Value of wages have risen and more wives are working in paid employment, therefore are possibly seen as on the same level as the husband. Family allowances and sickness and unemployment benefits have reduced the extent of poverty which may lift the burden and create less stress. Reduction in family size from 5-6 children to under two, which creates less work for parents in looking after the children. Dunne criticises the belief that there is equality amongst heterosexual couples as she claims heterosexual couples base their relationships heavily on gender scripts which are essentially the typical expectations which males and females usually conform to. She contrasts the marriage of a heterosexual couple to that of a lesbian couple where gender scripts
A rise in divorce rate may put some women off marriage as they see this will increase the likelihood of the marriage ending in divorce thus resulting in trends in getting married later in life. Q3. Suggest three reasons for the increase in the number of divorces? Three reasons for the increase in the number of divorces are changes in the position of women, secularisation and rising expectation of marriage. One reason for women’s increased willingness to seek divorce is that improvements in their economic position have made them less financially dependent on their husband and therefor freer to end an unsatisfactory marriage.
Murdock suggested that the family must create a stable satisfaction of the sex drive, Reproduction of the next generation, socialisation of the young and meeting the families’ economic needs. Talcott and Parsons later suggested that Murdock’s suggested roles of society had changed with industrialisation as the workforce had to be socially and geographically mobile for the industries and this is easier with nuclear families rather than extended families. He also argued that the family had lost two of its roles as industrialisation brought along specialised social institutions such as education and hospitals leaving the need for only the socialisation of young and the satisfaction of the sex drive. Within the nuclear families the mother and farther were appointed roles as males have instrumental characteristics making them more fit for work and females have expressive characteristics making them more fit for child care. This may be criticised as the functions may vary
In 1857, the matrimonial causes act made divorce easier and cheaper but still too expensive for the lower and middle class. Also it was only possible if it could be proved in court that a matrimonial offence had occurred. In 1923, women were granted equal rights to men in divorce which meant the divorce rates were slowly increasing and so were the lone parent families as women were able to terminate unhappy marriage. The rise in divorced really took off in 1969 where the divorce law reform act came in. This was where you no longer had to prove that a matrimonial offence had been committed, just that your marriage had broken down.
Feminist views of the family revolve around and understanding of the term patriarchy, which means make domination. Feminists agree that men tend to have a superior position in society and that women suffer oppression because of this. Many feminists argue that the family is a corner stone of this oppression and as such needs careful analysis. Liberal feminists believe that the fanily is gradually becoming less oppressive for women, they cite the move of many families towards more symmetrical roles where men take more part in the domestic roles so that women are no longer burdened by the mundane, repetitive, low status work of cleaning, laundry and childcare work which makes their position in society less powerful than mens. However, radical feminists disagree.
Moreover because of these birth control techniques family sizes have decreased as more and more women now have more control over births than they did in the 1900’s, so they are choosing to have less children as a result of this. Secondly women’s position in society has changed; they have become more equal to men and are given more equal opportunities in workplaces, as Rapoport (1969) termed “dual-career
Social policy is defined as 'the actions, plans and programmes of government bodies and agencies that aim to deal with a problem or achieve a goal, eg raising levels of educational attachment.' This eassay is going to examine the ways in which laws and social policies affect family life.The government of the newly formed Soviet Union aimed to destroy pre-revolutionary patriarchal family structure. In order to achieve it, there have been changes made in the law, including divorce and abortion becoming easier to option. The constitution also guaranteed equality between men and women – women were entering paid employment while their children were looked after in nurseries provided by the state. These are examples of laws that could have an impact on family life – these law were working to destroy pre-revolutionary patriarchal family structure – there would be more single-parent families, due to the fact divorces were available and easy to obtain.
This increased the amount of time before a divorce could proceed and counselling was introduced in order to reduce divorce rates. The changes in the law suggest that the government was making divorce somewhat easier so that married couples can have a divorce. Another reason for changes in the divorce rate is the Welfare State. State benefits helped women get a divorce, especially those with children. This suggests that women who are single parents but are married and want a divorce are dependent to the state because the state pays single parents more money.
This meant that parents did not have the need to have lots of children to ensure that a few survived, and families got smaller. In addition to that, the standards of living increased and education got more important and also, more expensive. Family life reached its limits and the size of families got narrowed down. Another cause of the fall of the birth rate in the UK population is the changing attidues towards women. Due to the emancipation and the better contraception (the pill) women got greater opportunities and choices about their lifes.
Without the changing role of women, things that we have in everyday life as American’s could possibly not exist. Women not only were more help to the family, but they were helping rebuild the nation. As a whole, women helped clean up the process of urbanization and immigration, helped literature grow, and helped change the ongoing problem of women’s suffrage. After the Civil War, many people from other countries started immigrating to America. As a result, urbanization quickly started going out of control due to lack of communication, too many people being forced into slums, and many other reasons.