Abstract
There have been three major contributions within Marxism to the study of the family: the classic texts of Marx and Engels, the work of the Frankfurt School and the responses of contemporary Marxists to the challenge of the women’s movement. Each of these phases has been characterised by different concepts and different concerns. In reviewing these approaches, with particular reference to the relationship between the family and capitalism, I shall make the following points. Firstly, that the methodological problem for Marxism of satisfactorily relating base and superstructure has had serious consequences for the study of the’ family which has generally either fallen into economic reductionism or laid excessive emphasis upon the role of the family as an ideological institution, failing to root this adequately in its material activities. Similarly, it has been difficult to avoid functionalist formulations in analysing the family. Secondly, that despite the weaknesses of the domestic labour debate, a Marxist account of the family in capitalist society must rest upon a materialist analysis of domestic labour and that the socialisation of children is its central component and main contribution to the maintenance of capitalist social relations. Thirdly, that we must examine the relationship of both the bourgeoisie and the proletariat to the family, recognising that the relationship of each is a contradictory one and that the interests of the two are not wholly incompatible with each other but overlap in certain important ways. Fourthly, I shall examine certain neglected aspects of the relationship between the processes of socialisation and the institutions of capitalist society whose study may lead to a more satisfactory theorisation of the family and capitalism.
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Notes and References
Michele Barrett, Women’s Oppression Today, London: Verso, 1980, ch. 6
Felicity Edholm, ‘The Unnatural Family’ in Elizabeth Whitelegg et. al., (eds), The Changing Experience of Women, Oxford, Martin Robertson/Open University, 1982
Rosalind Coward, ‘Sexual Liberation’ and the Family’, mlf, no. 1, 1978, pp. 7–24
Parveen Adams and Jeff Minson, ‘The ‘Subject’ of Feminism’, mlf, no. 2, 1978, pp. 43–61
Colin Creighton, ‘Family, Property and Relations of Production in Western Europe’, Economy and Society, vol. 9, no. 2, 1980, pp. 129–67.
Mica Nava, ‘From Utopian to Scientific Feminism?: Early Feminist Critiques of the Family’ in Lynne Segal (ed.), What Is To Be Done About the Family? Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1983, pp. 85–6.
Karl Marx, Early Writings (intro by L. Colletti), Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1975, esp. pp. 166–7.
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works, vol. I, Moscow, Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1962, pp. 50–1.
Karen Sacks, ‘Engels Revisited: Women, the Organisation of Production, and Private Property’ in Michelle Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere (eds), Woman, Culture and Society, Stanford, Calif., University Press, 1974
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Kate Young and Olivia Harris, ‘The Subordination of Women in Cross-Cultural Perspective’ in Papers on Patriarchy Conference, London, Women’s Publishing Collective, 1976
Rayna Reiter, ‘The Search for Origins’, Critique of Anthropology, vol. 3, nos 9 & 10, 1977, pp. 5–24
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Rosalind Coward, Patriarchal Precedents, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983, esp. ch. 5.
The contention that Engels was wrong to deny that the sexual division of labour in early societies was oppressive of women has been challenged by Eleanor Leacock, ‘Class, Commodity and the Status of Women’ in Ruby Rohrlich-Leavitt (ed.), Women Cross-Culturally: Change and Challenge, The Hague, Mouton Press, 1975
and by Mina Davis Caulfield, ‘Equality, Sex and Mode of Production’ in Gerald Berreman (ed.), Social Inequality: Comparative and Developmental Approaches, London, Academic Press, 1981.
Chris Middleton, ‘Sexual Inequality and Stratification Theory’ in Frank Parkin (ed.), The Social Analysis of Class Structure, London, Tavistock Publications, 1974
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Ann Foreman, Feminity as Alienation, London, Pluto Press, 1977.
Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, London, Heinemann, 1973, chs 3, 4 and 7
David Held, Introduction to Critical Theory, London, Hutchinson, 1980, ch. 4.
Louis Althusser, ‘Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses’ in Lenin and Philosophy, London, New Left Books, 1971.
