The Family Versus the State Victoria de Grazia

Grazia’s chapter entitled gamily verses the states discusses the perplexing relationship that develops between the family and the state with the rise of fascism. She outlines that the new ideology of the fascist government is to incorporate the family into the government, but then shows how those socialist measures to accomplish this integration in actually undermines the family.

For example, the new ideology set forth was that men should be able to work and earn enough money to support his family so his wife could stay home (embracing this idea of separate spheres). So in an attempt embrace this family ideology the government established the family allowance system. However, to even get this set wage system you have to have the right connections with the proper private or governmental organizations. This new welfare state changes the role of women. Because men should be working to earn a wage for the family the women or the elitist class have to carry this idea out with the lower classes. Also, women of the lower classes are also forced to work as their husbands are unable to make enough money for their family. Thus, family size begins to shrink and with the realization that the state is not providing a support group. Families have to begin to rely on their kin for support. Grazia then exemplifies her point through the letter the wife of Milanese man to the government (103-104).

Grazia argues that two different family ideologies emerge. The first is then the fascist familism emphasizing family unity, paternity, and female devotion to the family. This ideology is then altered through its impracticable practice and gives way to oppositional familism. This placed more focus on the father and gave priority of jobs and wages to those fathers with larger families (in hopes of increasing the population). People during this time appeared to operate on the idea that you had to maximize your resources in the short run and not worry about future generations. Her discussion of oppositional familism is limited and somewhat confusing compared to her expansive explanation of fascist familism.

Grazia’s article could fall under three of the categories we have discussed. The most fitting category would be that of the Law, State, and Church. Her article focuses on how the state regulations affect the family. This leads to the next category of family relationships and family economics. Grazia takes great length to describe how the government imposes different ideas on the roles of men and women in the family. Men should be earning enough money for a large family while women stay at home and work. Furthermore, that state is suppose to step in and subsidize a husbands wage but jumping through the hoops to get this money is impossible. The last category this could fall under then is gender. In Grazia’s description of the family she does discuss the role of children briefly but she tends to focus on the different roles that husband and wives have (men and women).

Kristen Stromberg Childers, "Paternity and the Politics of Citizenship in Interwar France"

In Childers' paper she discusses the importance of men fulfilling their roles as strong paternal figures within their families in France. Her argument further discusses how the male head of the household, known as the pere de famille, became a subject in the way the French Third Republic viewed families in regards to suffrage and working condition reform.

She tells us that since 1913, paternity began to be connected to political discourse in order to construct a productive nation that pressured men to form families. Furthermore, political discourse during interwar France began to attack the rights that single men had. As examples of not fulfilling their paternal role, single men's voting rights were attacked. Reformers advocated for a change in how much a single man's vote was worth in comparison to that of a father's. Arguably a father needed more weight to his vote because he was representing not just himself, but a whole entire family. Historically single men had already dominated voting rights, and using previous political disasters as example, conservatives believed that a shift of rights to paternally experienced voters would produce effective and enlightened reform. This can easily be summarized by showing that there was pressure to give father's more representation because they were viewed as elite and the incompetence of single men throughout history was used as a way to push for this change (pg.94).

In order to reform working conditions, men used their status as fathers to advocate for change. If the state expected a father to support his family not only monetarily, but by educating his children, men would have to have time to be home and do that (pg.95). In addition to helping his wife with the children, a change towards a eight-hour work day would allow him time to educate himself. A father with the ability to read political literature weekly meant he would be a model citizen to the French government. This tactic for reform shows a example of modernity in the equalizing of parental roles. A man is now expected to help out and not just be the breadwinner for the home. However a father will still be expected to work, and to even teach his sons that this is important (pg.98). By asking father's to do more they were seen as valuable in reconstructing the state after the damage done during the Great War.

This article fits under several themes for this class, but primarily focuses on the state expectations for father's and also a father's relationship to his family. Although the Catholic church is mentioned a little bit throughout the work, the state's pressure on men to fulfill a paternal role dominates the paper. Family relationship is the other important theme because it mentions how important men were in their families and that the amount of experience men obtained from being a father could not be supplemented by any other activity.

