COLEGIUL TEHNIC TRANSILVANIA DEVA

LUCRARE DE ATESTARE A COMPETENELOR

LINGVISTICE
LIMBA ENGLEZ
COORDONATOR ELEV
Prof. Ioana HERINEAN Ov!" MARI#
DEVA
$%&&
PR'CIS
Family, a word that so many know, but only few understand. The definition of family in a
dictionary is a household, ones own spouse, parents and children. What does family mean to
you? Some may say friendship, love, and joy, while others say pain, aony, and aner. Families
are said to be !the root of every livin soul". This tells us that our families are basically what
brouht us into bein, what ave us life, what shaped our values and beliefs, and what ultimately
launched us towards our own independence. Family is basically what keeps us on our own two
feet, a support, if you want.
#n this modern day and ae, the word !family" is a very powerful thin. $ears and years
ao, families used to be networks of toetherness and love. The family went on outins toether,
ate all their meals toether, lauhed and played toether, and just enerally bonded. Today,
families seem to be much more meaninless. %inimal time is spent toether, family dinners are
virtually none&istent, and the bond and love of years ao just does not seem to be there.
Why is that? We say we keep ettin smarter, we keep rowin mentally. We have
bier houses, but smaller homes, we are more sociable, but less lovin. We say we know more
about the human kind, more about relationships, when in fact, day by day, we become lonelier,
more narrow'minded and empty. (ur modern science tries to e&plain everythin throuh
technoloy and numbers, love has become an alorithm, and the family an institution. This
wouldnt be a bad thin, if it worked, but sadly, it doesnt. )ll the principles that made a classic
family a modern one, just succeeded in turnin old problems into current ones.

TABLE O( CONTENTS
#. *r+cis,,,,.,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,.
,-
##. In)ro!"*)on ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,.
,.
III. Con)+n)
1. The changing shape of the family,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,..
2. The family development cycle ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,../
3. The rising divorce rate ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,.0
4. Violence in the family ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,.. 1
5. Battered wives ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,..1
6. Child a!se ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 23
". #ne$parent families,,.,,,...,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 2-
#4. Con*,"-on,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,..........
. 2.
4. 5iblioraphy
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,.... 2/
INTRODUCTION
Socioloists are interested in the family for two main reasons. First, as individuals we are
all members of a family roup. 5irth ives each of us a set of blood relations that surround us
durin our most formative years. %arriae brins us a new set of familial relationships. Such
relationships may be dissolved throuh death, divorce, or distance.
The second reason for the socioloical interest in the family derives from its central role
in social life. The foundin fathers of socioloy, such as 6urkheim and %ar&, were interested in
the way that the social fabric of nineteenth'century society was chanin. The aricultural,
industrial, and scientific revolutions were producin economic and political chanes that
threatened to create social chaos in 7urope. The family was seen as one of the institutions that
had to respond to these chanes.
8oncern with the family is not the e&clusive preserve of the socioloist. 9overnments
and politicians use the family as an indicator of the health and strenth of social life. *oliticians
fear that any weakenin of family life will in some way sap the vitality of national life. The
introduction of the 5ritish welfare state was partly an attempt to maintain and improve the
:uality of family life. The family is also important to businessmen. #t is one of the major
purchasin roups of our consumer society. The basic needs of food, shelter, and warmth are
usually met throuh the family. #t is inevitable that much of our income is spent within the
family. )ny surplus income may well be used to provide the family with more comfort or
pleasure.
The family is clearly an important social institution. 5ut what is the family? Where do we
draw the boundaries of our family? What are the problems that the modern 5ritish families face?
These fundamental :uestions must be considered before it is possible to take a more detailed
socioloical view of family life in modern 5ritain.
T.+ *.an/n/ -.a0+ of ).+ fa1,2
There is no one definition or description of a typical or normal family. 5roadly speakin,
the family is a roup of people related by blood or by law, livin toether or associatin with one
another to a common purpose, that purpose bein the provision of food, shelter, and the rearin
of children. The institution of the family keeps chanin, and we could describe a number of
types of family that e&ist in a society at any one time.
