetrical Family
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[This article is part of a longer article. Download the whole article in its original format.] According to Michael Young and Peter Willmott in their book The Symmetrical Family the family in England has gone through four stages. (1) The Pre-industrial family. At this stage the family is the unit of production; husband, wife and children work as a unit in the production of agricultural items or textiles. (2) The early industrial family. Members of the family are now employed as wage earners. This kind of family predominated in the C19th when wages were low and there was the threat of unemployment. Families responded by extending their network of relationships to include relatives. Women were largely responsible for this. There was a central relationship between a mother and her married daughter; by contrast the husband-wife relationship was weak. Women formed an 'informal trade union' from which men were excluded. This kind of family may still be found in long established working class areas. (3) The symmetrical family. The nuclear family has become separated from the extended family and the 'trade union' of women has been disbanded. The husband is important once again within the family. Husband and wife share decisions, and work together, hence the term 'symmetrical'. This kind of family predominates more in the working classes than in the middle-classes. Work is important in shaping the nature of family life. (4) The Stage 4 family. Young and Wilmott predict the development of a stage 4 family, which is an extension of their theory of the 'Principle of Stratified Diffusion'. According to this theory patterns of living diffuse down the social structure. Thus families at the bottom of the social order will copy the habits of those at the top. Applying this theory, they observe that managing directors lives are work centred rather than home-centred. For such men sport, such as golf, is an important area of recreation. The relationship has become asymmetrical again, with the role of the wife being to look after children. However, Willmott and Young, in their study of Woodford, a predominantly middle class suburb of London, claim to show that middle class families maintain contacts with their relations. Thus, the similarities between family lifestyles in the working class areas of Bethnal Green and the middle-class area of Woodford are more similar than might have otherwise appeared. The family beyond the nuclear family provide services that are important. A study by Bell shows that aid from parents, particularly from a son's father, is very important during the early years of marriage. Graham made similar conclusions in his study of a commuter village in East Anglia in the early 1970s. The relationships within the extended family were marked by 'positive concern' for the welfare of kin and this did not depend on the frequency of physical contact between the members of the extended family. Willmot's 1980s study of a north London suburb continues to show that both middle and working class families maintained contacts with kin. Contact is facilitated by the use of cars. Willmott's conclusion is that 'relatives continue to be the main source of informal support and care'. Janet Finch has studied the extent to which families feel a commitment to help each other. According to her there is a myth of the 'Golden Age' of the family - a myth that in pre-Industrial societies family obligations were much stronger and members of a family helped each other more. Her research suggests that there was no automatic assumption that the family should be responsible for elderly relatives. In Finch's opinion what assistance that was provided was based on mutual self-interest rather than on selfless family obligations. She also maintains that in contemporary society kinship relationships still remain more important to people than other relationships. All of these studies contradict Talcott Parsons's concept of the isolated nuclear family. It may be that American families are more isolated than British families; however, a number of American researchers also reject Talcott Parson's ideas. According to Sussman and Burchinal, the evidence from research in general is that the modern American family is not isolated. Parsons replies that the existence of kinship relationships outside the nuclear family are not inconsistent with this concept of the isolated nuclear family. This is because the nuclear family is structurally isolated, in the sense that it is not an integral part of the economic system, and that kinship relationships outside the nuclear family are a matter of choice. Rosser and Harris's Swansea study supports Parson's arguments in showing that there is a very wide variation in kinship relationships. Janet Finch's review of research on families also shows a very wide spectrum of relationships within families. According to Parsons extended families are not 'firmly structured units of the social system'. For this reason Eugene Litwak has introduced the term modified extended family. According to him this is a "coalition of nuclear families in a state of partial dependence." These families exchange services, but retain a higher level of autonomy than would be experienced within the classical extended family system. Willmott has also come to a similar conclusion in his concept of a dispersed extended family, in which two or more related families cooperate with each other despite living at some distance from each other.
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Contents of
Changes in the Family and Household Structure over Time
1 The effect of industrialization on the family, Talcott Parsons, the isolated nuclear family
2 Peter Laszett and the concept of the extended family; industrialisation
3 Michael Yong and Peter Willmott, The Symmetrical Family
4 Household types
5 The Family, Marriage and parenthood
6 Dual-worker families
7 Family Diversity
8 Increasing one-parent families
9 Ethnic diversity and the Family
10 Diversity in Family Types - Counter-arguments
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