Marxist and Feminist Views of the Family

Where functionalists and the New Right see the family as a broadly positive, integrative institution, Marxists and feminists see it as a site of inequality, exploitation and conflict. Both are conflict perspectives, but they disagree fundamentally about the primary axis of that conflict. For Marxists the family ultimately serves capitalism and reproduces class inequality; for feminists it sustains patriarchy and reproduces gender inequality. For AQA A-Level Sociology (7192) these perspectives are indispensable: they supply the critical counter-arguments to functionalism and the New Right in almost every 20-mark essay, and the debates within feminism (liberal, Marxist, radical, difference) are themselves a frequent essay focus. A candidate who treats "feminism" as a single bloc forfeits the analytic credit that comes from distinguishing its strands.

Key Definition: Patriarchy is a system of social relationships and institutions through which men, as a group, exercise power over women. Feminists differ over its origins (biology, capitalism, or autonomous male dominance) and over how, and whether, it can be ended.

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Spec Mapping

This lesson addresses several bullets of the AQA A-Level Sociology (7192) Paper 2, Section A — Families and Households content:

• The relationship of the family to the social structure and social change (Marxist analysis of the family and the capitalist economy).
• The nature and extent of changes within the family, with reference to gender roles, domestic labour and power relationships (feminist analysis of the gendered division of labour and the "triple shift").

You should be able to describe (AO1) the Marxist functions of the family (reproducing labour power, ideological control, unit of consumption) and the four feminist strands; apply (AO2) them to an Item; and evaluate (AO3) them against functionalism, the New Right, the personal-life perspective and one another. These perspectives also supply the evaluative spine for essays whose "target view" is functionalist or New Right.

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Synoptic Links

• Sociological Theory: this lesson is applied conflict theory. Marxism (Engels, Zaretsky, Althusser) and the feminisms (liberal, Marxist, radical, difference) are core theory content; the family is the arena in which their differences become concrete.
• Stratification: the Marxist focus on class and inheritance of property, and Delphy & Leonard's claim that men's living standards rise on marriage while women's fall, connect directly to debates about class and gender inequality.
• Research Methods: Oakley's (1974) interview study of 40 housewives raises issues of validity, representativeness and the feminist critique of "malestream" methods; Marxist-feminist claims about unpaid labour raise questions about operationalising and measuring domestic work (e.g. time-use surveys).
• Crime and Deviance: radical-feminist analysis of domestic violence (Dobash & Dobash) as patriarchal control links the family to debates about gendered victimisation and the under-recording of crime within the home.
• Education: the Marxist ideological function of the family (teaching deference to authority and hierarchy) feeds the correspondence-principle analysis of schooling; difference feminism connects to debates about ethnicity and the family.

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The Marxist Perspective on the Family

Marxism is a conflict theory in which society is structured by the exploitation of the working class (proletariat) by the capitalist class (bourgeoisie). The family, on this view, is not a neutral haven but an institution whose forms and functions ultimately serve the needs of capital.

Engels (1884): The Origin of the Monogamous Family

Friedrich Engels (1884), Marx's collaborator, argued in The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State that the monogamous nuclear family emerged alongside private property.

• In early classless societies (primitive communism) there was no private property and, Engels claimed, sexual relations were comparatively unrestricted within the kin group.
• As private property (land, livestock, tools) developed, propertied men needed certainty over paternity to pass wealth to their own biological heirs.
• The monogamous nuclear family thus arose as a device to guarantee legitimate inheritance from father to son — making it, in origin, an instrument of male dominance and the control of female sexuality.

Key Quote — Engels (1884): "The modern individual family is founded on the open or concealed domestic slavery of the wife... the first class oppression coincides with that of the female sex by the male."

