There are various social institutions which work together to perform a lot of activities to ensure that the social stability is maintained and the society works mellifluously. These institutions can be studied from different sociological perspectives, which helps to analyse them from a practical point of view and assess their utility in maintaining social harmony. In this essay, I intend to focus on the issue of ‘Family’ and its various dimensions, which would be studied as a social institution, taking into consideration how the family and the intimate lives of people develop and work as a social construct, rather than a biological, and thereby ensures the progress of the entire society. I would attempt to study ‘family and intimate life’ from a nuanced sociological approach, which would take into consideration various sociological theories like individualization, functionalism, conflict theory, or symbolic interactionism (Woodman, Threadgold and Possamai-Inesedy 2015). This essay would be closely related to my previous weekly assignments.
As a social construct, the stereotypic view hold that a family refers to the cohabitation of individuals, which involves a married couple and their children, and sometimes also the grandparents of the children or other blood relatives, all of whom share an intimate bonding of love and mutual respect among themselves (Dempsey and Lindsay 2014). However, the modern society has broken these stereotypes time and again, with evolving trends of relationship, especially within the familial space. These changes can be attributed to the changing patterns of romantic love between couples, from which the changes enter into the familial space. Unlike the previous times, in the modern world, many couples prefer to cohabit for a particular period of time before entering the legal bond of marriage, chiefly in order to assess the durability of their emotional ties and wavelengths or their intimacy (Bauman 2003).
Many sociologists rightly claim that the changes has been triggered by the rapid advancement of technology and industrialization, and more importantly the empowerment of women in the recent past, which is supported by the theory of individualization (Woodman, Threadgold and Possamai-Inesedy 2015). As such, these changes enter into the intimate life of the domestic front, where the modern dimensions of conjugal love has a significant bearing on the maturity and growth of the children as a social being. These developments of the children depend on the socializing values that are inculcated to the children and a constant monitoring of their implementation and associated growth of the children. Different wavelengths of intimacy in the domestic front shapes this growth accordingly, which the children then learn to compare with the other existing domains of intimacy in the society (Giordano, Manning and Longmore 2015). This leads to a plurality of outlook which has a direct effect on their growth as a social being. There is a raging debate pertaining to the issue of children’s maturity rate. While some sociologists claim that the excessive use of technology in the very normative years, shuns the socializing principle within the child, whereas others claim that it enhances the rate of mental maturity within children (Ahn 2012).
The theory of individualization leads to that of symbolic interactions, which studies and tries to define the various patterns of interaction that occurs within the family members and its resultant intimacy within them (Denzin 2016). These involves a study of the rate of the shared interests and mutual understanding that exists within a couple as well as among all the members. Each have their individual method of communicating, and this is affected by the social class to which the family belongs. The rate of similarity and difference in communication standards among these individuals have a direct influence on the rate of maturity of the children and determines the kind of individual the child would grow up to be (Ariès 1962). More the difference among the parents’ communication standards, more time-taking and complex being the child would grow up to be. This communication standards again determines the quality of relationship. The standards of communication are highly shaped by the sociological factors around an individuals’ environment, which moulds the ideologies of the individuals (Gaß et al. 2015). It is precisely this ideological factor that modern couples try to assess before entering the bond of marriage, so that none of the individuals have to make considerable compromises in the long run. However, this factors is constantly subject to change with respect to the different social interactions that an individual engages in every day. These changes are likely to have a positive or negative influence on the intimacy of the couples, at every stage of their togetherness. Thus, family and the intimate relationship of individuals constantly evolve with respect to their society, thus making these issues a social construct. Biologically inherent values exist in every progeny, but they are constantly being shaped as per the terms and conditions of the society. Therefore, the family and the wavelengths of intimacy among couples, siblings or parent-child to name a few relationships, constantly undergo a process of construction, deconstruction and reconstruction, with respect to the prevailing sociological ideologies existent in the respective community (Dempsey and Lindsay 2014).
Thus, going by the sociological theory of functionalism, the functions performed by the family both within the domestic front as well as with respect to the entire society, which should ideally lead to the progress of the society, undergoes marked changes (Abanyam, Sambe and Moses 2014). Functionalism states that sociologically the dominant area of work within which a family functions, involve provision of financial, emotional, and other support among the members of a family, socialization and proper development of children, regulation of sexual activities and sexual reproduction, all of which are aimed at providing a social identity to the individuals and an effective progression of the human race.
