Sociological Perspectives About the Family

2.1 Analyze the Marxist/Feminist Account of the Family and Critically Evaluate the Strength and Weakness in the Light of Other Perspectives.

According to the Marxist perception of the family, society revolves around an unfair division of class, which is probably maintained through capitalism. It believes that ruling classes (bourgeoisie) use different aspects within a society for sustaining their position over the working class, which is known as the proletariat (Esser et al., 2016). Marxists contended that a family performs various ideological functions or a set of ideas or beliefs that renders inequality between various classes of a society and assures individuals that the capitalist system is fair. The strength of this perspective is that it believes in equality and states that each and every individual must be treated with proper dignity and equality. However, the major weakness of this perspective is that it does not regard any cultural norms of a family and only focuses on economic and social aspects of family.

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The feminist perspective basically focuses on the utilization of women, which takes place in a nuclear family. In family, men are the ones who always get benefit from women in terms of a partner and as an individual to raise their kids. It is standard in a nuclear family that men usually get to work less in a family and women are responsible for cooking food and cleaning houses, as it makes them feminist. Whereas, men are supposed to take important decisions of the family as they are head of the family.  It states that both males and females must be treated equally in a family without any discrimination. Most women in families tend to do household work, paid work such as jobs, and emotional work to support their partners. It renders a heavy burden on women that men could never experience (Leshem, 2017). It analyzes the roles and responsibilities of both men and women in social aspects. It focuses on how women are considered a labour force that could be used anytime, whenever needed. However, new laws and legislation have been developed in the country to protect women's rights and to bring gender equality.

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The strength of feminism is that it helps to visibility the roles of women in a society and sociology. It increases awareness amongst individuals regarding the inequalities faced by women in the family and society (Solomon, 2017). Help the women to get free from domestic abuse by exposing the dark side of the families. The weakness of this perspective is that it overlooks the labour and abuse faced by men in some families and increases the achievement and opportunity, especially for women. It develops a selective perception within society.

3.1 Analyze the other theories of the family and evaluate them.

There are a number of theories available for describing the sociological perspective of the family. One such theory is symbolic interactionism theory. It states that a society is basically composed of interactions among individuals who share their beliefs and meanings. It is an important theory in order to understand cross-cultural relations in a society and other individuals. Values, beliefs, communication, crisis management, and personal and national meanings can be well understood by this theory (Hunt et al., 2016). This theory could be useful for a family to understand the social nature of one another and how to resolve misunderstandings that occur in a family.

New right is another theory that is considered for the sociological perspectives of the family. It is basically considered a consensus theory. According to this theory, there is only one normal and correct family type (Kilkey and Palenga, 2016). It sees the family as a natural, which is based on basic biological differences within women and men. The theory believes that it is mandatory for the children in the family to have a stable home, along with a married mother and father and wife who need to stay at home and look after the children.

Family system theory is another theory that is proven to be beneficial. It states that a family can be understood best by conceptualizing as dynamic, complex family members and its subsystem. Much like a therapist or a researcher would interact with a family in order to analyze where there is a need for repair in a family. Along with that family developmental theory, which is influenced by demographers, sociologists, and researchers. It explains the dynamic nature of the family, patterns of change, and determines how a change occurs within a family life cycle (Turner, 2017). It majorly focuses on the various stages of the family life cycle. It put emphasis on developmental tasks such as growth responsibilities, which arise at a certain stage of an individual in a family. A family needs to adapt to changing needs and demands in order to survive in a sustainable way. 

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