Stability and change in the family.

Stability refers to the steady state. The steady state implies the functional equilibrium between the internal dynamics of the family. In short, it means a state
of equality. On the other hand, change refers to a process by which transformation, modification takes place when the family is subject to certain internal or external factors and forces it may change, and experience equilibrium for some time till it gets itself adapted to changed circumstances. It cannot change all of a sudden.

The Models of change are as follows;

  • Evolutionary model
  • Functional Model
  • Disintegration Model
  • Adaptation Model
  • Cyclic Model
  • Goody’s distribution model
  • Shahlins model

1) Evolutionary Model

Given by 19th Century anthropologists Morgan, Taylor, Frazer, Lubbock etc. conceived of an earliest stage of free sex, no marriage and no family in human society. In later stages realization of economic advantages resulted in more permanent sex relations.
(a) Consanouinal family – Based on blood relationship. It is savagery in nature.
(b) Punaluan Family – Group of brothers marry a group of sisters who are not their own.
(c) Syndyasmian family – It is a pairing family. Parties to the Union can terminate the contract at will.
(d) Patriarchal family – Humans became agriculturists. It is barbarism in nature
(e) Monogamous family ~It is civilized in nature.

2) Functionalists model –

The functionalists like Malinouski and Radcliffe Brown present an equilibrium model of the family. The emphasis is stability on the family.

Malinowskian model of family depicts the family, as a cultural institution that arose in response to the basic bio-psychic need: namely sex, reproduction and security, and that it is a social arrangement occurring universally and that it functions not only to fulfill bio-psychic needs, but also to contribute to maintenance and continuity of the total culture and society. As this model represents the elements of stability and continuity, it does not explain change except stability.

Radcliffe Brown’s depiction of family presents it as a model in a state of structural-functional equilibrium or stability. According to him – the family is a social group. In this group children are born, brought up and educated; the basis of this group are the strong bonds of affinity and consanguinity, filiality and fraternity, kinship and kinship obligations. All parts of the family work together, with a sufficient degree of harmony or internal consistency. All this creates “Social equilibrium” or a condition where all the parts are functionally so well integrated that they always contribute towards orders and stability in the family. This model also does not explain change.

Disintegrationist Model:

Anthropologist studied tire impact of industrialization, education and women liberation movements, beside secularism and other on the family. According to researches, power machines substituted the manual tools, secondary associations and state agencies limited and replaced the functions of the family. Modern education and inculcation of democratic values and individualistic outlook undermined the authoritarian feudalistic mores. The status, rights and privileges of women have changed to some extent. The consequences of industrialization and urbanization in the context of family are many and varied. The family had a number of direct as well as derivative effects. The most visible ones are:

  • 1. The frequent mobility, both physical as well as social affects the family and kinship to a great extent. The family kinship ties became loose and cold. Even though some sorts of family and kinship relations continue the warmth, intimacy and the mutual obligation get reduced to minimum.
  • 2. The family disorganization became quite distinct. It because of two reasons- the first of is the weakening of the family and kinship lies. The second one is the weakening of the psychological ties. This is more harmful. The nuclear family ceased to serve the emotional functions that have a great psychological implication. Due to economic independence of women, the work fatigue of the couple and many other materials as well as environmental exigencies, the performance of these emotional functions got threatened. At such moments, the divorce and separation becomes the immediate result. This resulted in the breakdown of nuclear family.
  • 3. The methods of mate selection and marriage have also changed. The material and occupational conditions of industrialization have hastened individualism. Because of individual-orientation, the marriage-by-arrangement and the selection of mate by kinsmen came to be replaced by the marriage-by-personal choice. The method of consecration of marriage union became increasingly secular.
  • 4. The family ceased to be an economically productive unit. gradually became a consuming unit. So the economic function of the family was partially lost. The family has greater economic relevance as a consuming unit.
  • 5. With the increasing degree of industrialization and urbanization, may outside agencies have taken up certain educative, health and social security functions of the family. Children receive training and education from the persons other than their parents. The education and training include some knowledge and wisdom, which their parents do not share. Hence the tensions between generations even before the children leave their parental families have become virtually inevitable.

According to Leach, the ‘isolation of the nuclear family In modem industrialization societies has made it an overloaded electric circuit- the parents fight and the children rebel. In several modem societies including USA, the prevailing trend of ‘moral relativism among the youth, is making marriage as an undesirable burden and sex without marriage as an emerging dangerous trend. The unmarried mothers are demanding legal status for their children, probably matrilocalism and kinship restricted to mother. Children dyads may become the future trend of the highly industrialized societies.