In spite of such changing sociological trends and their implications on family life, failure to make an assumption of the basic wavelengths in the normative stages of a mutual love relationship, especially during the phase of pre-marriage togetherness, can lead to conflicts (Bildtgård and Öberg 2017). According to ‘Conflict Theory’, reinforcement of strict patriarchal ethos within the family can lead to problems within the family. The conservatism perpetrated by those families among the women in the family has macrocosmic bearing on all women within the sociological cycle. One of the dominant forms of injustice commonly visible in such families are the unpaid and unacknowledged labour of the women who constantly strive to keep to maintain harmony in the familial space, sometimes at the cost of their own interests. In such families, financial contribution faultily becomes the dominant yardstick of measuring the contributions of the womenfolk for the betterment of the family as well as the entire society. Hence, this social inequality is directly related to the economic inequality within the family, which in turn allows patriarchy to have a full play uninhibitedly (Amussen 2018). The domestic labour of women often being unpaid, certain families belonging to lower income groups are deprived of certain amenities for their well-being (Scott, Treas and Richards 2014). This often gives rise to conflicts among family members, especially when women resist to this traditional form of patriarchy, which, in some communities, often leads to domestic violence, either physical or emotional or sometimes both, thereby destroying the fabric of the society (Matthews, Wayne and Ford 2014). Thus, high rate of difference in the economic structure of a society encroaches the familial spaces, destroys the intimacy among the family members and disrupts peace and harmony within the family. These situations directly affect the mental stability of the children within the family and punctures their development as a responsible and ethical social being.
However, the governments of different nations are taking up this issue and trying to provide financial support to families where women are involved in unpaid labour. Besides, the rising trends of women empowerment and feministic studies within the academic discipline in the 21st century, along with the technological advancements and multiple job opportunities, poses a heavy blow to the age-old traditions of patriarchy (Radhakrishnan and Solari 2015). However, this also has a negative effect on the future generations. When both the parents are engaged in earning money, adequate parental care is often missing which hampers the psychological growth of the children. Above all, it prevents the establishment of intimacy neither between the parent and child, nor between the couple.
Therefore, it may be concluded that from a sociological perspective, family is a complex sphere of relationships, which is constructed more by the society than by biological processes. It gives considerable importance to the role played by each and every family within a wider social structure. The modern age has introduced a paradigmatic shift, both structural as well as functional, in the formation of families and intimate relationships, and they have become more prone to socio-cultural changes within the respective communities. This makes family and relationships a constantly evolving phenomena with respect to the social-political and economic changes. The immediate impact of these changes on a family environment is sometimes positive or sometimes negative. By and large, it is open to a wide range of sociological speculations.
References
Abanyam, N.L., Sambe, N.A. and Moses, Y., 2014. A sociological analysis of the impact of premarital and marital counseling in preventing the global trend of divorce. American International Journal of Research in Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, 5, p.1.
Ahn, J., 2012. Teenagers’ experiences with social network sites: Relationships to bridging and bonding social capital. The Information Society, 28(2), pp.99-109.
Amussen, S.D., 2018. The Contradictions of Patriarchy in Early Modern England.
Ariès, P., 1962. Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life: Trans. from the French. Vintage Books.
Bauman, Z., 2003. Liquid love. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Bildtgård, T. and Öberg, P., 2017. New Intimate Relationships in Later Life: Consequences for the Social and Filial Network?. Journal of family issues, 38(3), pp.381-405.
Dempsey, D. and Lindsay, J., 2014. Families, relationships and intimate life. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.
Dempsey, D. and Lindsay, J., 2014. Families, relationships and intimate life. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.
Denzin, N.K., 2016. Symbolic interactionism. The international encyclopedia of communication theory and philosophy, pp.1-12.
Gaß, O., Ortbach, K., Kretzer, M., Maedche, A. and Niehaves, B., 2015. Conceptualizing Individualization in Information Systems-A Literature Review. CAIS, 37, p.3.
Giordano, P.C., Manning, W.D. and Longmore, M.A., 2015. Adolescent romantic relationships. Romance and sex in adolescence and emerging adulthood: Risks and opportunities, p.127.
Matthews, R.A., Wayne, J.H. and Ford, M.T., 2014. A work–family conflict/subjective well-being process model: A test of competing theories of longitudinal effects. Journal of Applied Psychology, 99(6), p.1173.
Radhakrishnan, S. and Solari, C., 2015. Empowered women, failed patriarchs: Neoliberalism and global gender anxieties. Sociology Compass, 9(9), pp.784-802.
Scott, J., Treas, J. and Richards, M. eds., 2014. The Blackwell companion to the sociology of families (Vol. 25). John Wiley & Sons.
Woodman, D., Threadgold, S. and Possamai-Inesedy, A., 2015. Prophet of a new modernity: Ulrich Beck’s legacy for sociology. Journal of Sociology, 51(4), pp.1117-1131.
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