Zaretsky (1976): The Family and Capitalism

Eli Zaretsky (1976) argued the family serves capitalism in several connected ways:

1. Absorbing discontent — the family is a private sphere where the alienated worker can feel valued and in control, a "safety valve" that drains off frustrations that might otherwise be aimed at the capitalist system.
2. Reproducing labour power — the family produces and socialises the next generation of workers, instilling obedience, diligence and respect for authority.
3. The illusion of private life — Zaretsky argued the family offers only the appearance of a refuge from capitalism; in reality its structure, values and routines are shaped throughout by the demands of the economy.

The Ideological Function

Marxists argue the family performs an ideological function, socialising children to accept inequality as natural. Children learn to respect authority (parents → teachers → employers), to accept hierarchy, and to value private property and competition. Louis Althusser (1971) classed the family among the key Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) — institutions that secure ruling-class dominance through ideas rather than force.

The Family as a Unit of Consumption

Marxists also stress the family as a unit of consumption that sustains capitalist profit. The family buys housing, food, clothing and entertainment; it is targeted by advertising that manufactures "needs"; "keeping up with the Joneses" and the targeting of "pester power" at children drive continual demand, generating profit for the bourgeoisie.

graph TD
  A["Capitalism's needs"] --> B["Reproduce labour power: feed/raise workers"]
  A --> C["Ideological control: teach deference & hierarchy"]
  A --> D["Unit of consumption: buy goods, sustain profit"]
  A --> E["Absorb discontent: family as safety valve"]
  B --> F["Class inequality reproduced across generations"]
  C --> F
  D --> F
  E --> F

Evaluation of the Marxist Perspective

Strengths	Limitations
Shows how the family serves the capitalist economy and reproduces class inequality	Economically deterministic — reduces family life to economics, neglecting love, emotion and agency
Explains the ideological role of the family (Althusser)	Ignores gender — Marxist feminists argue it cannot explain why women specifically are exploited within the family
Zaretsky shows how the family absorbs discontent that might challenge capitalism	Romanticises the pre-capitalist past — Engels assumes early egalitarianism on contested anthropological evidence
Highlights the family as a unit of consumption	Functionalists reply the family benefits all members, not just capital; postmodernists deny class is now the primary determinant of family life

The Family and Alienation: Cooper and the Anti-Psychiatry Critique

A more radical Marxist-influenced strand sees the family not merely as serving capitalism economically but as psychologically damaging. David Cooper (1972), associated with the anti-psychiatry movement, argued that the family is an ideological conditioning device that crushes individuality: by demanding conformity and obedience from the earliest years, it produces submissive personalities fitted for an obedient, exploited workforce. On this view the family teaches children to accept authority and surveillance, "policing the minds" of the young so that they grow into adults who do not question the system. This connects the Marxist account to R.D. Laing's controversial claim that the intense, suffocating dynamics of family life can themselves be a source of mental distress. The strand is easily over-stated and is criticised for ignoring the genuine support and love families provide, but it usefully sharpens the Marxist point that the family's ideological work reaches into the formation of personality itself, not just into economics — a bridge to feminist arguments about how gendered identities are produced within the home.

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The Feminist Perspective on the Family

Feminism is united by the conviction that women are disadvantaged and oppressed, and that the family is a key institution producing and reproducing that oppression. Its strands, however, diagnose the problem — and prescribe the cure — very differently.

Liberal Feminism

Liberal feminists argue gender inequality in the family is being gradually eroded through legal reform (equal-pay law, maternity/paternity rights, anti-discrimination law) and changing attitudes (more egalitarian relationships, dual-earner households). Progress is real but incomplete: women still do more domestic work, face a pay gap and are under-represented in power. Critics (other feminists) find them too optimistic and too willing to work within existing structures rather than challenge patriarchy or capitalism. Jennifer Somerville (2000) offers a broadly liberal-feminist position, arguing that genuine progress has occurred and that policy reform (e.g. flexible working) can further it, but that change is partial.

Marxist Feminism

Marxist feminists argue women's oppression in the family serves capitalism: women's domestic labour is essential to the economy yet unpaid and invisible.