T.+ fa1,2 !+v+,o01+n) *2*,+
(ur own families chane with time. Turner ;2101< describes the development cycle of
the 5ritish family, providin a framework for the e&amination of the way families adjust their
form over a period of forty or fifty years. =e suests that there are four major reference points
in the development cycle of the family. These are>
1. the p!lic ac%nowledgement of the intent to marry&
2. the wedding ceremony&
3. the irth 'or adoption( of offspring&
4. the dissol!tion of the family !nit with the death of one
memer) which is completed y the death of the s!rviving
partner.
The first phase can be described as the ?courtship
period. 8asual, friendships and datin start at school, and
continue into the work or collee stae. )t some point a
couple will move to a more serious commitment based on
love. (ur society still places reat importance on the idea of
romantic love, accompanied by the free choice of a marriae partner. The enaement rin is a
powerful symbol of this commitment.
%arriae marks the end of the courtship phase. %arriae is one of the key events of life,
the ?rite of passae that marks the entry of the youn couple into social adulthood. 6iana
@eonard ;21A3< shows that a proper weddin is a key oal for many. %uch time, effort, and
e&pense are put into ensurin that the ritual of marriae is performed correctly. @eonard arues
that marriae marks an important shift in the customary and leal relations between children and
their parents. %arriae is one way of breakin free from parental controls. 8ouples move into
their own home, demonstratin to the world at lare their new'found independence.
The third phase is essentially concerned with childbearin and childrearin. #t beins
with the birth ;or possibly the adoption< of the first child. *arenthood puts the youn couple on a
more e:ual footin with their parents. (ur society e&pects a marriae to produce children.
=owever, it must be remembered that about 23B2. per cent of married couples do not have
children, a situation that can ive rise to reat sadness.
The childrearin phase can last anythin from about si&teen to forty or more years. The
lenth of this stae is determined by the number of children born to a couple and the time ap
between births. 8ouples who have children early in their marriae may find that they are free of
their responsibilities before they are forty, while others will still be supportin their children as
they approach retirement. Whatever the lenth of the childrearin phase, it must be stressed that
it involves the parents in a proloned period of very hard work. #t is durin this period that
children receive their primary socialiCation into social roles, values, and beliefs. 5oth society and
social scientists see this socialiCation process as bein of the reatest sinificance.
The final phase in the family development cycle is the period of disinteration. This
beins with the children leavin the home to set up their own families or households. #f the
couple had their children when they were :uite youn, then they may still have many years of
marriae in front of them. Some adjustment in attitudes and roles may be re:uired, particularly
when they are faced with retirement. The increase in life e&pectancy which has taken place
means that many more married couples will now live toether for fifty or more years. The death
of one of the partners beins the final breakdown of this family core. The remainin partner has
to face the problem of livin on his or her own, oin to live with one of the children, or enterin
some kind of residential home for the elderly.
#t is clear that this model of a family development cycle will not fit all families in modern
5ritain. 8ouples will start their families at very different aes and at different points in their
marriae. *arents with only one child will e&perience family life in a different way from those
who have lare families. Those individuals who do not marry, and those couples without
children hardly fit the pattern at all. 6ivorce will also interrupt the cycle of family development,
forcin family members to alter their e&pectations and to create new households.
=owever, the study of the family development cycle teaches us one very important point.
The family is not a static body, it alters and adjusts as the family members e&perience the
different staes of life. The socioloist is faced with the problem of describin families that are
always in motion. Socioloical studies of families are often simply snapshots of that family at
one point in the cycle of development.
T.+ r-n/ !vor*+ ra)+
6ivorce marks the leal termination of a marriae
relationship. ) marriae can also be ended by annulment,
or throuh the couple separatin. #t must also be
remembered that an unhappy marriae need not end in
divorce. %any unhappy couples will stay toether, perhaps
for reliious reasons, perhaps because of the children. #n
5ritain, as in most industrial societies, there has been a
steady rise in the divorce rate. Dewspaper headlines claim that one in three marriaes now ends
in divorce, a fiure that is said to herald the demise of the family.