Christopher Lasch, Haven in a Heartless World, N.Y., Basic Books, 1977
Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism, N.Y., W.W. Norton, 1978
Michele Barrett and Mary McIntosh, The Anti-social Family, London, Verso, 1982, pp. 105–30.
To follow the evolution of the domestic labour debate see: Margaret Benston, ‘The Political Economy of Women’s Liberation’, Monthly Review, vol. 21, 1969, pp. 13–23
Peggy Morton, ‘A Woman’s Work Is Never Done’, Leviathan, May 1970
reprinted in Ellen Malos (ed.), The Politics of Housework, London, Allison & Busby, 1980
Mariarosa Dalla Costa and Selma James, The Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community, Bristol, Falling Wall Press, 1972
Lise Vogel, ‘The Earthly Family’, Radical America, vol. 7, July—Oct. 1973, pp. 9–50
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John Harrison, ‘The Political Economy of Housework’, Bulletin of the Conference of Socialist Economists, Winter, 1973, pp. 35–52
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Jean Gardiner, Women’s Domestic Labour’, New Left Review, no. 89, 1975, pp. 47–58
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Wally Seccombe, ‘Domestic Labour: Reply to Critics’, New Left Review, no. 94, 1975, pp. 85–96
Jean Gardiner, Susan Himmelweit and Maureen Mackintosh, Women’s Domestic Labour’, Bulletin of the Conference of Socialist Economists, vol. Iv, June 1975; (reprinted in On the Political Economy of Women, CSE pamphlet, no. 2, London, Stage One, 1976 )
Jean Gardiner, ‘The Political Economy of Domestic Labour in Capitalist Society’ in Diana Leonard Barker and Sheila Allen (eds), Dependence and Exploitation in Work and Marriage, London, Longman, 1976
Terry Fee, ‘Domestic Labour: an Analysis of Housework and Its Relation to the Production Process’, Rev. of Radical Political Economy, vol. 8, 1976, pp. 1–8
Olivia Adamson, Carol Brown, Judith Harrison and Judy Price, Women’s Oppression under Capitalism’, Revolutionary Communist, no. 5, 1976, pp. 2–48
Susan Himmelweit and Simon Mohun, ‘Domestic Labour and Capital’, Cambridge Jnl Economics, no. 1, 1977, pp. 15–31
Joan Landes, ‘Women, Labor and Family Life: a Theoretical Perspective’, Science and Society, vol. 41, 1977–78, pp. 386–409
Paul Smith, ‘Domestic Labour and Marx’s Theory of Value’ in Annette Kuhn and Ann Marie Wolpe (eds), Feminism and Materialism, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978
Maxine Molyneux, ‘Beyond the Domestic Labour Debate’, New Left Review, no. 116, 1979, pp. 3–27
Maureen Mackintosh, ‘Domestic Labour and the Household’ in Sandra Burman (ed.), Fit Work for Women, London, Croom Helm, 1979
Bonnie Fox (ed.), Hidden in the Household, Toronto: The Women’s Press, 1980
M. Barrett, op. cit., chs 5 and 6; Nancy Holmstrom, ‘ “Women’s Work”, The Family and Capitalism’, Science and Society, vol. 41, 1977–78, pp. 186–211.
Molyneux, op. cit.; see also Irene Breugel, ‘What Keeps the Family Going?’, International Socialism, series 2, no. 1, 1978.
Fee, op. cit., pp. 5–6; M. Carter, ‘Housework under Capitalism — Wally Seccombe’, Revolutionary Communist, no. 2, 1975, cited in Himmelweit and Mohun, op. cit., p. 23
Helen Saffiotti, ‘Women, Mode of Production and Social Formations’, Latin American Perspectives, vol. iv, issues 12 and 13, 1977, p. 32.
Mina Davis Caulfield, ‘Imperialism, the Family and Cultures of Resistance’, Socialist Revolution, no. 20, 1974, pp. 67–85
Jane Humphries, ‘Class Struggle and the Persistence of the Working Class Family’, Cambridge Jnl of Economics, vol. 1, no. 3, 1977, pp. 241–58.
