Urban Industrial Families The History of the Family

The Vanier Institute of the Family- Definition of the Family Family is defined as any combination of two or more persons who are bound together over time by ties of mutual consent, birth, and/or adoption/placement, and who, together, assume responsibilities for variant combinations of some of the following: Physical maintenance and care of group members; Addition of new members through procreation or adoption Socialization of children Social control of members Production, consumption, and distribution of good and services Affective nurturance-love

The Industrial Revolution

Families are responsible for the addition of new members through reproduction.

Transition from producers to consumers The stereotype of the nuclear family (2-3 children) The passing on of the family name instead of survival

Families provide physical care for their members, including the adults, their children, and the dependant elderly members.

Pre-Industrial Industrial Physical violence used to maintain obedience Families far from medical care Could not afford medicine Families could afford medical care Greater chance all children would survive Families were within reach of medical care

Families socialize children by teaching them the skills, knowledge, values, and attitudes of their society.

parents taught children their place in future home role separation prepared around this time daughters: taught how to maintain household sons: taught to farm

Families are responsible for controlling the behaviour of their members to maintain order within the family and within the society in which they live.

Men worked to provide money for the family, and main discipliner of the family. Women worked at home supported by their husband, their roles were motherhood and taking care of the household. Children, education became more important, and so did them having a childhood. Not recommended to work at a young age.

Families maintain morale and motivate individuals to participate in society.

Ideal of affective nurturance- which survives till today- became the justification for familial equipment. Women were idealized as emotionally supportive, loving, nurturing figures for the men and children of their family. Women found this role constraining and gradually threw this off in second and third wave feminist movements. Children were nurtured and loved, as opposed to seen as economic necessities for farming; childhood and adolescence were “invented”.

Families perform the economic function of producing and consuming goods and service.

The family lost considerable autonomy in the meeting of its needs in the advent of the industrial , urban economy. Families were no longer producers- only consumers. Labor moved from the home to outside the home, where individuals sold their labor to earn a wage for survival. Initially every family member worked- including children. The consumer family: a family in which the husband was the exclusive provider . Urban industrial economy grew in complexity- individuals now sell time and skills to produce goods and provide services; individuals purchase these goods and services.