) number of e&planations can be put forward
to account for this increase. @eal chanes are very
important. #t was not easy to obtain a divorce before
the middle of last century. ) divorce was only ranted
by obtainin a *rivate )ct of *arliamentE the e&pense
and effort involved meant that it remained the
privilee of the rich. ) law in 2A/F made divorce
easier, and a special 6ivorce 8ourt was set up.
6ivorce remained too e&pensive for ordinary people,
however, and the annual averae number of divorces
was still less than 2/3. Women could not obtain a
divorce on e:ual terms with men. Dot only had women to prove that their husbands were uilty
of adultery, they had to prove that they had committed a matrimonial offence such as cruelty or
rape. This leal double standard was not altered until 21-G, and even then women had the
problem of raisin enouh money to take a divorce case to court.
The 21GF %atrimonial 8auses )ct e&tended the rounds of divorce beyond adultery to
include insanity, desertion, and cruelty. #t was this )ct that laid the leal framework of divorce
law for the ne&t thirty years. The law had become relatively straihtforwardE it was finance that
stopped many people oin to court to end their marriaes. The Second World War disrupted a
lare number of marriaes. Separation strained many relationships, while others came to reret a
hasty marriae. #t was not surprisin that, by the end of the war, there was a backlo of broken
marriaes waitin to o to court.
The immediate post'war years saw a record level of divorce, but once the backlo was
cleared, the divorce rate fell. #t was not until the 2103s that the divorce rate bean to rise
steadily. The most dramatic chane in the level of divorce
results from the bill to reform the divorce law which was
presented to parliament in 2101, comin into force in 21F2.
There was now only one round on which a divorce petition
could be based, the irretrievable breakdown of marriae.
Those wantin a divorce had to prove that the marriae had
broken down by showin that the partners had lived apart,
that they had been deserted, or that they could not accept
their partners adultery or cruelty. What was sinificant
about the new leislation was that it allowed
divorce by ?consent. ) couple who had lived apart
for two years and who both wanted a divorce could
obtain one. 7ven where one partner did not want a
divorce, perhaps for reliious reasons, the other
partner could petition for a divorce after five years
separation. 8ouples did not even have to o to
court, they could divorce by post. The chane in
the law had an immediate impact on the divorce
fiures. The first full year to which the new law
applied was 21F-, and in that year there were over
221,333 divorces made absolute in 7nland and
Wales. The courts were once aain dealin with a
backlo of broken marriaes. =owever, after a
small drop in the fiures in 21FGBF., the divorce
rate has continued to rise, and now over 2./,333
divorces are ranted every year. #t is necessary to e&amine the other reasons that have been used
to e&plain the rise in divorce. The first of these is the economic factor. 8ouples can now afford
divorce more easily than at any time in the past. ) straihtforward ?do'it'yourself divorce on the
rounds of separation with consent costs less than H/3. #t is the complicated and bitter wranles
over children and property which produce the lare leal bills. Those with low incomes can use
the @eal )id Scheme to cover most of their costs. The financial conse:uences of a divorce are
also more easily affordable. The rise in incomes and the increased opportunities for married or
divorced women to o out to work do enable both parties to a divorce to make a livin. The
rowth in home ownership means that there may be a profit on the sale of the house that can be
shared by the partners. The partners may then have to move to smaller accommodation, or
perhaps approach the local authority for help with council housin. The social security system
will help maintain the income of those unable to o back to work straiht away, for e&ample a
youn mother. =avin said that divorce is now affordable, it must also be said that divorce must
involve an economic loss, and for many families it is an
economic disaster.
