Extended families would naturally fit into his definition of the nuclear family as it is an extension, and in no way does it change the overall concept. The idea that the nuclear family is universal is said to be because the family serves four essential functions. These include sexual, reproductive, economic and education. Therefore, he believes the family includes a sexual relationship, provides the next generation of society, acts as an economic unit and socialises children into the culture of their society. To sum up, Murdock feels strongly that the family is certainly universal as neither the individual or the society could survive without it.
In this essay I will examine the different functions performed by the family for individuals and society by exploring ideas expressed by the different sociologist groups including functionalism and Marxism. Functionalists had a strong belief that the family is a positive foundation. There view on the family is one that works well with the needs of an industrial society for a workforce that is not just geographically mobile but also socially mobile. This idea they believe benefits all aspects of society is that all families should be a nuclear family and by this they mean the husband is the bread winner this is a role to support the family his wife and children, functionalists call this the instrumental role. The expectation in a nuclear family is that the wife stays at home and looks after the children, she would clean and cook and provide the emotion in the family and they call this the expressive role.
Murdock believed that the nuclear family was a universal institution that was vital to the well being of all societies and stated that the family's primary purpose is for sexual, reproductive, economic, and educational. Many people say murdocks analyse suffers from a failure to consider how other instructions can or could take over the functions of the family for example welfare state providing shelter. Parsons said even though the family had lost some functions it retained two basic and irreducible functions, they were primary socialization and stabilisation of adult personalities, parsons argues that society cannot exist without shared values norms and roles which are passed on from generation to generation and claims family's are needed for this purpose. The functionalists view of the family has been heavily criticised for being outdated and for presenting an overly optimistic view of the family. Many people criticise functionalists because they ignore the fact that not all families are perfect, another weakness of functionalists is that not all families can carry out all four of the functions for example gay families can't carry out the reproductive function.
The Marxist view on the family is that the functions are performed for the benefit of these capitalists. Firstly, Functionalists such as Murdock see that the nuclear family (one containing a male, a female and one or more children) is universal because of it 'sheer practicality' in performing four vital functions, although he does accept that other institutions such as religion, law and education could perform these. Item A identifies two of these functions. The first being that ''it provides for the stable satisfaction of the sex drive''. This means that in having the same sexual partner, it prevents the social disruption that would be caused if there was no stability and people could just go out and have sex with numerous different partners without consequences.
Assess the functionalist contributions to our understanding of the family Functionalists believe that parts of society exist for a function and are all part of the organic analogy. If these parts work together to pass on norms and values it creates a collective conscience, hereby creating social order. From the item we can see that Murdock saw the family as fulfilling the function of reproducing the next generation and socialising them into the shared culture. They believe the nuclear family is the most effective family for its function and is the most able to pass on the norms and values to create a collective conscience for the next generation. Murdock, a functionalist sociologist, says that the nuclear family is universal.
Access the views that the nuclear family functions to benefit all the members and society as a whole There are a great variety of views on the nuclear family to how and if it benefits all the members as well as how it helps society. Functionalist have a really positive view of the family as they believe we live in a utopian society where everything is perfect with in, whereas groups such as Marxists and feminists see the nuclear family as a negative structure which is uneven in how it benefits people with in it and society. Functionalists believe that the nuclear family is a positive institution that is beneficial to society - they look at the functions that the nuclear family performs for the good of society as a whole. These functions include:Reproduction - the family has children which means the human race keeps going; Primary socialisation - the family teaches children norms (acceptable behaviour) and values (right and wrong) ;Economic support – The family gives financial support, it feeds and provides shelter for it’s membersStabilisation of adult personalities- parsons argued that the second role of the family is to relieve the stresses of modern day life it is referred to as the “warm bath” theory Social status- is taught to a child as to where in society they stand it is affected by gender, age , ethnicity, social class, birth order and religion Functionalists believe that the nuclear family benefits all of its members from these functions but it is criticised as being ignorant of the fact that society is not perfect as they would believe for there is crime and not everything is perfect in family’s. Feminists believe the family is bad for women.
Outline and explain whether the Nuclear family can be seen as universal [15 marks] It is suggested that the Nuclear family is universal as it is promoted as the ‘right’ family type through mass media programmes such as the simpsons, the flintstones and so on. Sociologists study the family because it is the main agent of primary socialisation and it forms one of the central experiences of an individual’s life. Functionalist sociologist George Murdock expresses that he feels strongly that the nuclear family is certainly universal as neither the individual or the society could survive without it. .In 1949, functionalist sociologist George Murdock defined the nuclear family as a social group characterized by economic cooperation, common residence and reproduction. It also includes a sexual relationship and one of more children, own or adopted, of the sexual cohabiting adults.
The nuclear family is ideal for both individual’s and society, discuss: (24 marks) The nuclear family is one in which the family consists of two generations; a married or cohabiting couple with immature offspring, living under the same roof. There are many different views and opinions as to whether the nuclear family is ideal for both individuals and society and there are three main perspectives, these are Marxism, functionalism and feminism. There are both arguments supporting and arguments against this statement: The nuclear family is ideal for both individuals and society. The nuclear family is ideal for an individual for many reasons. The nuclear family tends to provide a more stable household for an individual than a lone parent family would.
Durkheim formed the ‘Structural Theory’, which is the idea that society is comprised of interrelated parts, or social institutions, each contributing to the smooth running of society. A consensus theory is defined as one that believes all parts of society perform a positive role and each part benefits the other, for example, a happy family is more likely to produce children who do well in education and therefore go onto become good workers. The main Functionalist view on familial ideology is by George Murdock (1949), who identifies the nuclear family as a ‘universal social grouping’ which consists of characteristics such as a sexual relationship between a married couple and the reproduction of children. He believed patriarchy, also known as male domination, was necessary as he believed the father should control his family by providing the income and making most of the household decisions. Parsons (1950s) added that the two main functions of the family were (i) teach their children how to socialize
I believe these are the main points because they let the author speak his mind about his homeland. The first main idea is that any parent who can find use of their children should be recognized as high members of the community (Swift 249): “Whoever could find out a fair, cheep, and easy method of making these children sound and useful members of the commonwealth would deserve so well of the public as to have his statue set up for a preserver of the nation” (Swift 249). This is basically saying that if children are not a use to their parents they should try to make them useful. This also means that children can be forced to be useful. The next main idea is that children will provide an excellent meat source (Swift 250).