LEE MORGAN – STUDYING SOCIETY ASSIGNMENT – COMPULSORY
EXAMINE HOW THE BRITISH FAMILY HAS CHANGED IN THE LAST 50 YEARS
This essay will highlight and understand the mechanism of the post-war ‘Traditional Family’ unit. It will uncover and examine the values of today’s ‘Modern Family’, followed by a discussion on how these two very different ideals concerning the same basic principle came about.
Although there is no solitary concept of the term ‘family’ since there is no one single model of it, the expression ‘family’ is engaged here for the purpose of defining the more commonly understood definition of the ‘living unit’, either all residing under one roof or living apart. This ‘unit’, the family has the common bond of blood or marriage binding them together.
The ‘traditional family’ was as stable a unit as might have been found in 1950’s Britain. And even though this is now becoming a thing of the past, there are those who would prefer to hang on to this autocratic institution.
There was something to be said for those close-knit Communities of post-war Britain. The methods those people adhered to, and their economic survival techniques were second to none. Even so, this life of stability was brought to its knees at the stroke of a pen with the introduction of the State Welfare Benefit System.
The stability offered through such close-knit communities was comforting – albeit with hints that it could also be stifling. A person born into such a setting would almost certainly have had the security and support that was so important for that persons’ survival at that time.
They would have had family, friends and the Church – the Community as a whole would have been there to support them from day one. Even so, this was a forced situation that few had the chance to escape.
The roles within the traditional family were clearly defined from an early age. The father made most, if not all of the decisions affecting the unit. He was the one who provided the means of survival. The father was the omnipotent one within the home. His word was Law.
The mother’s role was primarily child-bearer and carer of the children. She cooked the meals and was responsible for the housework. The children, as outlined above, were there to ensure the continued blood-line and to work.
The traditional family conceived of many offspring, for a number of reasons, but two in particular are of importance to this essay…children were planned with a specific agenda in mind.
The children were basically alive so as to 1) ensure, as far as possible, the longevity of the family blood-line, and 2) so that they could be put to work for the family business,
in whatever form that took, in order to maintain the steady supply of necessary produce or some other survival-related income.
This style of life brought with it its own consequences. Obviously, the more children being born and out at work created the foundation for higher mortality rates than would otherwise have been the case.
The child birth and mortality rates for the previous 50 years are displayed below:-
1).
Trends in birth rates; infant, childhood and crude mortality rates, UK.
2).
Office of Health and Economics website
The main real external influence affecting the lives of the post-war family was the Church. And given that only about 5% of Britain’s population claim to have no religion at all, it is hardly surprising that the Church was so influential in the post-war era. GIDDENS, A. (2001).
There was no real freedom of choice for the individual. Indeed, there was very little by way of individuality at all.
The 1950’s traditional family community was a set of cogs, all in motion and working together for the benefit and concordance of the ‘Collective’. Over time the family has become less focused on its economic productivity and more in tune with the emotional angles of life, such as child-rearing and socialization. GIDDENS, A. (2001).
Single-parent families have also become more and more prominent since the ‘traditional revolution’ began following WWII. More and more mothers, and indeed fathers are realising that they do not need to be confined to the woes of an unhappy relationship, and now understand that there does not necessarily need to be two parents involved in the child’s life for that child to succeed in life.
Following the Second World War, talk of the welfare state really took hold in Britain. It was the then Labour Governments’ social legislation of 1945-8, that marked the institution of the welfare state, the planning for which had gone on during the second war. HAY, J.R. (1978).
Once the welfare state was inaugurated, the need to be self sufficient in the large post-war families was sure to die out. The idea that a family should be left to fend for itself seemed almost abominable to those MP’s who saw that the time for change had arrived. Slowly but surely, the roles within the family changed along with the need to slog out your guts to survive.
The traditional family ethos, transient in nature, was coming to an end. Society had entered a new era. It was time to welcome the Modern Family. There was to be less inequality within the home, more mothers and wives would be out working, and following the education winds that ran through the country after the Second World War, those husbands and fathers who had jobs felt safe in the knowledge that their women-folk would not come chasing after them.
The new family set up was a whole new ball game. Where the old family values centred on the need to maintain a strong and adaptable unit that could provide ‘come what may’, this new family was about relationship building, commitment and the desire to socialise. People were on the move. They had acquired the taste for freedom following the welfare state, had liked what they savoured and wanted more of it.
There was going to be no stopping them. From the minute the Feminist Movement began shouting, from the rooftops at anyone who would listen, the women knew that their time had arrived. They put down their aprons and took up the application forms in a show of unfettered protest that they had been treated as lesser people for so long. They knew that they had equal rights and wanted everyone else to know it.
The new family ideal brought with it its own backlash. This smaller, less regimental family was less secure than its counterpart. Though this didn’t seem to bother the liberal thinking people of post-war Britain, women, men and children alike, it was certainly going to become a major player as the decades wore on. What no-one noticed (why would they?) was that this new family idea was only the beginning of something much bigger, much, more profound.
This was the beginning of a societal breakdown that was going to have a devastating effect on their futures. People were too busy enjoying their new-found freedoms to concern themselves too much with what might, or might not happen in 30 years time, even though 30 years are a mere ‘drop in the ocean’ in terms of the bigger picture.
The can of worms was open and people were simply too busy with their own ‘corner of the garden’ to see what was coming out of the tin.
There was no real direction for people. No real sense of purpose. The strong family unit of the 40’s and 50’ was now reduced to something almost beyond recognition. Families were divided and moving further and further apart. People could so people did. It was a simple as that. Fewer families were having children because it was cheaper not to. Children, the treasure of any civilised society, were considered a financial burden and only to be approached with circumspection.
Even the Church had not failed to receive the blows of the new era. Church influence had been waning for some time, but now it could really be felt. Fewer people than ever were attending the services, so the Church was forced to think up new ways of reaching what it still considered to be its ‘flock’. Now the Church was going to the people as a means of maintaining contact (and probably funding).
People’s lifestyles were becoming more isolated, more remote. Standards of living were improving and those with a little extra cash found ways of employing that cash to the benefit of their little ‘corner of the garden’. People, adaptable as they are, will usually find ways of dealing with what’s going on for them. Along with the state welfare system came a thirst so gripping that it knocked a massive hole in the chest of the institution that initiated it.
People were fed up of tilling the land day after day. They wanted to sit at a desk all week, pick up a huge pay packet and spend it on improving their life. Nothing wrong with that, perchance…but consider the flip-side of the argument. It was fast becoming a material world and when folk lose sight of the picture, anything could happen.
One thing that didn’t happen is that most people did not find (still have not found) the utopia they longed for. Feelings of despondency run deep and take time to heal, but you need to be walking in the right direction if you’re to find water in the desert.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:-
GIDDENS, A. (2001). Sociology Textbook, 4th Edition. Polity Press. Cambridge.
HAY, J.R. (1978). The Development of the British Welfare State 1880-1975. Arnold. London.
The Office of Health and Economics’ website. (2003). Trends in Birth rates and Child Mortality. Online at . Accessed 2/11/03.
The Office of Health Economics
The Office of Health Economics
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