"Women's War Work: Remunerative, Voluntary, and Familial", by Susan Grayzel

In Susan Grayzel’s article titled, “Women’s War Work: Remunerative, Voluntary and Familial” she focuses on working women in Europe during the period of World War I, specifically examining the affects of women’s wartime work on both waged labor and family maintenance. Grayzel first emphasizes that women before this time had already held both paid and unpaid working jobs. The war, however, enabled women to shift to jobs that had previously been filled by men. As women began to enter factory work, they played a vital role in sustaining the home front during the war for the government even though it sparked controversy.

Grayzel looks at a number of countries, comparing and contrasting what wartime work was like for women. She mentions that the highest active labor force was in Britain, and the lowest labor force was in Germany. With the welfare supervisors and factory inspectors that were employed during the war, they heavily pushed for the protection of women that were or potentially could be mothers. Grayzel argues that during the war “gender roles” were being challenged. Nurses, for example, “kept women subservient to male doctors….[and] did not offer a challenge to conventional gender roles” (Grayzel, p.37). The war was a time of strain and tension as men and women’s roles were being redefined in new ways.

Grayzel’s article also focuses on women as mothers and the double responsibility that they had for both work and home. Many women took on voluntary services, primarily though only the middle and upper classes, hoping to do their part for the war. Women also had a hard time managing their homes, as long work hours took them away from home and the increasing food shortages left them with little food to sustain their young ones. Laws were being passed during this time to protect the health of both mother and child. The welfare and factory inspectors helped with this as well as new laws supporting breast feeding in factories, etc, were being passed.

This article fits well under the categories of Family Economics because it focuses on the division and distribution of labor during World War I, Categories of Difference because Grayzel focuses on a number of countries comparing and contrasting woman’s experiences, and Law, State, and Church because the government had a large role in controlling women’s wartime work.

"Everyday Life" by J. Robert Wegs in Growing Up Working Class

In J. Robert Wegs' article titled "Everyday Life", we get a glimpse at what real-life consisted of in Vienna during the pre-World War I stage, and during the war. He states that it had already been established prior to his writing this article, that the conditions surrounding the working-class family were not the greatest during the early 20th century. His argument is that, although previous scholars have made many arguments and claims stating that these conditions were the cause of family disintegration and the decline of family life, it is not as true as previously stated.

Wegs discusses a few different aspects of family life that back up his argument and helps persuade the reader to change his views on such topics. Birth rate and family size, nourishment and food in the home, personal possessions, and leisure activity and play are discussed in length to help us fully understand how life was for the working class family in Vienna during the pre-war and inter-war periods.

Regarding birth rate and family size, Wegs states that "After experiencing the material deprivation brought about by the typical large families of the period before WWI, some parents decided to limit the size of their families." I agree with his argument that the economy of the time forced families to limit the number of children they could have, and more importantly he claims that in these smaller families, the children were able to receive more love and affection.

Through numerous interviews and studies, Wegs was able to round up information about the working class family in regards to their diets during this depriving time period. Granted, the portions of meals the children were alloted were meager, he came to the conclusion that "the view that all working-class families suffered equally from undernourishment results from an inattention to economic-social divisions among laboring families." In general, he stated that almost all families were able to "make do" on low incomes and eat well

Personal possessions and leisure activity was the last topic Wegs discussed in regards to the working-class family in Vienna. He states that "for most working-class families it was not how much one had but rather how one dealt with scarcity that was important. It was also common practice for these working-class children to spend much of their time in the streets playing, but they made the most of it and were happy.

His conclusion summed up everything he talked about very well. He states, "While there is no denying that difficult conditions existed in Vienna's working-class districts in the early twentieth century, it is also difficult to deny that a relative stability, rather than disintegration, characterized life for most of the working class there." I agree with Wegs' unique view on the poor working-class family in Vienna. His arguments were very convincing and thorough, and i believe that no matter what state people find themselves in, they will always find a way to maintain a certain amount of human dignity and find a way to achieve happiness.

