Functionalist perspective on the family

Functionalist perspective on the family

1. Murdock

   • Criticisms
     • Feminist see the family as serving the needs of men and oppressing women
     • The functions Murdock listed, can be carried out through other insitions
     • Ann Oakley re-examined Murdocks data, and found that he ignored society's where gender riles were reversed/shared
       • Because of this she argued that the divison of labour is not universal as he suggests
   • Argued that the family has 4 main functions
     • Regulation of sexual activity
     • Production of the new generation
     • Socialization of children into the culture of the community
     • Provision of economic support and necessities of life through the divison of labour
   • Suggested that the nuclear family meets these needs, as they are in everyday society

2. Fletcher

   • When marriage fails, most of the time people remarry soon after
   • He was concerned that the family has become too privatised
     • Enjoying the 'warm bath'
     • Caring little about society
   • To Fletcher the family is stronger than it was in the past where women often married for economic support or community pressure
     • The family is now a fulfilling arrangement of choice
   • Wrote: 'Marriage seems to be becoming increasingly in the future, a relationship of affection and companionship quite apart from having and rearing children'
   • Criticisms
     • Fletcher worked before the Divorce Reform Act (1969), and may have underestimate the disruption easier divorce was to cause to many families
     • Some of his views were unusal for the functionalists - being more usual for marxist

3. Parsons

   • Criticisms
     • The extended family does still exits
     • Feminists challenge the idea that gender roles are divided
     • Many men have expressive roles for work
     • Is out of date, Both partner's are likely to be playing the instrumental and expressive roles at various times
   • The family helps to stabilise these role through the sexual division of labour
   • Parsons elaborates on Murdock's idea, saying that children are socilized into gender roles
   • Parsons found that many of the tasks families performed, in simple societies were no longer a task of a family in a developed society
     • Because of this he argued that the family only have two main functions
       • The stabilization of adult perosnalities
       • The socialization of children into their society's culture
   • Labelled the men's role as the Instrumental (practical) role, and the women's role as the expressive (caring) role
   • The Nuclear family, helps to encpurage social mobilaty, and therefore the extended family, which stregethens the sexual division of labour is no longer used in society

4. Leach

   • Criticisms
     • Downplays conflict in the family, painting a very rosy picture of the family
     • Ignores the expoiltation of women
     • The family has not lost it's functions they have simply changed through society changing
   • Asserts that the nuclear family has been isolated from kin (privatisation)
   • He says that the functionalists ignore the negative affects of the family
   • 'Far from being the basis of society, the family, with its narrow privacy and tawdry secrets it is the source of our discontents'

5. Functionalism is a Consensus theory, which emphasizes integration and harmony between the different parts of society.

   • The functionalists view the family as a vital 'organ' on maintaining the body of society
   • Suggesting that the family has a number of responsibilities, these are the functions it performs for society.
     • The functions of the family are primarily to do with the role in the preparation of children into adult society
     • and contributing to satisfy the functional prerequisites, or basic needs which enable society to survive
   • Functionalists are also interested in how the family fits in with other social instututions (e.g work, education) s