(ne'parent families created by divorce often
slide into poverty. The break'up of a family shows more
clearly than anythin else the economic function of the
family. The other major reason for an increase in the
divorce rate is concerned with our chanin attitude to marriae. The traditional 8hristian
approach to marriae has been, and to some e&tent still is, opposed to divorce. SeculariCation has
weakened our attachment to the reliious view of marriae as bein a union for life. There are
now almost e:ual numbers of civil marriaes in reistry offices as there are reliious marriaes
in churches or other reliious buildins. The result is that the break'up of a marriae is seen less
as a moral crisis and more as a matter of personal happiness. %uch of the stima has now one
from divorce.
%arriae is now viewed as part of the individuals search for happiness. The ideal
marriae is seen to be a balance of romantic love and ood practical housekeepin. The
breakdown of the marriae is to be seen as a loss of happiness, and the decision to divorce is
taken in the liht of what is best for the couple and any children. *erhaps socioloists have asked
the wron :uestions. Iather than concentratin on why there are divorces, socioloists could
spend more time lookin at marriae. The important :uestion may well be why do we marry the
people we do, and why do we stay married to them.
Vo,+n*+ n ).+ fa1,2
4iolence is one of the main dysfunctional aspects of family life. %any murders and a
hih proportion of physical assaults take place within the family. Family violence is larely
directed aainst wives and children.
Ba))+r+! 3v+-
The socioloist lookin at the violence directed at wives needs to ask three :uestions.
=ow much violence is there in marriae? What causes this violence? Why do physically abused
wives stay in violent marriaes? #t is not easy to find the answers to these :uestions as so much
violence is hidden. Women who have been abused e&perience fear, shame, and a sense of
deradation. The public admission of the violence present in their marriae would make them
feel a stron sense of failure. 7stimates on the e&tent of
violence in the family vary widely and depend on whether
you include the ?milder cases of slappin, pushin, and
rabbin. %arsden and (wens ;21F/< suest that
perhaps one in a hundred marriaes in the Jnited
Kindom is violent, a total of some 2.3,333 marriaes.
(ther research suests that perhaps half of the batterin
husbands and a :uarter of the wives had come from
homes where there had been violence. Their reaction to stress would often take a violent form.
Some women knowinly married a violent man, hopin to reform him throuh marriae. The
e&perience and e&ample of violence as a child may ive a wife such a neative self'imae that
she comes to accept a subordinate place in marriae. 5ut many battered wives come from a
normal, non'violent family backround and miht be e&pected to leave a violent husband. Fear
and the threat of economic hardship if she leaves, keep her with her husband. 5ut many other
wives continue to hope that their husbands will chane and that the batterin will stop. 5attered
wives have not always had the support from family, friends, or the welfare services when they
most needed help. Friends may not believe their accounts or may somehow think that they were
at fault. Wives may not want to o to the police for help and, in any case, the police are relatively
ineffective unless the wife is willin to take leal proceedins aainst her husband. There has
been a rowth in voluntary support for the battered wife. %uch of this has been self'help within
the womens movement. 5ritain now has several hundred refues where women can escape from
a violent marriae. The womens movement works in another area of violent behavior, se&ual
assault. Iape 8risis centres, althouh mainly dealin with se&ual assaults outside the family, do
help with se&ual assault within a marriae. The issues of rape within marriae, and also the other
major area of se&ual violence, incest, raise uncomfortable :uestions about the family. Feminists
are probably riht to arue that such issues can only be resolved when there is a more e:ual
power relationship within the family.
