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In this assignment I am going to look at factors to do with the family and how the family is seen by Functionalists, Feminists and Marxists.

There is a romantic concept around the family where, a boy meets girl, they fall in love, get married and have children then live happily ever after. If it were this simple then sociological study on the family would be easy. The family is best described as a group of people who are closely related by blood or marriage. Some sociologists prefer to describe their work in this area as a study of households or unit. This is because people live together even though blood or marriage does not relate them. Such as students, lesbians or, single people who live alone. In contemporary Britain not all children are brought up by a family, some live in care or are fostered, ‘about 65% (2008) of children in care are fostered and a small number live in voluntary sector homes and hostels’

There are four main types of family, which are:

The Extended Family – This consists of three generations i.e., grandparents, parents and children who live close to each other, see each other nearly every day and all help each other, or they live under the same roof.

The Nuclear Family- This is smaller then the Extended, and consists of parents and children who live together. Contact with other family members is less frequent. The reason for this could be other family members don’t live nearby.

The Lone Parent Family- This consists of just one parent and child or children living together. This can be for different reasons such as the death of a partner, divorce or pregnancy outside of their marriage.

The Reconstituted Family- This is a family which is referred to as ‘step family’. Because the rate of divorces is on the increase so are re-marriages where a person joins a family. ‘It is estimated that about six million people live in reconstituted families or one...