MARXISTS VIEWS ON FAMILY

ORIGIN OF FAMILY

• Engels ( 1972) took an evolutionary view
• Family changes as mode of production changes
• Early stages of human evolution, means of production were communally owned

PRIMITIVE ERA

• Characterized by promiscuity
• No rules limiting sexual relationships
• Society was the family
• Pattern of early humans similiar to
• ' Promiscuous hordes '

Monogamous marriages developed with the emergence of private property.

RESULTING ...

• Males owned property
• In order for them to pass it to their heirs as inheritance,
• They must be certain of the legitimacy of their heirs
• Greater control over women to ensure paternity
• Hence, also resulting in monogamous nuclear families.

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HOWEVER...

• Engel's views based on unreliable anthropological view
• Ex: promiscuous marriages -figments of his memory

FUNCTIONS?

• Act as consumption unit
• Idealogical conditioning
• Reproduction of cheap labour

ELI ZARETSKY (1976)

HE SAID

• Private life provided opportunities, that working life X provide
• Family unable to provide psychological and personal needs of indv
• Family artifically seperates and isolate personal life
• Thus cushioning effects of capitalism

CRITICISM ON ZARETSKY'S VIEWS?

• Underestimates the extent of cruelty & violence at home
• Exeggerates the extent to which family life is seperatef from work

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