301
The nuclear family was once
considered the traditional family unit.
But the existence of diverse family
types is now acknowledged, including
same-sex and single-parent families.See also: Émile Durkheim 34–37 ■ Max Weber 38–45 ■ Margaret Mead 298–99 ■ Judith Stacey 310–11 ■
Ulrich Beck and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim 320–23
FAMILIES AND INTIMACIES
women showed that they were
perfectly able to do work previously
considered “men’s work,” many
non-feminist authors typically
assume a natural division of labor
between men and women, and
Parsons is no exception.
Happy families
The separation of home life and
paid employment, with women
remaining at home, is logical,
according to Parsons, because
women are natural carers. Men
are then able to take the lead in
the role of breadwinning. This
division is considered efficient
because there is less competition
for the family wage. Staying out
of paid employment allows women
to focus on their caring role: child-
rearing and the stabilization of
adult personalities.
In addition to cooking and
cleaning, this role demands
psychological management to
ensure a happy household. Parsons
is of the opinion that personality is
not born but made, and the family
is the first place this happens.
He argues that women are able
to use their emotional bond
with children to steer them into
becoming socialized human
beings. For example, children learn
their sex roles by identification
with their same-sex parent. These
roles are internalized so that girls
become “feminine” women and
boys become appropriately
“masculine” men, ready to take
their place in heterosexual family
life. So, in much the same way as a
factory produces goods, each stable
family unit produces grounded
individuals who are groomed to
contribute positively to society.Nuclear power
For Parsons, this neat division
avoids tainting the household with
the rational, competitive outside
world, although the father can
provide the link between the
outside world and the home
when the child is ready. The
nuclear family, from a Parsonian
perspective, can be seen as the
lynchpin of civilization and crucial
for the moral health of society.This way of understanding families
remained dominant in the social
sciences until the 1970s and 1980s,
when feminists, among others,
began to question it. The nuclear
family, it is argued, only pertained
to privileged white, middle-class
Western families and ignored the
differing realities of many other
groups in society. It also served
to justify and perpetuate inequality
between the genders. ■Talcott Parsons
Talcott Parsons was born in
Colarado in 1920 and belonged
to one of the oldest families in
US history. His father was a
liberal academic and a
congregational minister.
Parsons graduated from
Amherst College with a degree
in philosophy and biology and
thereafter studied at the London
School of Economics and at
the University of Heidelberg,
Germany. He was a fierce critic
of both fascism and communism,
and a staunch advocate of USsociety. For most of his academic
career, he was based at Harvard
University until he retired in
1973, after which he continued
to develop theories and give
lectures. Parsons died of a
stroke in 1979 in Munich,
Germany, where he had
been lecturing.Key works1937 The Structure of Social
Action
1951 The Social System
1955 Family, Socialization,
and Interaction ProcessThe importance of the
family and its function for
society constitutes the
primary reason why
there is... differentiation
of sex roles.
Talcott Parsons