Familiar Exploitation: A New Analysis of Marriage in Contemporary Western Societies

by Christine Delphy

This important new book creates new terms for thinking about gender and generational relationships. In so doing it recasts conventional understandings of the family as an institution for organizing labour and consumption. Delphy and Leonard present their wide-ranging theoretical discussion alongside a comparative study of the family in urban and rural areas. Theoretical innovation is consistently matched by empirical analysis of the family in diverse settings.

Genres: Feminism, Nonfiction

312 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1992

About the author

Christine Delphy is a French sociologist, feminist, writer and theorist. She was a co-founder of the review Nouvelles questions féministes (New Feminist Issues) with Simone de Beauvoir in 1977.

Reviews

[Camille · Rating 5 out of 5]

Selon Delphy, son livre le plus important ! Il s'agit de sa théorisation, avec Diana Leonard, du travail domestique comme système d'exploitation des femmes. L'extrême rigueur avec laquelle la théorie est présentée rend selon moi certains passages un peu indigestes. Mais c'est un livre capital pour comprendre une partie de l'exploitation des femmes!!

[Lindabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book for my thesis and it is an excellent materialist (true Marxist) analysis of women's exploitation in the family, while arguing against the notion that the family is exploitive because it is capitalistic. Instead they argue that it is because women's labor is appropriated that the family is exploitive.

Also, their intro is really great, because they provide an overview of the relation between Marism and feminism, and elaborate what actual Marxist materialism was about: inequality and exploitation, not first and foremost capitalism.

In my thesis I provide some critique of their work, but they proved a compelling and useful argument for anyone who is interested in an economic perspective on the family.