C.,! a4"-+
*hysical, se&ual, and psycholoical violence directed aainst children is the second
?dark area of family life. (nce aain it is a difficult
area to investiate. Do parent wants to admit that
they have mistreated their child. What is
mistreatment? Society ives parents the riht to
control their own children but fails to write the rules
to overn the relationship. 7ven the best parents find
themselves havin to hold back stron feelins of
aner and frustration at their children, and sometimes
fear that they will lose control. #n order to appear in
the statistics on child abuse, cases need to be
identified as such by doctors, hospital staff, or social
workers. Some children may be spotted by health
visitors, social workers, or teachers as bein at risk. Such children may be put on the ?at risk
reister or placed under a care order. 5ut there is always the chance that children at risk may slip
throuh the net and appear as another traic victim of family violence. The press are :uick to
ive publicity to any case which shows that the social services or health authority have failed to
protect or help a youn child. The most recent evidence on the scale and causes of violence
aainst children comes from the Dational Society for the *revention of 8ruelty to 8hildren
;8reihton 21A.<. The evidence for this study was taken from the 0,/G- notified cases of child
abuse, or serious risk of abuse, which were reported by the DS*88 Special Jnits in the period
21FF to 21A-. The DS*88 reister cases of abuse under four criteria. These are physical injury,
physical nelect, failure to thrive and emotional abuse, and livin in the same household as a
person previously involved in child abuse.
The majority of children who died in suspicious circumstances appear to have died as a
result of a sinle assault on them. ) study of newspaper reports also shows a number of cases
each year of family murders, often followed by the suicide of the remainin adult. The majority
of children received soft tissue injuries only, i.e. bruises, welts, cuts, and burns. Tale 2 shows
that there is a downward trend in the percentae of fatal and serious injuries, from 20.A per cent
of physically injured children in 21FF to 23.2 per cent in 21A-. =owever, there has been an
increase in the number of moderately injured. The second set of findins concerns the children
most likely to be injured. The younest ae roups, boys, low birth weiht children, and
illeitimate children were all over'represented amon those children injured. The child under a
year old is most vulnerable. #njury and nelect
are bound to have a major impact at this ae.
8hildren deprived of the riht physical and
emotional environment will not thrive. 9ender
is also a key variable. 5oys outnumber irls in
most cases of abuse. #t is only in se&ual abuse
cases that irls are in a majority, where they are
four times more likely to be the victim than
boys. The third set of findins concerns the
social characteristics of the family, and the
effect that the family environment has on the
child. There was an over'representation of
parents from semi'skilled and unskilled
occupations, the lowest socio'economic roups.
Jnemployment rates were risin in the period
of the study and can be e&pected to have hit this
roup hardest. The parents involved were clearly distinuished from others with this backround
by their early entry into parenthood, their marital instability, and their larer'than averae
families. Dearly half the fathers had criminal records, often involvin a disturbin amount of
violence. These families proved to be less settled than the averae, and had moved home more
fre:uently.
#t is clear that these are families under reat stress. The causes of the stress are very
comple&. The DS*88 report says that the most fre:uently :uoted stress factors were marital
discord, unemployment of the main breadwinner, and financial problems. These may be
associated with a fourth factor, poor parental self'esteem. ) socioloical approach to these
findins raises a number of issues. To what e&tent is child abuse associated with social class?
This must involve us in a debate over the meanin of the statistics. The socioloical criticism of
the nature of statistics has been well illustrated in fields such as the study of deviance, or the
socioloy of health. Fiures on child abuse are also socially constructed. They may
underestimate the scale of violence amon middle'class families. 7ach case depends on some
e&pert, for instance a doctor in a casualty department, labellin a particular child as a victim of
abuse. Such socioloical caution about the nature of these statistics should not be seen to detract
from the sinificance of this DS*88 report. 4iolence aainst children is a major social problem.
The solution to the problem is seen by the community to be intervention by social work aencies.
Socioloists are interested in these points of intervention by the state, because they reflect the
current ideoloy of the family. This theme will be taken up in the final chapter.
On+50ar+n) fa1,+-
The third major area of concern over the health of the family looks at the one'parent
family. (ne in eiht families in 5ritain is a one'parent family. There is public concern because
of an apparently rapid increase in this form of family.
5etween 21F2 and 21A2 the number of lone parents
increased by over F3 per cent, and the number of children
in one parent families by 0- per cent, from 2 million to 2.0
million. The involvement of so many children makes this
type of family an important social policy issue. The one'
parent family is often viewed as a patholoical form, an
unfortunate and deviant structure which reflects both
individual and communal failure. This viewpoint has led
to a concentration on two issues in particular, the illeitimate birth and the family broken by
divorce. =owever as Lackson ;21A-< points out, there are several different types of one'parent
family. Dor should they always be seen as failures. The formation of a one'parent family can be
a very positive step, often markin the move away from unhappy or harmful relationships.
