Roles of the Family 1 — Functionalist + New Right

What is the functionalist view of the family?

Functionalists see the family as a positive institution that benefits society by performing essential functions such as socialisation, reproduction, sexual regulation, economic support and emotional stability.

What are Murdock’s four functions of the family?

Sexual function, reproductive function, economic function, and educational/socialisation function.

What is Murdock’s sexual function?

The family regulates sexual behaviour through stable, socially approved relationships, usually monogamous marriage. This prevents a “sexual free-for-all” that could cause jealousy, conflict and social disruption.

What is Murdock’s reproductive function?

The family produces the next generation and gives children a socially recognised unit to be born into and raised within. This allows society to continue biologically and socially.

What is Murdock’s economic function?

The family provides economic support such as food, shelter, money and care. It also supports the wider economy because families consume goods and services.

What is Murdock’s educational/socialisation function?

The family teaches children norms, values, culture, discipline and expected behaviour through primary socialisation. This helps children become functioning members of society.

How can Murdock be evaluated?

Murdock is useful because his four functions explain why family-like institutions exist across societies. However, he is too universalistic because lone-parent, same-sex, extended and reconstituted families can also perform these functions, so the nuclear family is not essential.

What is Parsons’ functional fit theory?

Parsons argues the family changes shape to fit the needs of society. The extended family fitted pre-industrial society, while the nuclear family fitted industrial society because it was more geographically and socially mobile.

Why does Parsons argue the nuclear family fits industrial society?

The nuclear family is geographically mobile because it can move for work more easily than an extended family. It is also socially mobile because children can achieve a different status from their parents without wider kin holding them back.

What are Parsons’ two essential functions of the nuclear family?

Primary socialisation of children and stabilisation of adult personalities.

What is Parsons’ primary socialisation function?

The family teaches children society’s basic norms and values, creating value consensus and preparing them to cooperate in wider society.

What is Parsons’ stabilisation of adult personalities?

The family provides emotional support for adults, helping them cope with the stress of work. Parsons describes this as the family acting like a “warm bath”.

What are Parsons’ instrumental and expressive roles?

Parsons argues men perform the instrumental role as breadwinners, while women perform the expressive role by providing childcare, emotional support and warmth.

How can Parsons be evaluated?

Parsons is useful because he links family structure to industrialisation, but Laslett found nuclear families existed before industrialisation and Anderson found extended kin were still important in industrial towns. This weakens Parsons’ historical accuracy.

How can feminists criticise Parsons?

Oakley argues Parsons presents gender roles as natural when they are socially constructed. His theory can justify women’s unpaid domestic labour and emotional labour by calling it functional.

What is Fletcher’s view of the family?

Fletcher argues the family has not lost its importance. Institutions like schools and the NHS support families, but families still provide socialisation, emotional support, care and help with education and health.

What is Young and Willmott’s symmetrical family?

The symmetrical family is where husbands and wives increasingly share housework, childcare, leisure and decision-making. Young and Willmott see this as part of a march of progress towards greater equality.

What factors led to the symmetrical family?

Women’s paid employment, higher living standards, labour-saving technology, smaller families, home-centred leisure and weaker extended kin ties all encouraged more equal family roles.

How can Young and Willmott be evaluated?

They are useful because they identify real changes such as women’s paid work and more involved fatherhood. However, Oakley argues they exaggerate equality because women still do most routine housework and childcare.

What is the New Right view of the family?

The New Right argue the traditional married nuclear family is best because it provides stability, discipline, clear gender roles and effective socialisation. They see family diversity as a threat to social order.

What does Murray argue about welfare and lone-parent families?

Murray argues welfare benefits create perverse incentives by making lone parenthood more financially possible. He links this to welfare dependency, absent fathers and the growth of an underclass.

What is a perverse incentive?

A perverse incentive is when a policy unintentionally encourages behaviour seen as socially harmful. The New Right argue benefits may discourage marriage and male financial responsibility.

How can the New Right be evaluated?

The New Right are useful for linking family structure, welfare policy and socialisation. However, they may confuse correlation with causation because lone-parent poverty may be caused by low wages, childcare costs, housing and lack of father support, not lone parenthood itself.

How can feminists criticise the New Right?

Feminists argue the New Right idealises the nuclear family and ignores why some women leave relationships, such as domestic abuse, unequal domestic labour or men failing to provide support. Lone parenthood may be safer than staying in a harmful relationship.