EXCERPTS ON FAMILY AS AN INSTITUTION

According to sociologist William F. Ogburn, the family – under the pressures of

urbanization and industrialization – was stripped of many of its traditional functions
until its only remaining functions were psychological: "to socialize children and to
provide emotional sustenance and support for family members." 7.

"After World War II, Talcott Parsons played a central role in defining the issues that
informed the study of the family. He treated the family as a small group that served
basic functions for the larger society, including reproduction, regulation of sexual
behavior, socialization into adult roles, and emotional support. He argued that small,
isolated nuclear families in which men specialized in instrumental, goal-oriented
activities and women specialized in expressive, relationship oriented activities were
particularly well adapted to the demands of an urban, industrial society. Parsonian
structural-functionalism was profoundly ahistorical, and discouraged historical analysis
of the family. It treated the family as a static unit . . . ." 8.

In 1930, a Harper’s Monthly Magazine essayist wrote: “To-day social and civic
agencies, in taking over most of these parental responsibilities, have deprived the
parents of an important bond of mutual understanding. In the ‘higher life’ of the family
there is now little opportunity for the sharing of ex-perience between husband and wife.
Professional groups, lecture courses, literary and religious societies, Chambers of
Commerce, civic organizations, and clubs have absorbed their time and energies.
Modern husbands have also lost the opportunity to know and value their wives as
personalities in the simpler daily affairs of the household. In the field of hospital
married partners of yesterday had another sphere in which they could appreciate one
another’s true resources. But neighborly calls are to-day almost obsolete, while the
gathering of guests within the home is being re-placed by the practice of entertaining at
hotels, theaters, and other places of amusement. In every sphere of par-ticipation
between husband and wife, life is becoming more intellectually and spiritually barren. . .
. Almost the only personal needs which each finds satisfied through the other are those
of financial income and of sex. the influences which are estranging wives and husbands
are also producing a gulf between successive generations. Parents and children cannot
know one another as intimately as in former days.” 9.

In 1930, the essayist continued: “If, through our segmentalized manner of living, the
child is deprived of the steadying influence of the the parent, it is no less certain that the
parent is losing the child. Should I wish really to know my boy or girl (and this will be
increasingly true as they grow older), I must go out into the community to gain my
knowledge. I must go to the playground supervisor or to the Y.M.C.A. in order to
discover his athletic and social adjustments. . . What he is, in himself, as apart from all
these pigeonholds and compartments, I have no way of knowing. He has ceased to be,
for me, an intimately experienced personality, but has become a case study. I am no
longer a parent, but a social worker. . . . ¶ Just as the bond between husband and wife is
tending to become one merely of sex love, so the contact between parents an children is
narrowing down to an intense but purely emotional affection. The break-up of home life
does not, as some think, liberate the young from the tyranny and repression of an older
gen-eration. For what really enslaves the young is not the customs of the past, but too
narrow a love.” 10.

In 1930, the essayist continued: “It, therefore becomes necessary to forego parenthood,
at least for a considerable time, and to conceive of marriage purely as a relation-shop
for comradeship and sexual satisfaction. Hence, there are arising more liberal views of
sexual morality. The institutions of trial marriage and the companionate . . are being
welcomed both in theory and practice. ¶ Strangely enough this new conception of
marriage, which as arisen as a necessity, has come to be acclaimed as a virtue . . . . a
revolt against the narrow morality of the past and against a society which demanded
continuous propagation as the expense of individual happiness. . . I am inclined to think
that the renunciation of parenthood, has for the most part, been forced upon us by the
conditions under which we live rather than selected by freedom of choice. When we
remove from the home nearly all the activities in which husbands and wives can
participate on behalf of their children, the rearing of offspring, even when it is not
financially precluded, becomes a tiresome and irrelevant process. Having rendered
parenthood difficult and meaningless, our next logical step is to abolish it A man and
woman who have been thus divested of the prospects of household and children are
spoken of euphemistically as ‘the new family.’ . . . ¶ . . . The restlessness felt by so
many married couples is cue not so much to the choice of the wrong partner or to the
disturbing presence of children as to the break-up and dissemination of their interests
throughout the greater community . . . Now that both husband and wife are seeking
career away from each other and their home, now that they have stripped off the
burdens of children and household encumbrances, what is left for them to be
companionable about? Some social genius of the future may work out a scheme for true
self-realization in wedlock. but surely the current proposal of the revamping of family
institutions are fraught with no large promise of success.” 11.

In 1930, the essayist continued: “You cannot cure institutions by institutions. . . The
content of family life, however, is not changing; it is disappearing. When people shall
have ceased to live and to participate in the freedom of face-to-face association, when
they shall have scattered their interests into diverse organizations throughout the great
society, we cannot say that the family as altered; we can only say that it has tone. No
salvaging of conjugal and filial customs, no skill exerted in promoting co-operation
between the parents and the community will bring it back. All the ingenuity and
resources of the Government will be of little avail. . . . . We have set up vast corporate
organizations and associations of every conceivable public function; but the life which
these institutions were developed to foster is crushed and scattered beneath their weight.
We have erected a stupendous civilization; but we have not learned how to use it.” 12.
In 1940, a sociologist wrote that “. . . the specific functions which the family once
performed within these categories have been largely transferred to other insti-tutions,
while at the same time new specific functions, elaborations, refine-ments, and additions
have developed within the family. ¶ Recreational functions are being transferred, some
to and some from the family. Many activities formerly car-ried on in the backyard or in
the family living room have been moved to schools, churches, and group-work
institutions. Yet at the same time the radio, the automobile, the growing practice of
having play and game rooms, and the enforced economy of the depression have
operated to restore recreation to the home. . . . In so far as housing becomes more
spacious and adequate, the additional space will probably be used largely for leisure-
time activities. Families of higher economic status carry on hobbies and other
recreations in the house or on the grounds, which among the poorer classes must be
conducted in the settle-ment house, the park, or the street. While activities themselves
may be largely outside, the home becomes more important as a telephonic center for
preparation and making contacts, and as a storage place for equipment. The
organization of the individuals leisure life increasingly centers in the home as homes
become more adequate and living standards rise.” 13.

In 1947, Senior Scholastic editorialized: "Families no longer 'do things together'

automatically like the way our grandparents' did. So the Marshes constantly think up
new things that the family can do as a unit." 14.

In 1950, sociologist Hollingshead wrote: “The home is the center of family life, and the
hope [ironic sic] of most working-class families is a single-family dwelling with a yard;
but a fifth to one-half are forced to live in multiple dwelling units with inadequate space
for family living. Added to this is the working-class mos that one is obligated to give
shelter and care in a crisis to a husband’s or wife’s relatives or to a married child. Thus, in
a considerable percentage [sic] of these families the home is shared with some relative.
Then, too., resources are stringently limited, so when a family is faced with
unemployment, illness, and death it must turn to someone for help. In such crises, a
relative is called upon in most instances before some public agency. The relative normally
has little to offer, but in most cases that little is shared with the family in need, even
though grudgingly. ¶ While crises draw family members to-gether, they also act as
divisive agents; for when a family has to share its lim-ited living space and meager income
with relative, kin ties are soon strained, often to the breaking point. One family is not able
to give aid to another on an extensive scale without impairing its won standard of living;
possibly its own security may be jeopardized. In view of this risk, some persons do
everything short of absolute refusal to aid a rela-tive in distress . . . This ordinarily results
in the permanent destruction of kin ties, but it is justified by the belief that ones won
family’s needs come first.” 15.