The institution of family is the citadel of patriarchy. Religion and State exercise their control most strenuously through this institution; the usage of maudlin quotes about the fated quality of the biological family, the mystical unbreakable bonds and contracts predicated by some higher power have all been very effective in conditioning humans for centuries. This institution that projects itself as omnipotent - sine qua non, which evades all examination by treating any questioning as an offense in itself, as a violation of its sanctity - obviously crumbles apart at closer inspection.
Through a Marxist perspective, the family was used by the bourgeoisie to ensure that the wealth stays in their class (Engels 1884). It gives proletarian men an illusion of control, something they lack due to the exploitative nature of their capitalist bosses. The emergence of the monogamous nuclear family occurred around the emergence of capitalism (Zaretsky 1976). It’s also a way to ensure the reproduction of labour power; culture and education are props used to mold children into the perfect worker — training programs for the future proletariat at no cost to the bourgeoisie class that exploit them. The unpaid, invisible labour of the mother is a frequent point of concern across Marxist and Feminist organizations, with a satisfactory solution yet to be created. The State and misogynistic institutions that coerce or force women into motherhood with the help of brutal anti-abortion laws for example, rarely provide these women with any financial, emotional or physical support with the rearing of the child.
Motherhood is advertised as inevitable fate to women. Myths about women’s predisposition to nurture are used to force women into caretaking roles and motherhood. Any aspirations or actual deviations from these roles result in the woman being violently demonized. Biology and nature are treated as fate despite being successfully refuted several times. Compulsory heterosexuality is one way through which this role is enforced. Although there’s been successful attempts to challenge compulsory heterosexuality, (see C*ba’s Family Code Referendum of 2022) the usage of the family, the Pater, to police and limit women’s self expression, reducing them to the role of mother and reinforce gender hierarchy, is still widely accepted. This is done through the use of violence and financial abuse most frequently.
The nuclear family and its growing atomization, it’s antisocial nature and its effects on the overall wellbeing of people are well documented. It’s also a site where abuse frequently occurs, where women and children are frequently victim. Women are often coerced into heterosexual relationships and the family for the sake of “physical” protection, when the source of violence is most often experienced in the hands of the men in their families, or intimate male partners. Children are even more vulnerable, yet the state does more to protect the power the parent has over the child than it does to protect the child. The alternative measures — foster care, adoption etc created by the state are less than desirable, forcing children who are in unhealthy and dangerous environments to remain quiet about their conditions. The state and society at large evade taking on the responsibility of children by relegating the duty entirely on the nuclear family whence children are allowed to be treated as property. The fact that whether children are private property owned by their biological parents is something that is debated is shameful. Children are NOT property.
The social coercion that shames children into staying in these situations has an equally debilitating effect. Wanting to distance yourself from abusive families is treated as a departure from what’s natural and human, something that should be punished. When a child is in a burning building you don’t scream at them or shame them into staying in the building. You don’t shame them into putting out the fire. You don’t hunt them down and chase them back into the burning building when they try to flee. You don’t accuse them of being insane for running away from the building in panic. You don’t push them back into the building and quietly walk away like you didn’t see anything. You help them out.
The truth is that the concept of unconditional love is so alluring that people are willing to bury reality to believe in the slim possibility of its existence. The family promises this so called unconditional love, and people steadfastly believe in it despite proof to the contrary in their lives. The promise of guaranteed belonging is understandably seductive, but it’s often used to disguise the gross mishandling of power over vulnerable parties — women and children.
I often think about how different my life would’ve been if I were removed from my environment when I was a child. How different it would’ve been if anyone outside my family acknowledged the clearly visible signs of dysfunction, but it was all too easy for the adults around me to repeat phrases about unconditional love and bring up all the hollow ways they supported me to evade any suspicions. I think of how different things would’ve been if my father didn’t believe in these myths about the family at the expense of my safety, thus exposing me to those damaging situations. I think about how the community around my family would rally in their defense in reaction to any of my attempts at self preservation. Self preservation in this case being distancing myself from the perpetrators of abuse. Self preservation being speaking about my experiences.
“A good woman is quiet. Inert. So passive in life that death must be only more of the same. The only good woman is a dead woman. When she is bad she lives, or when she lives she is bad” — (Women Hating, Dworkin 1974)
Books websites referred/used —
Abolish the Family — Sophie Lewis
Women Hating — Andrea Dworkin
Feminine Mystique — Betty Friedan
Marx for beginners by Rius
functions of the family