Outline and Evaluate the View that the Nuclear Family plays a Negative Role in Society

According to the Marxism theory, the proletariat are being exploited by the bourgeoisie as they own the means of production which indicates that they are the basis of the whole society and they control everything in it including the family. This kind of system could be seen as a capitalist society which means it makes the rich gets richer and the poor gets poorer. In addition, Zaretsky(1976) sees the nuclear family as a contributing factor to the capitalist system for a number of reasons. For example, the family consumes the commodities produced by capitalism that helps the bourgeoisie to make profits, but this is negative for the proletariat family as they spend their money to help the ruling class. Another example is that the proletariat produces future generations of workers who will go on to make profits for the bourgeoisie which makes them even wealthier. Lastly, the family socializes its children into norms and values which supports the position of the ruling class through obeying the authority and unquestioningly accept inequality as ineitability of life. This si negative of the subject class as they will continue to serve the ruling class, but it is positive for them as they get a lot of generations of worker. These views are supported by David Cooper(1972), who sees the family as 'an ideological conditioning device' in which children learn to conform to authority to become cooperative and easily exploited workers. Furthermore, Engels(1884) sees that the family structure controls female sexuality so that men could be certain of the paternity of children, with marriage allowing them to control women's sexuality. Moreover, Marxism highlights that the family benefit some groups more than others. It highlights the importance of economic influences on family life and it raises the possibility that the ruling class benefits more that the subject class. It also see that the family provides comfort to alienated workers to enable them to carry on working