The idea that unequal treatment and social mistreatment are still constant struggles is addressed in Angelina Price’s essay “Working Class Whites” and bell hooks’ essay “Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance. Both authors explain how racial and social controversy affects today’s society. This is done through Price narrowing her focus on how class structure and media relations affects this issue while hooks’ essay concentrates more on public perception with relation to this issue. Both authors use a significant amount of evidence to support their logic as well as ideas that allow the reader to draw their own personal conclusions. In both essays, the idea of social class fueling thoughts and perceptions of either the “Other” or “poor white class” in today’s society is drawn upon multiple times.
Some sociologists believe that society is not too diverse to have one type of family. In recent years there has been a dramatic increase in divorce rates, more remarriages and more births outside of marriage which has caused a large decrease in the number of nuclear families. There are now more reconstructed families, cohabitating families, same sex families and lone parent families.
A reason in particular that nuclear families are no longer the norm is that, divorce rate has increased. Research shows that now 40% of marriages now end in divorce. This leads to lone-parent families and re-constituted families. However, a sociologist may also argue that nuclear families are still by far the most common type of family in Britain and therefore are the ‘norm’. Secondly, feminism is another reason that some people believe that nuclear families are no longer the norm.
Radical feminists such as Dobash and Dobash also disagree with Willmott and Young’s theory that the family is symmetrical. They believe there are inequalities in the power relations between men and women so they see family
Instead of single motherhood being a total negative situation to be in, it can also be viewed as a positive. Single motherhood is viewed differently from the 1950s to now. First of all, women who gave birth out of wedlock in the 1950s were often shunned by members of the community. Such a situation also caused extreme embarrassment for the family of the unwed mother. For example, the families of an unwed mother would often send her to a far home for unwed mothers to be.
According to Divorce Rate, “between the ages of 20 to 29 the divorce rate is greater than couples 30 and older.” Some statistics say at least 66 percent of younger couples end up divorced because of childless issues. The only thing that tends to hold the marriage together would be love. Yet, some say that love tends to fade. While others say the contrary. Couples that have children tend to have a lower divorce rate.
The family has the responsibility of transmitting a society’s way of life, norms and values to the younger members. Talcott Parsons is also an important person within this topic. He supported Murdock, in some ways, and the nuclear family. However, he meant that after revolution, the family would change from an extended family to a nuclear family. In pre-ind, the family were producers, the workplace was at home and the family was extended.
The New Right has an anti-feminist and conservative view on the family; they are firmly opposed to diversity within family life. The New Right sociologists hold the view that there is only one normal family type; this is the traditional patriarchal nuclear family consisting of a married couple and their dependent children. The New Right sees this family type as being natural based upon the fundamental biological differences between men and women. These sociologists would argue that family diversity is the cause of many social problems, such as education failure and high crime rates. The New Right believes that lone-parent families are both unnatural and harmful, especially to the children.
When looking more in-depth, and looking at female and male, results show lone mother families with one child has increased from 2 percentage points to 7 percentage points, 2 children in a lone mother family has increased by more than four times the amount from 2 percentage points to 9 percentage points. Lone father families have proved to stay the same with no changes. (Browne, 2006) suggests that reasons for lone parenting could be caused by death of one of the parents or a lack of morals towards divorce. Also, recently a new reproductive procedure to help lone women/ lone parents have children, which may indicate some women are choosing not to get in a relationship or to get divorced. Divorce rates in the UK have risen from the 1950’s, where rates were at approximately 40,000 rising to approximately 170,000.
In some situation, poor families sold their young daughters to rich families just because they needed money, or they wanted to get rid of their useless daughter in the family. In addition, India is a country that has the lowest divorce rate in the world – only one percent because they practice arranged marriage everyday like Afghanistan. When people belong to a culture which does not permit divorce, an arranged married might be an unpleasant experience for both men and women. Arranged marriage still occurs in some areas in Vietnam nowadays, especially in highlands. In some ethnic minorities, in the past and even in the present time couples cannot choose their partners.