On the Differences between Families and Organizations
The way families function differs radically from the way organizations function. Organizations are created and maintain themselves by recruiting their members from usually very large pools of applicants, and members may be dismissed should they not abide by the rules. By contrast, the formation of families is based on the birth or adoption of new member of a system created by the union of, in the majority of cases, a heterosexual couple. In the case of families, these new members are difficult to remove.
To put it simply: in organizations, you become an official member by way of a decision to admit you, in families – at least in the case of children – by way of birth or adoption.
Parents cannot simply cancel children’s membership. They cannot decide to exclude children for not behaving in accordance with their demands. The cancellation of family membership by the children themselves is not something that is easily done either. Children are very aware of the impossibility of being excluded and exploit it for spectacular acts of resistance against their parents – preferably at large family celebrations or in queues at the supermarket checkout. Their idea is: ‘What the heck are they going to do? They can’t just kick me out!’
The termination of membership in a parental partnership, however, is not only possible; it is – at least in modern secular societies – even the rule. And yet, despite the fact that partnerships can, it seems, be ‘terminated’ just like membership in an organization, the special character of partnerships must be kept in mind. In a partnership it is difficult to demand a change of behaviour from the other half by threatening a separation. When the continuation of a partnership is made conditional on one party doing more cleaning around the house, taking more care when driving, or avoiding further amorous adventures with third parties, that is already an obvious sign of crisis.
Ultimately, families are a ‘risky coupling of partnership and parenthood’, because the rationale of a partnership is completely different from the rationale of parenthood. We may entertain the idea that a partnership will be improved by the production of as many ‘fruits of love’ as possible, but when the children actually arrive so does the realization that any expectations about intimacy and deep human connection between the partners will be dashed by the hurly-burly of daily family life. The presence of children leads to a change of system whether you want it or not: a romantic relationship becomes a family, and the rationales of the two systems are to a large extent opposed to each other.
Parents who hold on to the concept of partnership find that family membership is fragile, and for this reason a surprising amount of intimate communication not only takes place but is even required – and not only when compared to premodern societies. Such communication is even demanded. Intimate communication does not mean that family conversations are modelled on romantic pillow talk. There is little empirical evidence for that. Rather, intimate communication means that ‘everything concerning a person’ can, in principle, be ‘the subject of communication’. While secrecy, by contrast, may be practised by parents as well as children, ‘it is not considered legitimate’, as Luhmann puts it. In a family, you ‘cannot refuse to communicate about your own person by saying: that’s none of your business’.
The emergence of the family as an independent system took place during the transition to modern society. According to a well-established argument, educational, economic, religious, and medical functions were increasingly transferred to certain specialized organizations, such as schools, businesses, religious associations, and hospitals, while the family of modern society came predominantly to be based on nothing but the mutual affection, sympathetic understanding, and comradeship of its members. As political, religious, and economic activities are now generally carried out outside of the family, there is no need – and this is the crucial point – to consider the possible implications that ‘family ties (created by marriage)’ may otherwise have for these activities.
Organizations and families follow entirely different rationales. We pick this up, often without being told so directly. Socrates still naturally assumed that, in a hierarchically organized society, leading a family and leading an army were similar activities, because what mattered for those in charge was getting subordinates ‘to pay heed to them and to obey’, being able ‘to punish the bad and to honor the good’, and making ‘their subordinates well disposed’ towards their leaders. In a modern society, placing such demands on mothers or fathers would cause irritation, to say the least. And a teenager who wanted to be treated by an organization as if he were in a family would probably be viewed with as much scepticism as a manager who wanted to lead his family like an organization.
While the self-descriptions of organizations often emphasize their compatibility with membership in other systems – just think of the slogan ‘we are a family-friendly business’ – in organization studies the stress is rather on the tensions that result when individuals are exposed to the demands of different social systems. In the course of the establishment of armies, businesses, and schools the corresponding military, economic, and educational texts that reflected on these developments repeatedly sought to stress that membership in these organizations was, of course, compatible with family membership. But sociological descriptions instead have illustrated the field of tension that exists between the organization and the family. The tension between schools and families concerning authority in educational matters, the conflicts between armies and families over access to young recruits, and the debates taking place in businesses about how to achieve an acceptable ‘work–life balance’, which usually revolve around finding a balance between the demands of organizations and those of families, are only the most prominent examples of the strains that result from the differentiation between organizations and families.
