The Family, Politics, and Social Theory (RLE Social Theory) by D.H.J. Morgan

Author:D.H.J. Morgan [Morgan, D.H.J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138989238
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2017-01-27T00:00:00+00:00

FAMILY HISTORY AND FAMILY SOCIOLOGY

Any discussion of the relationship between family history and family sociology must inevitably be a subset of a wider, and well-rehearsed, debate about the relationships between history and sociology themselves. The question may be focused a little more if we ask ourselves what are the particular contributions that the study of family history may make to our discussion of theoretical approaches to the family, a problem made the more acute by the explosion in studies in family history already mentioned in the chapter. What is the sociologist to make of the overwhelming volume of detailed studies of pre-industrial or peasant family life in small communities throughout Europe and beyond, of the debates and qualifications about the character and composition of the pre-industrial household as well as the growing number of specific studies tracing the changing experiences of families in communities undergoing industrialisation or urbanisation? What is the relationship between the host of specific and relatively small-scale studies on the one hand and the large-scale generalising attempts of a Shorter or an Ariès to delineate the distinctive features of the modern Western family? ‘Yes, but not in the South’ may be as effective an underminer of generalisations here as in other areas of scholarly or social life and the sociologist may well be tempted to throw in the towel and retreat to the comparative security of Parsonian or Marxist functionalism or to the social survey.

But this would not only be premature, it would also be fallacious. For one thing the apparent contrast between historical facts and sociological theories implied in the last paragraph does not really stand up to investigation, however comforting it may be to representatives from both parties (Stedman-Jones, 1976). It is fallacious for the same reason that the contrast between facts and theory within sociology itself would be fallacious; facts are thoroughly impregnated with theory; their recognition, evaluation and collection is shaped by theoretical concerns and constructions. In the second place, history and sociology cannot really be understood as separate ways of viewing the world, even if, as disciplines, they have developed different traditions and different methodologies. E.H. Carr’s lectures What is History? (Carr, 1964) could be rewritten as ‘What is Sociology?’ with relatively little alteration and Giddens has noted, recently, that there is no logical or methodological distinction to be made between history and the social sciences ‘appropriately conceived’ (Giddens, 1979, p. 230). From the perspective of the sociologist the point is not one of choosing between history or no history. It is rather one of choosing between implicit and unexamined history and explicit and critically assessed history. This is true even in those studies which might appear to be completely innocent of any historical concerns or understandings, those studies which are based upon some kind of questionnaire survey and which seek to explore some facet of contemporary family living such as marital power or factors contributing to divorce-proneness. In some cases they may use some implicit ‘then and now’ assumptions, implying some degree of uniqueness or peculiarity about our own times.

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