Adaptation Model;

Levy, Singer, Firth and several other anthropologists have successfully demolished previous myths about the disintegration model of the modern family. Previously, anthropologists had commonly assumed that modern family and population behavior were innovations resulting from industrialization, and that the predominant domestic form in the pre-industrial society had been extended family. It was argued that industrialization destroyed the ‘three-generation co-resident family structure and led to the emergence of isolated nuclear family -a structure more compatible with the demands of modem industrial system

In the past half a century, several anthropologists have firmly established the predominance of nuclear household structure in the industrial Western Europe and its persistence over at least the past three centuries. A critical distinction was made between family and household structure. The family includes only the kin while the household includes non-kin in addition to the members of the family. The most important conclusion is that industrialization did not break down the traditional extended family and led to the emergence of nuclear family. In many respects, the household continues to function as an economic unit even after it had been stripped off of its major functions in production. As a flexible unit, the household expanded and contracted in response to their family’s needs.
Prior to the emergence of the welfare slate, the kinship network of the household formed the base of social security. More recently, anthropologists have documented the continuity of kinship ties in the process of migrations and the important role in the adaptation to new environments. The overall tendency was to include non-kin in the household rather than kin outside the nuclear family.

Cyclical Model:

Anthropologists view the family as a process i.e., a series of actions directed towards some end. This process contains three to four well-defined recurrent stages on the basis of the changing needs of an individual at various stages in his life. In other words, it is viewed as an ever-continuing cyclical process.
According to some anthropologists,

  • the first stage of this cyclical .process is the formative stage. It starts when the individual as a growing child is prepared as a responsible member of a society.
  • the second stage is the pre-nuptial stage. It commences when the individual as an adolescent psychologically prepares himself for the adult married life and procreation of children. In tribal societies, there are youth dormitories where an individual as a youth can have a sort of rehearsal for playing the future adult roles in an appropriate way. But in societies with the tradition of child marriages and consequent arranged marriages, prenuptial stage does not exist.
  • The final stage is the post-nuptial stage. It is most important from the-point of view of the broader interests of a society. It begins with the “birth of offspring. Here the individual gets married, concentrates on his family of procreation though not entirely delinking himself from his family of orientation, in which an individual belongs in his lifetime.

When a family is in particular stage, it maintains stability. But it undergoes a transition when it moves into another stage and maintains stability, in that stage, for some period of time, till it reaches the final stage and acquires stability and later enters the first stage.

Mayer Fortes in 1968 presented an almost similar model of the development cycle of the family. He analyzed variations in the family organization within a society as products of the development cycle at a particular point of time, Fortes suggested that the variation.- family within a society might be viewed as different phases in the development cycles to a single general form for each society.

  • The first phase is the phase of expansion. It begins with the marriage and lasts until all children born into the family are raised to reptoductive age.
  • The second chase namely the phase of dispersion and fission begins with the marriage of the oldest child and continues until all children are married. One of them remains in the house.
  • The- final phase namely the phase of replacement commences with the death of the parents and their replacement by the families of their children.

Every phase maintains stability over a period during which it exists. When it enters from one phase to another phase, it shows changes. As it enters the first phase after completing its cycle, it again starts the cycle afresh. The cycle is thus a never-ending process. Stability is common to this process as it halts for some period or time and change is the characteristic of this process as it enters from one phase to another phase.

The cyclical models of the family are subject to criticism for two reasons. First, they cannot explain in totality. They provide an incomplete explanation of every type of variation in the family forms. They fail to account for the possibility of demographic and historic social processes, which may produce change in the family groups. Second, there may not be one but several ideal types or patterns of family organization within a given society as different social groups or strata may have different ideals and practices with regard to family and kinship or may be affected differently by processes of socio-cultural change.

Goody’s redistribution Model:

Jack Goody presented a model of family stability and change on the basis of linking cluster of factors including marriage payments, descent groups, kinship terminologies and family organization, to the changing forms of the transmission of properly.

According to Goody, stability or change in the family depends upon the means by which property is transmitted. He proposed two models
one model: Stability & Change depends upon: Dowry system, Bilateral Kinship, Monogamy Family
another model: Stability & Change depends upon: Bride price. Unilineal kinship, Polygamy

According to him, bride price and dowry are forms of marriage transactions and of redistributing property. They influence the kinship relations and the forms of the family. The form of the family depends upon the type of marriage transaction and redistribution but the mode of production, which determines the family organization.

Marshal Sahlins’ Model:

The presented a Marxian model of the family on the basis of the mode of production. According lo him, it is not the property transmission but the mode of production, which determines the family organization.

According to Sahlins, the family was stable In the beginning because it was tied with domestic mode of production. When the domestic mode of production transformed into extradomestic mode of production change occured.

Family in primitive societies (domestic mode of production):
1. Family produced what it wants;
2. Limits production to what it requires;
3. Once the requirement is met, there is no stimulus for further production;
4. Family acts as an autonomous economic unit and as an autonomous political unit.

Family in advanced societies (extra-domestic mode of production):
1. Inter-familial ties in the form of kinship ties and political relations militate against the autonomy of the family.
2. They stimulate surplus production over and above the requirements of the family.
3. Extra domestic groups become economic units.
4. They over/throw the domestic mode of production.

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