The Caribbean Family

Soci 1002: Introduction to Sociology

 Definitions of the Family
• George Murdock: “a social group characterized by common residence,
economic cooperation and reproduction. It includes adults of both sexes,
at least 2 of whom maintain a socially approved sexual relationship and
one or more children, own or adopted of the sexually co-habiting adults”
(Murdock, Social Structure, 1949).
• Collins Dictionary of Sociology: “a group of people, related by kinship or
similar close ties in which the adult assumes responsibility for…their
children”.
Early Attitudes Towards the Caribbean Family

• Colonial attitudes, especially demonstrated by the West India Royal Commission,

influenced initial approaches to the Caribbean family. The Caribbean family was seen as a
problem, especially by social welfare experts such as Thomas Simey.
• Thomas Simey’s main ask was to develop a programme to deal with the social problems
of Caribbean society, which for him, had their roots in the family life.
• This family life he found to be profoundly shaped by the prevailing economic situation,
specifically poverty. Simey found kinship patterns in the Caribbean to be severely lacking.
• He described family forms as too loose and unstable, with casual relationships. Conjugal
ties were occasionally faithful and enduring, but more often promiscuous and transitory.
 Early Attitudes towards Caribbean
Families
• The social workers and anthropologists who set the stage for family
studies in the Caribbean came from abroad or were trained abroad.
• They developed a fixation with lower class Negro mating and family
structure. Middle class and upper class families appear as normal, but
those of their lower class were different from anything they had ever
known.
• These irregular patterns, therefore, required scholarly investigation and
social policies to address deficiencies.
 Early Attitudes towards the Caribbean Family

Thomas Simey described family life in the Caribbean as:

Loose
Unstable
Casual
Promiscuous
Transitory
Illegitimate children
 Thomas Simey: Early Attitudes towards
Caribbean Families
Solutions:
Social policies to alter the structure of lower class
Negro families
Policies to improve levels of morale and well-
being
Mass Marriage Movement
 Types of Family in the Caribbean
As time went on, various explanations were put forward to explain Caribbean family patterns
which were not patterned off the nuclear family model. These explanations included:
• Racial diversity/ethnicity – focus on black family patterns.
• Social class – lower class family patterns seen as different to families in higher social classes.
• African cultural retention – family patterns influenced by African heritage.
• Legacy of Plantation slavery – family patterns influenced by conditions of slavery.
• Culture of poverty – family patterns influenced by norms/values/practices of the poor.
• Socio-Economic Factors – family patterns influenced by contemporary socio-economic
conditions.
African Retention: The Frazier and Herskovits
Debate
• The study of the family in the Caribbean began as an offshoot of the heated debate
over how black families in the New World came to assume its contemporary form.
• The two main protagonists were Melville Herkovits and E. Franklin Frazier.
• Both of these authors noted that Negro families were “maternal” and extended, that
common law unions (“keeper” unions according to Herskovits and “irregular”
unions according to Frazier) were high.
• Both were concerned that black family forms differed to the co-residential nuclear
units held up as ideal in mainstream US culture.
African Retention: The Frazier and Herskovits
Debate
• Both Herskovits and Frazier sought to find an explanation for the diversity of
family forms, but they parted ways here. For Herskovits, the origins of Negro
family were to be found in the African cultural heritage which had survived,
while Frazier dismissed this argument by claiming that the disruptive effects of
slavery and the plantation system were responsible.
• Frazier’s main point was that family patterns are to be explained not by the loss
or retention of African heritage, but with reference to the changing social and
economic conditions of life within America, specifically the effects of life on
the plantation.
African Retention:The Frazier and Herskovits
Debate
• Echoing Frazier’s views from the Caribbean were sociologists Fernando
Henriques, Michael G. Smith, and Dom Basil Mathews. For them, the
authority of males as husbands and fathers was eroded and family
composition continually disrupted, resulting in the reduction of the family
unit to mother and child/children.
Plantation Influences on Family Patterns: MG Smith

• Plantation system eroded the importance stable family patterns.

• Families, particularly women and men were separated either before or after arrival,
primarily for trade. The mother-child unit was less targeted.

• Male slaves were used as ‘studs’ in ‘breeding’ slaves of high quality: strength,
longevity etc.
• Males were denied property and familial rights generating a system of female-
centeredness.
Socio-Economic Influences on Family Patterns

 Family
structure is a “functional response to the disorganizing effects of
contemporary socio-economic conditions in Caribbean village
communities” (Barrow, 2001)

 Caribbeanfamily structures were seen as appropriate solutions to economic

problems such as poverty, unemployment and economic uncertainty.

 Theflexible extra-residential union enabled persons to take advantage of

labour and migration opportunities.
 Oscar Lewis – Culture of Poverty
 A “culture of poverty” was passed on from one generation to the next.
This includes attitudes, values and practices that were passed on through
socialization and which kept the populace poor.
 The prevalence of poverty amongst lower class populations shows a
marginalization of males in terms of their earnings and ability to
contribute to the household. Their inability to contribute gives way to the
female taking over the role of main provider.
 The poorer and more deprived the male is, the greater his marginality in
the home, thus leading to increased emphasis on the female.
 Other Explanations of the Caribbean
Family
 Gender socialization – ‘Why Man Stay So’
 Distinct male/female roles. Woman as nurturer and male as
breadwinner. Beyond this male was marginal to household.
 Traditional roles have waned. Women are now expected to earn
equally and men are expected to contribute to the maintenance of the
h/h.
Other Explanations of Caribbean Family
 Gender socialization – Manhood & Masculinity
 Learning to be a man
 Fatherhood as an important social status
 Early sexual initiation for males
 Promiscuity
 Male as provider/ head
 Effects of crime and violence
 Incarceration
 Death
 Other Explanations of the Caribbean
Family
• Female Independence:
According to Roberts and Sinclair (1978) the economically independent
woman prefers the status of visiting union as it affords her more exclusive
control over domestic labour that would be demanded by a resident male.
 Structural Functionalist Contribution to
Studies of Caribbean Family
• The second major influence in studies of the Caribbean family was that of
structural functionalism. Scholars influenced by this perspective shifted
the focus of looking at the origins of black family forms to examining
their function. However, like the early colonial social workers, they also
tended to see the black family as dysfunctional and they were interested in
investigating the Caribbean family structure as a social problem.
 Structural Functionalist Contribution to
Caribbean Studies of the Family
There was a concern with distinguishing between the different typologies of family in the
Caribbean:
 Nuclear/ Conjugal: husband, wife & children
 Extended: grandparents, parents & children
 Common-law union: nuclear family structure without marriage
 Single parent: one parent in HH. Predominantly females in Caribbean
 Visiting union: mother and child live away from father; household is visited
periodically by a male who plays the role of a spouse.
 Functions of the Family

