Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Theories of the family SCLY1
Functionalist/Marxist
- Functionalist
- Murdock (1949)
- Argues that the family is universal
institution that performs four
major functions;
- 4) Education
- Primary
socialisation
- 1) Economic
- Breadwinner/
housewife rolese
- 2) Sexual
- Socially approved
relationship
(marriage)
- 3) Reproductive
- Male and
female having
a child
- Murdock's
research created
familistic ideology
- His research is
dated
- All data collected
was secondary
making it
unreliable
- Assumes the family is
harmonious and ignores
the conflict and
exploitation
- Ignores family diversity and
assumes the nuclear family is the
universal norm
- Parsons (1955)
- Argued the Nuclear family retains two 'basic and irreducible' functions.
- 1) Primary socialisation of children
- Links to Murdock's
'education' function
- 2) Stabilisation of adult personalities
- Not the same
but similar to
Murdock's 'sexual'
function
- Parson disagrees with Murdock and he believes in the loss of funtions
- He argues that the economic function
has been replaced by the welfare state
and that the reproductive function has
been replaced by modern reproductive
technologies
- "The family performs
positive functions for
individuals and society"
- Tend to neglect the meanings
families have for individuals and
how family members interpret
family relationships
- Marxist
- Engels (1884)
- Passing on wealth
- Argues that as private property becomes more
important men who controlled it needed to ensure
they could pass it to their own sons and this led
to monogamous marriage
- This also meant the women becoming
private property of her husband, who
controlled her sexuality to ensure he was the
father of her children
- Zaretsky (1976)
- Argues that there is a 'cult of private life'
- The belief that we can only gain fulfilment
from family life, and this distracts attention
from exploitation
- Ideological functions
- Althusser and Poulantzas
- The family can be seen as serving the functions of an ideological state apparatus by socialising
both pro-capitalist ideology and its own familiar ideology in order to maintain such family patterns
over time.
- "The family provides
important functions
for capitalism"
- Tend to neglect the meanings
families have for individuals and how
family members interpert family
relationships
- Ignore the benefits that
the family provides such
as intimacy and mutual
support
- Underestimate
the importance
of gender
equalities
- New right theories; the
family is the
cornerstone of society,
but it is under threat
- Political rather than sociological
- The new right is a victim blaming theory
- However the New Right theory is
closely linked to functionalism
- Charles Murray
- David Marsland