The Nuclear Family and Postmodern Theory

Abstract

The paper addresses the question of whether postmodernist theory of the family reflects the emergence of a crisis for the family itself or a crisis in theoretical discourse about it. While family life is undergoing widespread change, this is not a recent phenomenon. If it is claimed that the family has changed to such a degree that it no longer corresponds to what has been identified as the modern form, the argument that it has moved into a postmodern phase should be related to the extent that modernisation has been achieved in the wider society. Material from three contrasted societies, Great Britain, Korea and Guyana, suggests there is no universal and systematic relationship between family change and the degree of modernisation. The characterisation of family life in the late twentieth century as postmodern reflects rather the problem theorists have in presenting an account of continuing change affecting an unstable and cyclical set of relationships. Postmodernism is essentially an issue in the sociology of knowledge rather than a matter of a radical discontinuity in social process. The readiness of postmodernist theory to abandon binary oppositions or over rationalised theorisations generally however is a possibly hopeful development in furthering our understanding of change.