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the family is related to these two institutions in a number of ways.

The economy and household/family are seperated easily in the modern

era. As already stated above, the family of today is primarily a consumption

unit, while the economic state is filled with units of production and consumption

as well, it produces wages and employment.

Other creations of economy are; capitalist welfare programs (company

housing, welfare, pension programs), corporate taxes and employer contributions.

(Dickinson/Russell, 1986:13)

The families main tie to the economic state is through labour power.

Jack Wayne, in his essay “The function of Social Welfare in a Capitalist

Economy” writes:

The reproduction of labour power is, however, private; it generally

takes place outside the jurisdiction of capital, in families and households,

and is separated from the circuit of capital. The use value of labour power

is, of course, of interest to the capitalist, but it is determined by processes

and undertakings that occur behind ‘closed doors’. The only point of intervention

available to the capitalist is the wage. (Dickinson/Russell, 1986:79)

It is the wage that ties the economic state and family together, and

allows the corporations or as Marx calls them capitalists to harness the

labour power for their own needs. There is only one form of labour that

is not totally governed by the capitalist market and that is domestic labour.

Domestic labour is characterized by a very low level of division of

labour. The same person (usually the housewife) does a range of activities

which, in the social spheres are carried out by specialists. Some examples

of this are catering, education and health businesses. Secondly the products

of domestic labour do not have to be sold on the market for the labour

to be recognized at useful. This makes domestic labour a non-market production.

Lastly the labour-power is not offered on a market and therefor makes up

non-waged labour

(housework is non-paid). (Gouverneur, 1983:7)

Closely tied in with the economic state is the political state. The

taxes from the economic market feed the collective consumption of the government

and legislation and boards from the government provide occupational health

and safety standards. The government also provides a stabling influence

on the changing economy.

As far as the family is concerned the State provides redistribution

of transfer payments and substitute wage programs. The government also

strengthens the social welfare net and provides charity and philanthropy

to those in need. Labour market regulation allows the regulation of child

labour laws and gives more bargaining power to families and wage earners.

One major form of this is the ability to strike and discuss minimum wage

legislation. (Dickinson/Russell, 1986: 17) Saskatchewan, under the first

socialist government in North America the CCF, was the first to give wage-earners

the right to go on strike in 1944. It took Ontario twenty years to give

its provincial residents the same right.

Households and families units of ,individual consumption, use this increase

in labour power to provide more taxes, if not out of the good of their

hearts then for government stability, to the political state. Thus, the

family unit helps balance the power struggle the government has with the

ever increasing economic sphere in a symbiotic relationship.

In “The State and the Maintenance of Patriarchy: A case study of family,

labour and welfare legislation in Canada”, Jane Ursel writes:

An important role of the state in class societies is to ensure a balanced

allocation of labour and non-labour resources between the two spheres of

production and reproduction so that the system is maintained both in the

long and short term….the state is the guarantor of the rules of class

and the rules of patriarchy and must insure that one system does not disrupt

the other. (Dickinson/Russell, 1986:154)

The government uses its control to regulate and perpetuate the status

quo and the family is a part of that. However, she does not believe that

the patriarchal system is all bad. She continues to write:

Patriarchy is important because the state cannot (inspite of some ill-fated

attempts) legislate procreation. It must instead set up a system via family,

property and marriage laws which will serve to translage social and economic

requirements into compelling household imperatives. The characteristic

feature of familial patriarchy is its pronatalist dynamic. This results

from the nature of the interaction between class and patriarchy which creates

a dterminant relation between productivity and procreation at the household

level.(Dickinson/Russel, 1986:157)

The family can change these regulations as well.

According to what has been discussed so far the definition of a family

would be a non-capitalist unit in which the maintenance and reproduction

of labour power takes place. (Bailey, 1974: 34) The Websters Dictionary

describes a family as “a group of related things or people”. (1990) However,

the Canadian government defines the family as “now-married couple (with

or without never-married sons and/or daughters of either or both spouses),

a couple living common law (again with or

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