selected by Hervé Varenne
The American family has ... been undergoing a profound process of change... Some have cited facts ... as evidence of a trend to disorganization in an absolute sense ... linked to [talk of] the "loss of function" of the family. (p.3)
Our suggestion is ... that was has been happening constitutes part of one ... process of differentiation... The trend of the evidence points to the beginning of new type of family structure ... in which the family is more specialized but not ... less important. (p. 9)
the trend in divorce rate... the high rate of marriage... the decline in birth rates... the importance of the "family home" (p. 4-8)
What can we say about the functions of the family, that is, the isolated nuclear family?
The functions of the family in a highly differentiated society are not to be interpreted as functions directly on behalf of the society, but on behalf of personality... It is because the human personality is not "born" but must be "made" through the socialization process that in the first instance families are necessary. They are factories which produce human personalities. (p.16)
We therefore suggest that the basic and irreducible functions of the family are two: first the primary socialization of children to that they can truly become members of the society into which they have been born; second, the stabilization of the adult personalities of the society. (p. 16)
The importance of the family and its function for society constitutes the primary set of reasons why there is a social as distinguished from purely reproductive differentiation of sex roles. (p.22) ... The problem is not why [differentiation] appears ... but why the man takes the more instrumental role, the woman the more expressive, and why ... these roles take particular forms. (p.23)