Continue!! (I love family!~)

A number of changes have taken place, such as the rise in the number of same-sex couples and of lone parents. these have resulted in families becoming much more diverse.However Somerville (2000) argues that these changes are exaggerated. The apparent diversity of family life is based on a snapshot at any one time and, if a life cycle approach is taken, many people have a fairly conventional experience of the family.

e) Use material from Item 2B and elsewhere, assess the view that the nuclear family is no longer the norm. Tranditionally,nuclear family,which is consist of a married couple and two children who are the couple's biological offspring, is considered as universal which fits every family well by Murdock and also supported by the New Right as the Bedrock of Society. However,from the item 2B,we can see there is a rise in the number of lesbian,gay family and lone parents which is against the nuclear family. Furthermore,Susan MacRae made an introduction in 1999 that Britain today is a more complex society than before, with great family diversity: one-person family,cohabitation,lone-parent family and same-sex couples. In fact,we can see it as a result of changes in society of social construction,social value and social policy. Firstly,since the society converted to industrial society, the labour market is expanded and the types of jobs have changed with an increase number of service jobs which requires more women to work. Therefore,women were changing their attitudes and increasingly aimed for occupations which is found by Francis&Skelton. With the increasing independence and confidence suggested by Sharpe,they have the ability to divorce or bring up children by themselves. Besides,as Allan and Crow says,the improving technology in health care as contraception makes couples possible to cohabit without the fears of having babies which may encourages the number of cohabitation. Nextly,divorce becomes more socially acceptable and the increasing divorce rates led the normalisation of divorce as a good means to deal with unhappy marriage indicated by Cockett&Tripp. Some people argued that a decilne in nuclear family meaned a breakdown of tranditional values on marriage and love. But in fact,because some couples expect too much on the marriage,they are less likely to bear the unhappiness and easy to divorce or choose cohabitation as the alternative from the view of Fletcher&Parsons. Another similar view which see overloading marriage lead to the breakdown of nuclear family because of the over-dependence and too much demand of emotion support is cited by Coontz.What's more,the changes of social policy also affect the family structure very much. For example,government provides lots of welfare benefits to single mothers which encourages women to divorce. Besides,the simplified procedure of divorce made it easier and quicker to separate from the partners such as the Divorce Reform Act. Lastly,both the Act of Parliament in 2002 which made it legal for same-sex couples to adopt children and the Civil Partnership Act in UK in 2005 which gave identical rights to same-sex couples to marry increase the number of same-sex family. However,although there is an increasing trend in family diversity and it's supported by Postmodernest like Stacey who viewed it as suitable to the changing society to meet the demands of different kinds of people,the changes may have been exaggerated suggested by Somevill in the item B and some functionalists like Chester. Even though the increase in family types is obvious,the nuclear family remains the dominant family structure. Furthermore,Chester pointed out that the nuclear family is becoming more symmetrical (Willmott&Young) which fits the society better than before.