Assess Marxist View That The Main Role Of The Family Analysis

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Assess the Marxist view that the main role of the family is to serve the interests of capitalism

Marxism is a structural theory which is the idea that individuals are entirely shaped by the structure of society. It is a theory that sees society based on class conflict, where there is a clear division between the capitalist class and the working class. The capitalists class, also known as the Bourgeoisie, owns the means of production privately and the working class, the patriarchs, is exploited but the capitalists to make a profit. Capitalism is an economic and political system in which a country's industries are privately owned for the purposes of profit. Marxists believe that the family performs three functions which serves the interests of capitalism and perform purely for the benefit of capitalists.

The first function Marxist believe is performed by the family to severe the interests of a capitalist society is the …show more content…

The sociologist, Engels called this the ‘promiscuous horde’ in which there was no restrictions on sexual relationships so there was no family structure as such and as production developed so did societies class division. Production lead to the emergence of wealthy men who were able to secure and control the means of production because of their wealth. This changed led to patriarchal monogamous nuclear family. Engels view of the nuclear family was that it became essential for the inheritance of private property because men had to be sure that the children were legitimate heirs who could inherit from them. The inheritance of property helps maintain capitalism as it insures that those in power, with wealth stays in power. It also serves the interests of capitalism as private wealth is passed on to future generations who will maintain the owning all the property and