“The normative assumptions about families that are embedded in family policy have contributed to the production of policy that fails to adequately address some problematic areas of family life.” Discuss.

This assignment will discuss how legislation has developed historically and culminated in the family policies of present day and how they have impacted upon some of the problematic areas of family life, namely domestic violence and child abuse. Within the assignment the discursive formation of the ‘ideal’ family will be discussed and how from the late 18th and early 19th centuries these constructions continue to inform and influence family policies.

Prior to the 18th century families existed but there was no essential family. The family was under the control of ‘paterfamilias’, meaning father of the family. In the 19th century the concept of the ‘family took on a new meaning, a reflection of rapid industrialization and urbanisation. The family came to signify ‘blood ties’ rather than ‘household’ (Hall, 2001, p. 11).

Histographies of the late 18th and early 19th centuries have focused on the development of two distinct social classes. The upper / middle classes and the working classes. Britain had become a nation state comprising of ‘two nations’, rich and poor (Mooney, 2001, pp. 54-55). The language of class described what was new and different about 19th century British society. This language also illustrated the dominant discourse of ‘separate spheres’. Men belonged in the public world of work and women in the private world of the home. Men were able to move freely between these two worlds whilst women were not. Women should be dependent caring for their children, to create a healthy nation. This gendered language became ‘naturalised’ (Hall, 2001, pp. 15-17).

The ‘ideal’ family was dominated by the discourse of ‘gendered separate