Alternatives to the Traditional Family

Many alternatives to the traditional family have been suggested. Perhaps the most sweeping attempt to do away with the family was made in the Soviet Union in the 1920s. Because the Bolsheviks considered the basis of the family to be inherited property and male dominance, they believed that it perpetuated social inequalities that socialism was intended to abolish. Therefore, the new government made drastic changes in sexual, marital, and parental relationships. Because marriage was to be based on equality instead of property, marriages were performed and divorces were granted simply by registration. Any man and woman who lived together were also considered legitimately married with respect to property rights and inheritance. Parents were no longer responsible for their children's behaviour or financial support, and children were not responsible for their aging parents. All children were considered equally "legal," and no distinction was made between legitimate and illegitimate offspring. Young children were to be kept in child-care centers so that their mothers could work, or they were to be sent to boarding schools, away from their parents' influence.

The result of these policies was not at all what the Soviet leaders intended. Bigamy became widespread and parents could not control their children. Government boarding schools turned out to be too expensive, and there were not enough child-care centers. After 1935 the family began to be reinstated. Parents were again made responsible for the disorderly conduct of their children, and the Soviet newspaper Pravda proclaimed the new doctrine that sexual freedom was bourgeois and against socialist principles. Since 1944 only registered marriages got legal in the Soviet Union, and divorces were difficult to obtain. The principle of legitimacy is again in effect: only children born in legal marriages can claim their family's name and property. Bastards again carry the stigma of their "fatherless" status.

As the Soviet experiment showed, the family is not easy to replace. Its structure, however, does change rather rapidly in response to external social pressures. In the 1970s new forms of the family appeared. Some of these functional alternatives to the nuclear family are discussed below.