Marxism and the Family | A Level Sociology - Families

Marxism perspectives on the role and functions of the family are explained in this study video.

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The traditional Marxist view on families is that they perform a role not for everyone in society but for capitalism and the ruling class (the bourgeoisie).

As is often the case, there are similarities between the functionalist and Marxist case: they both think that families perform important functions for the society as it is currently constituted. The difference is that Marxists disagree with the way society is currently constituted. Instead of seeing a consensual society which works to benefit all its members, they see a society based on class struggle, which works to benefit a rich minority.

Engels (1884) on Family

Engels argued that family had a clear economic function for capitalism, by ensuring that wealth remained in the hands of the bourgeoisie.

Family relations, based on clear legal contracts, facilitate inheritance and therefore when rich people die it is their children who keep hold of their wealth.

For Engels, then, family is all about blood lines and proof of parentage.

Zaretsky (1976) on Family

An interesting variation on Parsons’ warm bath theory, Zaretsky argued that family life gave proletarian men something they could control and a space where they could be the “boss”. This provided a clear function for capitalism because it meant that workers would tolerate the powerlessness and frustration of being exploited at work because they had this private domain where they were “king of the castle” and could take out their stress and frustrations.

Marxists see families as essentially a conservative institution that helps to preserve capitalism. They also weaken the position of individual workers in relation to the boss. If you think you are not being paid enough or being treated badly, a single person may well choose to walk away and hope that they can find better employment soon. Or they can join with other workers and go on strike and temporarily do without pay by way of a protest to push for better pay or conditions. But when that worker has to also take dependents into account (e.g. a spouse and children) that becomes a much more difficult decision. This weakness benefits the boss.

Evaluating Marxist views on the role of families and households

• Engels’ theory is certainly not a very romantic take on marriage! Clearly family must be about more than what happens to your money when you die. After all, people who do not have property also choose to live in families (although Engels would argue this is because they are influenced by bourgeois ideology).

• Functionalists point out that, in the vast majority of societies, humans live in families and that in fact the essential form and function of those families remain quite similar: it is not simply a feature of capitalist society. However, a counter-argument to that is that Parsons himself suggested that the nuclear family evolved to suit an industrial economy (as we’ll consider in the next section) which could be said to back the idea that it is a feature of capitalism rather than all societies.

• Despite some experiments with communal living and alternative households immediately after the Russian Revolution, people have continued to live in family groups in communist countries too.

• Zaretsky’s theory is clearly outdated: it assumes the worker is male and that there is only one worker in the family. It also ignores the other benefits that all family members may get from family life: the emotional support, comfort and generally the positive benefits.

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[evancampbell]

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[TomiDeLuna]

The French Cult of Reason lives on in the actions of every Marxist
but they have lost the true meaning of it.
It was a return to Roman Paganism.
That is why we worship the goddess Liberty.
Liberty is the herald of modern times.
The Marxists worship the Goddess of Reason in the form of "science"
which is similar to Athena
but she does not bless her devotees like Athena does.
The Goddess of Reason doesn't protect them from Civil War or give them peace of mind.
I call her the Demon of Reason because she is not a true Goddess
in the sense that she did not come from a true spiritual experience.
She was born from pure discord which is the Goddess Eris.
During the French Revolution at Notre Dame cathedral
a shrine was erected in honor of Reason and Liberty.
In front of the choir a sacred mountain was constructed,
surmounted by a small Greek temple in honor of Philosophy.
A young opera singer, whose name remains uncertain,
posed as Liberty and was dubbed "Goddess of Reason."
A flame, symbolic of truth, burned on an altar,
while white-clad young girls,
wearing tricolored sashes representative of allegiance to the Republic,
carried torches up and down the sacred mountain.
Meanwhile the congregation sang André Chenier's hymn:
"Come, Holy Liberty, dwell in this temple;
become the Goddess of the French people."
The temples of Reason recognized the Supreme Being;
others venerated Brutus or Jean Marat.
The revolutionary extremists, who were trying to dechristianize the country,
claimed that Christianity was too otherworldly to oppose tyranny
and was nearing extinction. They hoped to speed the process with the new cult
but they ushered in New Age Paganism through out Europe and America.