Marriage and The Nuclear Family

Extract 1 : Marriage and the nuclear family.
Extract 2 : Same-sex Marriage: To Be or Not To Be?
Extract 3 : Alternatives to Marriage and Conclusion.

Marriage and the Nuclear Family

"Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove…"

William Shakespeare 1

Farewell to the Family?2

"Not only has there never been an open, democratic society not based on the family, there has never been any society of any sort not based on the family."3

The permissive reforms of the 60's were superficial in their acceptance of sexual deviance; they implicitly endorsed the nuclear family as the ideal family unit and brought about a binary 'externality and constraint' of morality through the 'indexical' qualities of the family.4 The post war social reconstruction saw a renewed desire to consolidate family life and make marriage and the home the keystone of society.5 Weiss asserts that family life increasingly becomes organised around marriage, rather than parenthood, as a direct consequence of capitalism.6 In fact the rise of capitalism has the reverse effect, as well as contributing to the demise of the family, along with changing attitudes to the function of the family. This is clearly evidenced by the fact that homosexual relationships are becoming increasingly accepted by (predominantly Western) society.
There is no statutory or common law definition of 'family', and the only judicial statement coming close to a legal definition was that made by the court in Sefton Holdings v Cairns 7, where it was said that there is a distinction between being a member of a family and living as one 8, but the only determination could be a common sense perception of what a family was - the view that "the man in the street would take.9" Fineman identifies the parent-child relationship as the "core of the basic family paradigm,…[providing] the structural and ideological basis for the transfer of current societal subsidies (both material and ideological) away from the sexual family to nurturing units.10" Although Morgan11 sees the consequences of this to society as being "dire", the reality is that it will actually benefit society by its inherent pluralistic character. It is hoped that the (near) future will see the a family that "does not have to establish its credentials, its origins, its sources - it just is whatever it is."12 The search for individual autonomy and fulfilment that is the product of modern individualistic, hedonistic culture, has tended to corrode and possibly undermine the traditional nuclear family13 and the recognition of same-sex marriage is one of the most topical issues in contemporary family law and society.

  1. Quoted in Bennion "Spouses, Partners and Parenting" (1999) 149 New Law Journal 1701[^ Return]
  2. Levy 'Feminism and Freedom' quoted in Morgan (1995) 'Farewell to the Family? Public Policy and Family Breakdown in Britain and the USA', IEA Health and Welfare Unit, London[^ Return]
  3. Morgan ibid.[^ Return]
  4. See Jordan, Redley & James (eds.) (1994) 'Putting the Family First: identities, decisions, citizenship', UCL Press[^ Return]
  5. See Finch and Summerfield "Social Reconstruction and the Emergence of Companionate Marriage, 1945-59" in Allan (ed.) (1999) 'The Sociology of the Family: A Reader', Blackwell[^ Return]
  6. Weiss breaks this down into five categories: increased affluence, increased reliability of income, longer schooling, widespread distribution of contraceptives, and the development of an ethic of self-realisation in Weiss "Marriage and the Family in the Near Future" in Elliott K. (ed.) (1970) 'The Family and its Future', London, J & A Churchill[^ Return]
  7. [1988] 2 FLR 109[^ Return]
  8. Further to the distinction made in Joram Developments Ltd. v Sharratt [1979] 1 WLR 928, between being a member of a family and a member of a household.[^ Return]
  9. Per Lloyd LJ at p. 112[^ Return]
  10. Fineman (1995) 'The Neutered Mother, the Sexual Family and Other Twentieth Century Tragedies', cited in Diduck and Kaganas (1999) 'Family Law, Gender and the State: Text, Cases and Materials', Oxford, Hart Publishing[^ Return]
  11. Supra. n. 1[^ Return]
  12. O'Donovan (1993) 'Family Law Matters', London, Pluto Press[^ Return]
  13. See Weeks, Heaphy and Donovan "Families of Choice: Autonomy and Mutuality in Non-Heterosexual Relationships" in McRae (ed.) (1999) 'Changing Britain; Families and Households in the 1990s', Oxford University Press[^ Return]

Extract 1 : Marriage and the nuclear family.
Extract 2 : Same-sex Marriage: To Be or Not To Be?
Extract 3 : Alternatives to Marriage and Conclusion.

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