• Margaret Benston (1972) argued women's unpaid domestic labour reproduces labour power — feeding, clothing and caring for male workers so they return fit each day, and raising the next generation of workers — at no cost to capital.
• Fran Ansley (1972) described wives as "takers of shit" — absorbing the anger husbands bring home from alienating work, so that frustration is vented at home rather than at the capitalist system.

Radical Feminism

Radical feminists see the family as the primary site of patriarchal oppression: gender inequality is the most fundamental division (deeper than class), and the family is where it is most entrenched.

• Kate Millett (1970) analysed the family as a patriarchal institution in which men exercise power through socialisation, control of resources and, at times, violence. For Millett, the family is where children first learn their gender roles, so it is the foundation on which the wider patriarchal order is built — making personal relationships inescapably political ("the personal is political").
• Germaine Greer (2000) argued the heterosexual family remains oppressive, expecting women to supply unpaid care, emotional labour and sexual services; she advocated alternatives such as "matrifocal" households in which women and children form the core unit. Some radical feminists go further and advocate separatism or political lesbianism as ways of living outside patriarchal family structures altogether — a position critics regard as impractical for most women and as neglecting the satisfactions many find in heterosexual family life.
• Delphy and Leonard (1992), from a materialist standpoint, argued the family is an economic system in which women's domestic, emotional, sexual and reproductive labour is exploited by men: the (usually male) head of household benefits from others' labour, women do most domestic and emotion work regardless of paid employment, and men's living standards rise on marriage while women's fall.

Difference Feminism

Difference feminists argue that women's experience of family life varies sharply by class, ethnicity, sexuality and culture, so it is a mistake to generalise about a single "women's experience".

• bell hooks (1982) and other Black feminists argue that, for many Black women, the family has been a source of solidarity and resistance against racism, not only of oppression — an experience white, middle-class feminism overlooks.
• Class matters too: working-class women may face material deprivation and patriarchal control, while affluent women may buy in domestic help that eases the burden.

Oakley (1974): The Social Construction of the Housewife Role

Ann Oakley (1974) challenged the functionalist assumption that the domestic division of labour is "natural":

• The housewife role is socially constructed — a product of industrialisation, which separated home from workplace and confined women to the domestic sphere — not of biology.
• Housework is monotonous, isolating and low-status, comparable to assembly-line work in its repetitiveness and lack of autonomy; her 40 London housewives reported long hours and low satisfaction.
• She rejected Young and Willmott's (1973) claim of a "symmetrical" family, finding men's domestic participation minimal and skewed towards the pleasant tasks (playing with children) while women carried the routine load.

Dual-Systems Theory: Reconciling Class and Gender

The sharpest theoretical question raised by this lesson is whether class (Marxism) or gender (radical feminism) is the more fundamental source of oppression — or whether the choice is a false one. Dual-systems feminists argue that capitalism and patriarchy are two interlocking but analytically distinct systems, and that the family sits at their intersection. Heidi Hartmann (1979) captured this in her influential phrase describing the relationship between Marxism and feminism as an "unhappy marriage": orthodox Marxism keeps trying to subsume gender under class, but women's oppression has its own logic that class analysis cannot dissolve. On this account, the unpaid domestic labour women perform benefits both capital (a free subsidy that reproduces the workforce, as Benston argues) and individual men (who gain leisure, services and status, as Delphy and Leonard argue) — so the family serves two masters at once. Sylvia Walby (1990), in Theorizing Patriarchy, developed a multi-structural account in which patriarchy operates through six interlocking structures (including the household, paid work and the state), and argued that capitalism and patriarchy are sometimes in alliance and sometimes in tension — for example, capitalism's demand for cheap female labour can pull women out of the patriarchal household. Dual-systems theory is valued for refusing the reductionism of both pure Marxism and pure radical feminism, but it is criticised for being difficult to operationalise: specifying exactly how the two systems interact in any given case is far harder than asserting that they do.

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Comparing Marxist and Feminist Perspectives