 Economic Cooperation and Survival

 Social/ reproductive
 Socialization
 The Structural Functionalist Contribution to
Studies of the Caribbean Family
• The structural functional perspective was introduced into the Caribbean in the
early 1950s and marks the next stage in the development of family studies in
the Caribbean. It focused on lower class Negro family and mating patterns and
was dominated by British trained social anthropologists such as Edith Clarke
(Jamaica), Fernando Henriques (Jamaica), Sidney Greenfield (Barbados),
Michael Smith (Grenada, Carriacou and Jamaica) and Raymonf T. Smith
(Guyana).
• They were more meticulous and rigorous in their methodology which often
involved deep immersion in village communities.
The Structural Functionalist Contribution to Caribbean Family

• The focus of the structural functionalist model was household structure and
composition.
• These researchers were not so much interested in history, culture or origins but in
the study of social structure and functions – how things worked from a
contemporary perspective.
• They asked how the interrelated parts of a system functioned to meet the needs or
“functional pre-requisites” of the total structure. The necessary integration between
the parts of the system to maintain the order and stability of the whole is provided
by value consensus and solidarity, not strain and conflict.
 R.T. Smith
• R.T. Smith identified 6 functions of the family:
• - child care – eg socialization of the young, to instil social norms and values so that
they will become integrated adult members of society.
• - sexual services
• - domestic services
• - economic support
• - managerial functions
• - status defining functions
 R.T. Smith
• Raymond T. Smith –known for his work on Caribbean family structure and organization.
He tended to use a structural-functional perspective, especially in his earlier work.
• Seminal work, “The Negro Family in British Guiana.”
• He presented data to show that Afro-Caribbean families were not themselves the sources
of poverty (thereby refuting the Oscar Lewis “culture of poverty” thesis). Rather, it was
the low occupational status of jobs available that shaped, and sometimes de-stabilised
families.
• He argued that more opportunities needed to be available to improve the conditions of
the poor (through economic and educational programmes).
 R.T. Smith
• Raymond Smith focused on three villages – August Town, Perseverance, and
Better Hope. August Town was a village established soon after emancipation on
land bought by the ex-slaves. Perseverance was a semi-aquatic village founded
later on. Better Hope was more urban and located near the capital city.
• Raymond Smith found that the villages were characterized by community
cohesion, social homogeneity and egalitarianism, based on ethnic identity as
“black people,” common culture, particular place in the social system and
performance of occupational tasks.
 R.T. Smith
• Village solidarity was reinforced by family activities and by the need to
cooperate to construct and maintain dams and trenches to deal with
flooding.
• However, community spirit was sometimes weakened by high levels of
male migration in search of work and increased dependence on the local
government system.
• Nevertheless, village solidarity was often maintained through kinship ties,
institutions such as the village council, church or school.
 R.T. Smith
• A number of characteristics of family forms were identified in the three villages.
1. Incidence of common-law unions.
2. Weak conjugal ties, male marginality and strong mother-child bonds.
3. Village endogamy – desirability of marrying someone who was well known and
of similar background. Contributes towards solidarity of the group.
4. Matrifocality – relationships focused on mother-child bond, regardless of male
presence or absence in the house.
 Edith Clarke
• For Edith Clarke, the explanation of family patterns was to be found in community organization and
economic conditions. A comparison of three Jamaican communities - Sugartown, Mocca, and Orange
Grove – showed community life to differ significantly.
• Sugartown: Life in Sugartown was dominated by the sugar industry which formed the economic base of
the community. Residents lived in overcrowded shacks and work was seasonal – therefore, family life
was unstable.
• Mocca: This was a small, mixed farming community in which members lived in extreme poverty year
round, but kinship solidarity was strong and members could trace their family lines back several
generations.
• Orange Grove: This was a prosperous village of citrus farmers in which income was high and steady –
led to more stable family relations.
 Edith Clarke
 The family structures for these communities were clear:
 Sugartown – ‘casual concubinage’; single parent/ fatherless; (26% married)
 Mocca – common-law unions; marriage after econ stability (35% married)
 Orange Grove – marriage; 75% being married
 Contemporary Trends in Studies on the
Caribbean Family
• Research on the family began to look at family patterns across class,
middle class and upper class families, family types among different ethnic
groups, and even began to consider the role of men in the family.
• Prevalence of outside relationships across social class.
• The situation of outside children often varies considerably and depends
on the social class of the father.
 Men’s roles
• Afro-Caribbean men have been described as occupying a position of some
marginality in relation to their households. However, it is currently
recognized that many non–resident fathers and conjugal partners can, and
do execute their assigned responsibilities, although these functions may be
distributed among different households.
• While the conjugal bond may be brittle, research has consistently shown a
strong bond between Caribbean men and their mothers.