Family and Intimate Life: A Sociological Perspective

This essay explores the issue of ‘Family’ and its various dimensions, which would be studied as a social institution, taking into consideration how the family and the intimate lives of people develop and work as a social construct, rather than a biological, and thereby ensures the progress of the entire society.

Running head: FAMILY AND INTIMATE LIFE
FAMILY AND INTIMATE LIFE
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There are various social institutions which work together to perform a lot of activities
to ensure that the social stability is maintained and the society works mellifluously. These
institutions can be studied from different sociological perspectives, which helps to analyse
them from a practical point of view and assess their utility in maintaining social harmony. In
this essay, I intend to focus on the issue of ‘Family’ and its various dimensions, which would
be studied as a social institution, taking into consideration how the family and the intimate
lives of people develop and work as a social construct, rather than a biological, and thereby
ensures the progress of the entire society. I would attempt to study ‘family and intimate life’
from a nuanced sociological approach, which would take into consideration various
sociological theories like individualization, functionalism, conflict theory, or symbolic
interactionism (Woodman, Threadgold and Possamai-Inesedy 2015). This essay would be
closely related to my previous weekly assignments.
As a social construct, the stereotypic view hold that a family refers to the cohabitation
of individuals, which involves a married couple and their children, and sometimes also the
grandparents of the children or other blood relatives, all of whom share an intimate bonding
of love and mutual respect among themselves (Dempsey and Lindsay 2014). However, the
modern society has broken these stereotypes time and again, with evolving trends of
relationship, especially within the familial space. These changes can be attributed to the
changing patterns of romantic love between couples, from which the changes enter into the
familial space. Unlike the previous times, in the modern world, many couples prefer to
cohabit for a particular period of time before entering the legal bond of marriage, chiefly in
order to assess the durability of their emotional ties and wavelengths or their intimacy
(Bauman 2003).
Many sociologists rightly claim that the changes has been triggered by the rapid
advancement of technology and industrialization, and more importantly the empowerment of

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women in the recent past, which is supported by the theory of individualization (Woodman,
Threadgold and Possamai-Inesedy 2015). As such, these changes enter into the intimate life
of the domestic front, where the modern dimensions of conjugal love has a significant
bearing on the maturity and growth of the children as a social being. These developments of
the children depend on the socializing values that are inculcated to the children and a constant
monitoring of their implementation and associated growth of the children. Different
wavelengths of intimacy in the domestic front shapes this growth accordingly, which the
children then learn to compare with the other existing domains of intimacy in the society
(Giordano, Manning and Longmore 2015). This leads to a plurality of outlook which has a
direct effect on their growth as a social being. There is a raging debate pertaining to the issue
of children’s maturity rate. While some sociologists claim that the excessive use of
technology in the very normative years, shuns the socializing principle within the child,
whereas others claim that it enhances the rate of mental maturity within children (Ahn 2012).
The theory of individualization leads to that of symbolic interactions, which studies
and tries to define the various patterns of interaction that occurs within the family members
and its resultant intimacy within them (Denzin 2016). These involves a study of the rate of
the shared interests and mutual understanding that exists within a couple as well as among all
the members. Each have their individual method of communicating, and this is affected by
the social class to which the family belongs. The rate of similarity and difference in
communication standards among these individuals have a direct influence on the rate of
maturity of the children and determines the kind of individual the child would grow up to be
(Ariès 1962). More the difference among the parents’ communication standards, more time-
taking and complex being the child would grow up to be. This communication standards
again determines the quality of relationship. The standards of communication are highly
shaped by the sociological factors around an individuals’ environment, which moulds the

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ideologies of the individuals (Gaß et al. 2015). It is precisely this ideological factor that
modern couples try to assess before entering the bond of marriage, so that none of the
individuals have to make considerable compromises in the long run. However, this factors is
constantly subject to change with respect to the different social interactions that an individual
engages in every day. These changes are likely to have a positive or negative influence on the
intimacy of the couples, at every stage of their togetherness. Thus, family and the intimate
relationship of individuals constantly evolve with respect to their society, thus making these
issues a social construct. Biologically inherent values exist in every progeny, but they are
constantly being shaped as per the terms and conditions of the society. Therefore, the family
and the wavelengths of intimacy among couples, siblings or parent-child to name a few
relationships, constantly undergo a process of construction, deconstruction and
reconstruction, with respect to the prevailing sociological ideologies existent in the respective
community (Dempsey and Lindsay 2014).
Thus, going by the sociological theory of functionalism, the functions performed by
the family both within the domestic front as well as with respect to the entire society, which
should ideally lead to the progress of the society, undergoes marked changes (Abanyam,
Sambe and Moses 2014). Functionalism states that sociologically the dominant area of work
within which a family functions, involve provision of financial, emotional, and other support
among the members of a family, socialization and proper development of children, regulation
of sexual activities and sexual reproduction, all of which are aimed at providing a social
identity to the individuals and an effective progression of the human race.
In spite of such changing sociological trends and their implications on family life,
failure to make an assumption of the basic wavelengths in the normative stages of a mutual
love relationship, especially during the phase of pre-marriage togetherness, can lead to
conflicts (Bildtgård and Öberg 2017). According to ‘Conflict Theory’, reinforcement of strict

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patriarchal ethos within the family can lead to problems within the family. The conservatism
perpetrated by those families among the women in the family has macrocosmic bearing on all
women within the sociological cycle. One of the dominant forms of injustice commonly
visible in such families are the unpaid and unacknowledged labour of the women who
constantly strive to keep to maintain harmony in the familial space, sometimes at the cost of
their own interests. In such families, financial contribution faultily becomes the dominant
yardstick of measuring the contributions of the womenfolk for the betterment of the family as
well as the entire society. Hence, this social inequality is directly related to the economic
inequality within the family, which in turn allows patriarchy to have a full play uninhibitedly
(Amussen 2018). The domestic labour of women often being unpaid, certain families
belonging to lower income groups are deprived of certain amenities for their well-being
(Scott, Treas and Richards 2014). This often gives rise to conflicts among family members,
especially when women resist to this traditional form of patriarchy, which, in some
communities, often leads to domestic violence, either physical or emotional or sometimes
both, thereby destroying the fabric of the society (Matthews, Wayne and Ford 2014). Thus,
high rate of difference in the economic structure of a society encroaches the familial spaces,
destroys the intimacy among the family members and disrupts peace and harmony within the
family. These situations directly affect the mental stability of the children within the family
and punctures their development as a responsible and ethical social being.
However, the governments of different nations are taking up this issue and trying to
provide financial support to families where women are involved in unpaid labour. Besides,
the rising trends of women empowerment and feministic studies within the academic
discipline in the 21st century, along with the technological advancements and multiple job
opportunities, poses a heavy blow to the age-old traditions of patriarchy (Radhakrishnan and
Solari 2015). However, this also has a negative effect on the future generations. When both

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the parents are engaged in earning money, adequate parental care is often missing which
hampers the psychological growth of the children. Above all, it prevents the establishment of
intimacy neither between the parent and child, nor between the couple.
Therefore, it may be concluded that from a sociological perspective, family is a
complex sphere of relationships, which is constructed more by the society than by biological
processes. It gives considerable importance to the role played by each and every family
within a wider social structure. The modern age has introduced a paradigmatic shift, both
structural as well as functional, in the formation of families and intimate relationships, and
they have become more prone to socio-cultural changes within the respective communities.
This makes family and relationships a constantly evolving phenomena with respect to the
social-political and economic changes. The immediate impact of these changes on a family
environment is sometimes positive or sometimes negative. By and large, it is open to a wide
range of sociological speculations.

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Reference List
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