Molyneux, op. cit., p. 4. It should be pointed out, however, that not all discussions of domestic labour have been as economistic as the ‘domestic labour debate’ proper. A number of writers have drawn attention to the emotional aspects of women’s unpaid work in the home, e.g. Sheila Rowbotham, Woman’s Consciousness, Man’s World, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1973, chs 4 and 5; Foreman, op. cit.; Brengel, op. cit. Their attention, however, has been concentrated upon the ‘repair’ work on the husband.
Juliet Mitchell, Psychoanalysis and Feminism, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1975
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Heidi Hartmann, ‘Capitalism, Patriarchy and Job Segregation by Sex’ in ibid.; Heidi Hartmann, ‘The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism’, Capital and Class, no. 8, 1979, pp. 1–33
reprinted in Lydia’ Sargent (ed.), The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism, London, Pluto Press, 1981.
Felicity Edholm, Olivia Harris and Kate Young, ‘Conceptualising Women’, Critique of Anthropology, nos 9 & 10, 1977, pp. 101–30.
Dorothy Smith, ‘Women, Class and Family’ in Ralph Miliband and John Saville (eds), The Socialist Register 1983, London, The Merlin Press, 1983, p. 2.
Jack Goody, Joan Thirsk and E.P. Thompson, Family and Inheritance, Cambridge: University Press, 1976
Conrad Arensberg and Solon Kimball, Family and Community in Ireland, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1940
Sidney Painter, ‘The Family and the Feudal System in Twelfth Century England’, Speculum, vol. xxxv, 1960, pp. 1–16
Joan Thirsk, ‘Younger Sons in the Seventeenth Century’, History vol. i v, 1969, pp. 358–77
W. Goldschmidt and E.J. Kunkel, ‘The Structure of the Peasant Family’, American Anthropologist, vol. 73, 1971, pp. 1058–76. For a discussion of inheritance practices in relation to family structure and relations of production, and for further references, see C. Creighton, op. cit.
W. Kula, ‘The Seigneury and the Peasant Family in Eighteenth Century Poland’ in R. Forster and O. Ranum (eds), Family and Society, Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press, 1976
Marc Bloch, Feudal Society, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1961, pp. 263, 267.
Veronica Beechey, ‘On patriarchy’, Feminist Review, no. 3, 1979, pp. 72–6.
Ibid., pp. 76–80; Steve Burniston, Frank Mort, Christine Weedon, ‘Psychoanalysis and the Cultural Acquisition of Sexuality and Subjectivity’ in Women Take Issue; Barrett, op. cit., pp. 10–29; Sargent, op. cit., passim.
Mark Cousins, ‘Material Arguments and Feminism’, mlf, no. 2, 1978, p. 63.
For assessments of the work of the Frankfurt School on the family, see M. Jay, op. cit., passim; D. H. J. Morgan, Social Theory and the Family, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975, ch. 6
Phil Slater, Origin and Significance of the Frankfurt School: a Marxist Perspective, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977, ch. 4
C. Lasch, Haven, pp. 85–96; Jessica Benjamin. Lasch, Haven, pp. 85–96; Jessica Benjamin, ‘Authority and the Family Revisited: or, A World without Fathers?’, New German Critique, vol. 13, 1978, pp. 35–57
Mark Poster, Critical Theory of the Family, London, Pluto Press, 1978, ch. 2
D. Held, op. cit.; ch. 4; T.M. Norton, ‘Contemporary Critical Theory and the Family. Private World and Public Crisis’ in Jean Bethke Elshtain (ed.), The Family in Political Thought, Brighton, Harvester Press, 1982.
Sidney Pollard, The Genesis of Modern Management, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1968, ch. 5
E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class, London, Gollancz, 1963, chs 11 and 12
Harold Perkin, The Origins of English Society, 1780–1880, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969, pp. 380–407.
