Nuclear Family Essay

792 Words4 Pages
Assess the view that the nuclear family is a universal institution For many years, sociologists have created numerous different theories regarding the family, and more precisely the nuclear family. There are countless opposing views with regards to whether the nuclear family is still universal to this day, for instance some argue that it is, due to the fact it is clearly the norm in all large societies however others stress that this statement is outdated because of other institutions such as same sex families becoming increasingly apparent and socially accepted, and societies such as the ‘Ik tribe’ certainly not conforming to this view. Nonetheless, with there being so many societies and cultures within the world today, each of which have their own style of nuclear family and interpret it completely differently to many other countries and social backgrounds, it could be said that there can be no exact or definitive answer. George Murdock, an influential researcher of families stated that ‘The family is a social group characterized by common residence, economic cooperation and reproduction. It contains adults of both sexes, at least two of whom maintain a socially approved sexual relationship, and one or more children, own or adopted, of the sexually cohabiting adults’. In 1949, after closely studying 250 different societies he concluded that there are four main features of functions of the family. Murdock believed that for a society of people to become a family they had to incorporate all four of the functions. These functions were reproduction, which is essential for the survival of a society because as long as they can reproduce they can survive. The second function was a sexual function, this being that the family provides environment for regulating sexual desires. Thirdly was education where by the new born could learn the norms and values of society and
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