5ereavement, divorce, cohabitation, and births outside marriae are all key factors in the
creation of one'parent families. Such families are often a temporary stae between the break'up
of one family and the formation of another by remarriae. This movement in and out of one
parent families means that far more people have e&perienced this situation than the fiures
suest. *opay ;21AG< estimates that over 2- per cent of all children have at one time lived in a
one'parent family.
#n the years 21F1BA2 some 22.1 per cent of families in 5ritain with children were one'
parent families. (f these, AF.. per cent were headed by a woman and 2-.0 per cent by men.
Lackson ;21A-< points out some of the issues involved. The traditional socialiCation of irls
means that in some ways women are better at handlin the practical problems of childcare and
housework. They may also develop an e&tremely close emotional bond with their children, a
relationship that may come to dominate their social life.
5ut women are clearly at an economic disadvantae in
a society where the state assumes a man will head the
family as breadwinner. (ur economic life limits the
possibilities of a lone mother earnin a ood income
while continuin to look after her children. There are,
of course, e&ceptions. The sinle parent with a
professional career may be able to afford to buy in
help, for e&ample a nanny.
%ore attention is now bein paid to the
situation of one'parent families which are headed by a
man. (ut of 1F/,333 one'parent families in 9reat
5ritain in 21A2, appro&imately 223,333 were headed by
men. #t is thouht that about half of these families were
the result of the death of the wife, and half were the
result of marital failure. The number of widowers in
this roup raised the averae ae of these male sinle
parents to forty'five years, considerably hiher than the fiure for women. These fathers looked
after about 2A/,333 children, 1/ per cent of whom were of school ae. Fathers face particular
problems as sinle parents. (ur society e&pects men to work, and does not e&pect them to have
their workin life disrupted by the need to care for a sick child, or a visit to the dentist. Some
men may be able to afford to pay for help in the home or with the children, but many will not.
Some men have the e&perience or skills to look after youn children or do the housework, but
many do not, althouh they can learn. =owever, there may be opposition to them takin on this
family role, particularly if their children are very youn or are of the opposite se&. Some men
will have to fiht for their riht to look after their children, rather than see them o into care or to
a relative. Sinle parenthood for a man may have to be a deliberate and positive choice.
Con*,"-on
)t various times, individuals or roups have tried to move the family in a specific
direction of development. Such attempts have had a limited success. )ny attempt to chane the
family has to come to terms with how the state views the role of the family. The family e&ists
within the framework of institutions and power roups that control the political life of society.
The state has policies which help shape the family system. This does not stop the family from
chanin or evolvin into new forms. #t is at least possible to identify some of the forces that
may in the future shape the development of the family.
The family is definitely the most important institution of the society. =owever, the
special thin about it is that it does not have to be scientifically proven in order to work. #t does
not rely on laws and e&planations. #t just works on the basic principles. Do matter how much the
socioloists will try to make it work, they will fail, as they failed until now, and continue to fail.
5ritish families are facin an unfavorable ae, with many problems. %oreover, the future
is not very promisin. =owever, the interest they show in savin family life could be their road
to a brihter future, with happy parents, raisin happy children.
BIBLIOGRAPH6
2. Wilson, )drian, *#C+,T- .#/0 123+4-, Iutlede, -333E
-. Dewbrook, Lacky, .,/ 56#1+C+,.C- 7#48, @onman, -33FE
G. %c6owal, 6avid, B6+T2+. +. C4#*,$95, @onman, 2111E
.. Sharman, 7liCabeth, 2C6#** C94T96,*, *earson @onman, -33.E
/. MMM#:1#68 79+8, T# B6+T+*; 2.8 23,6+C2. C94T96,, (J*, 2111E
0. http>NNlibrary.nuE