L. Althusser, op. cit.; Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976.
The Factories’, Westminster Rev., vol. 26, 1836, pp. 174–215, repr. In Victorian Social Conscience, Working Conditions in the Victorian Age (intro. by John Saville), Farnborough, Gregg International Publications, 1973.
Ivy Pinchbeck and Margaret Hewitt, Children in English Society vol. ii, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973, ch. 16.
A.F. Young and E.T. Ashton, British Social Work in the Nineteenth Century, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1956, p. 128.
There have been few Marxist contributions to the study of moral development other than those who, like the Frankfurt School, take their departure from Freud. The major non-Marxist, non-Freudian approaches in this field are the cognitive developmental perspective, as represented by Piaget and by Kohlberg, and the social-learning perspective. For discussions of these, see Lawrence Kohlberg, ‘Development of Moral Character and Moral Ideology’ in M. L. Hoffman and L. W. Hoffman (eds), Review of Child Development Research, vol. 1, N. Y., Russell Sage Foundation, 1964
Eleanor Maccoby, ‘The Development of Moral Values and Behaviour in Children’ in John Clausen et al. (eds), Socialization and Society, Boston, Little, Brown, 1968
L. Kohlberg and R. Kramer, ‘Continuities and Discontinuities in Childhood and Adult Moral Development’, Human Development, vol. 12, 1969, pp. 93–120
L. Kohlberg, ‘Stage and Sequence: the Cognitive-Developmental Approach to Socialization’ in D. A. Goslin (ed.), Handbook of Socialisation Theory and Research, Chicago, Rand McNally, 1969
Martin L. Hoffman, ‘Moral Development’ in P.H. Mussen (ed.), Carmichael’s Manual of Child Psychology, vol. 2, N.Y., John Wiley, 1970
Kohlberg, ‘Continuities in Childhood and Adult Moral Development Revisited’ in P. Baltes and K. W. Schaie (eds), Life-Span Developmental Psychology, N.Y. and London, Academic Press, 1973. Habermas has recently engaged with Kohlberg, see his ‘Moral Development and Ego Identity’ in Jurgen Habermas, Communication and the Evolution of Society, London, Heinemann, 1979. It is important to bear in mind that Kohlberg’s work relates to moral judgements rather than to moral behaviour.
The history of both education and family life shows that the bourgeoisie have always strongly opposed any significant exercise of working-class independence. See e.g. Brian Simon, Studies in the History of Education, 1780–1870, London, Lawrence & Wishart, 1960
Richard Johnson, ‘Education and Social Control in Early Victorian England’, Past and Present, no. 49, 1970, pp. 96–119
Simon Frith, ‘Socialization and Rational Schooling: Elementary Education in Leeds before 1870’, in Phillip McCann (ed.), Popular education and socialization in the nineteenth century, London, Methuen, 1977
A.P. Donajgrodski (ed.), Social Control in Nineteenth Century Britain, London, Croom Helm, 1977.
These have invariably been rigid and relatively authoritarian institutions. For an account of the inherent obstacles to liberalising them, see Max Jaggi, Roger Muller and Sil Schmid, Red Bologna, London, Writers and Readers Pub. Coop., 1977, pp. 133–58.
Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1976, chs 10 and 15
Anna Davin, ‘Imperialism and Motherhood’, History Workshop no. 5, Spring 1978, pp. 9–65.
Robert Lane, ‘Waiting For Lefty: the Capitalist Genesis of Socialist Man’, Theory and Society, vol. 6, 1978, pp. 1–28.
J. Humphries, ‘Class Struggle and the Persistence of the Working-Class Family’, Camb. Jnl Econ., vol. 1, 1977, pp. 241–58.
See also M.D. Caulfield, ‘Imperialism, the Family and Cultures of Resistance’, Socialist Revolution, no. 20, 1974, pp. 67–85.
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Creighton, C. (1985). The Family and Capitalism in Marxist Theory. In: Shaw, M. (eds) Marxist Sociology Revisited. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17912-1_6
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