Functionalism & the family

Murdock: 4 functions

• Reproductive - reproducing members of society through having children

• Economic - Family provides food and shelter and are a unit of consumption

• Sexual - Satisfies sex drive with the same partner, preventing social disruption caused by a sexual ‘free-for-all’

• Socialising - Teaching the young of society norms and values to create consensus and social solidarity

Parsons: Functional Fit

• Most common family type fits the needs of the society at the time

• Geographical mobility

  • Pre-industrial: Families extended as people spent lives in same village working on a farm

  • Modern: People move to where jobs are, two generation nuclear family can move easier than extended family

• Social mobility

  • Pre-industrial: Status based on parents’ status

  • Modern: Meritocracy, the most talented people take the most important jobs, can leave home and form own nuclear family - can move social class position

Parsons: Warm Bath Theory

• When a man comes home from a hard day at work, they can relax at home with the family, like sinking into a warm bath, taking away the stress of the day and refreshing him for the next day at work

• Instrumental role: Role of the husband to provide financially and be the ‘breadwinner’

• Expressive role: Role of wife, to care for husband and children, nurturing emotional role

Parsons: Two Key Functions

1) Primary socialisation: Equipping children with the basic skills and society’s values, enabling them to cooperate with others and integrate into society

2) Stabilise adult personalities: The family can relax and release tensions, enabling them to return to the workplace refreshed, ready to meet its demands, function for the efficiency of the economy

Parsons: Loss of functions

• The family has lost some of its functions (e.g. education, care, clothing, food provision)

• Views this positively - the family has specialised in its emotional role

• Other institutions have taken on functions of the family: e.g. NHS with healthcare, education system with schooling

Bell & Vogel

• Children are emotional scapegoats

• Parents let their anger and frustration out on the children e.g. shouting at them

• This stabilises the family, and so is good for society as a whole (e.g. not public outbursts of anger, all kept private and contained within society)

Leach: Radical psychology

• Functionalists see nuclear family life as good and functional

• However, the nuclear family is isolated from wider community

• ‘Privacy is the source of violence and fear’

• The family is an ‘overloaded electrical circuit’

• Stress is too much which results in conflict which is not a good thing

Laing: Radical psychology

• Suggests schizophrenia is caused by experiences within the family

• The nuclear family is intense, we worry about how much we are loved by other family members

• As a result of these anxieties, members become like gangsters, offering each other mutual protection and love that can be used against other family members

• Become mutually suspicious of others’ motives - mental breakdown and family argument