"Not Quite Pukka" by Elizabeth Buettner

Understanding European families during the after the long Nineteenth Century is very complicated. Many of the European nations, especially Britain and France, were colonial powers by this time. Families in the homeland would colonize, but they still considered themselves European subjects. This is where this article comes in. It argues that with so many families leaving Britain for India, it became socially important to know who was still British, and who had ‘gone native.” British families in Europe would ideally return to Britain, and needed to keep up their British social status. While domiciled families would not return to Europe, and so did not comfortably fit into the Euro-centric system. This would have implications in Britain itself, although this is not discussed in this paper. British peoples would be very sensitive to social markers that qualified someone as a “true Brit”

Due to the above paragraph, I would categorize this article under “Categories of Difference.” I would also categorized it under “Family relationships and family economics.” The article discusses how families would sacrifice to be able to send their children to a school in Britain. They did this because the increased social status of having their children go to Britain. For their children it was economically imperative to maintain their British markers. Without these markers British employment would be difficult, if not impossible. There would also be economic benefit for the parents. Children attending school in Britain would have been a sign that the parents were not going domiciled. Thus, it was probably a sign that they still upheld British values.

"Households and Families: Structure and Flux" by Alan Duben and Cem Behar

Duben and Behar used information from the 1885 and 1907 censuses of Istanbul and other areas of Turkey to discuss marriage and family patterns in pre-WWI Turkey. Their main conclusion was that Turkey followed the southeast marriage pattern in a some ways, yet resembled northwestern Europe in other ways. Men and women married relatively early in Istanbul, with the men about ten years older than the women. However, when married the new couples generally left their parent's house and started their own household free from their parent's influence. Extended families still had close ties with young couples but the men were free to make their own decisions for their families. In consequence of young couples moving out, households tended to be quite small which defies Hartman's arguments the SE Europe had more numerous family groups. Duben and Behar do agree with Hartman that the age at marriage is the key to many other aspects of domestic life. They also point out that patterns in Istanbul and rural Anatolia (Turkey) were quite different, with rural Anatolia conforming more to Hartman's idea os SE Europe. The Hainal line is mentioned in reference to the fact that Turkey supports Hainal's ideas in a few ways and does not support it in other. Duben and Behar shed some light on Europe as a whole by discussing Turkey in particular. The example of Turkey shows how no family pattern fits across the board - each culture had its own peculiarities.

"The Middle-Class Household" by John Tosh

In this chapter Tosh discusses the changes in the middle class. There was a shift in the middle-class as it began to expand. The first generation of middle-class were shop and factory owners that lived adjacent to their place of business. Many young people were apprenticed to professions different from that of their parents, and as a result were able to enter higher levels of the middle class. This is part of the reason the middle class expanded so much. On page three Tosh says “But strength of numbers lay with the men of trade and business. It was this entrepreneurial element which increased most rapidly during the first half of the nineteenth century and accounted for the largest number of fresh recruits to the middle class.”
Tosh argues that the “Masculine self-respect certainly demanded that a man provide for his family, and great shame was attached to one who ‘failed’. “(pg 14) Many of the changes that occurred from one generation to the next in the middle class were attempts to prove to society that the man of the house could provide for his family by maintaining a ‘proper’ household. The second generation of middle class began moving away from their places of work. Increasingly home became a place of refuge and not a place of work. If there was work to be done at home it was to be done in a way and place that interference to the rest of the household was minimal.
Another point that Tosh makes is that women were withdrawing from the day to day practices of business. Part of being able to provide was to allow your wife to have a life of luxury. How little your wife was required to be involved in work became yet another social marker. Part of that shift was also the separation of the servants from the household. They were no longer considered part of the family but simply one more way to measure wealth. The more servants you could afford the better off you were. And if you could afford to hire male servants then you were really doing well. Tosh points out that during this period when the middle class expanded so much people became extremely preoccupied with their status in that middle class. It really seems to me that this is when the wide spread attitude of keeping up with the Jones came into play.
This chapter falls into the theme of Family Relationship and Family Economics because Tosh discusses the shift from women being an important part of the working relationship with their husbands to not being involved at all. As the middle class expanded the women's role began to be reduced and the responibility for making decisions and being the breadwinner fell completely on the man.