Introduction to Social Sciences Sociology Essay

The UK family has undergone considerable changes since 1945. Britain nowadays is a society mixed with different household types including cohabiting families with or without children; divorced or never-married lone parents; gay and lesbian couples (McRAE, 1999, p.1). This essay will demonstrate that family as an example of continuity change, an explanation on the changes of household types. I will also discuss marriage and divorce rates, the rising in cohabitation and lone parents, and the sexuality of society and value changes. At the expense of traditions, this diversity has gained and there has been a downward trend particularly in the traditional nuclear family. This will compare the value changes of different family types using three social sciences disciplines of history, politics and sociology.
First of all, Patriarchy and Second World War are the main factors to family of the ‘Golden Age’. According to German (1981), in early days, women must struggle for their rights as that is the time when both the households and society are men-dominated. The ‘Golden Age’ portrayed husband as ‘breadwinner’ of household and wife as ‘home maker’. A social norm is marriage is for ‘life’ and a family was built up by a pair of heterosexual couple with dependent children. To explain further, conservative thinkers stated “family is a place of offspring reproduction, protection of children’s safety, inculcation of proper values on children” (Hughes and Fergusson, 2004, p.60). Also, “hierarchy and stability” are the two important elements to maintain a healthy family and society (ibid.). On the other hand, changes in family structure were related to rising needs for stability and people’s thought of family as a unit after the World War II (WWII) and probably can help reordering of a ‘healthy’ society after a war. Later, the situation of only men working out to earn money did not last long after WWII as the UK’s economy was depraving and thus women need to work to keep it...