Family : Murdock

• Murdock provided us with a basic outline of the functions of the family and explained how the nuclear family became the most common type after the decline of the classic extended family. He explains which functions the family perform. Murdock suggests that the family performs four roles:

  1. Reproduction of the next generation
  2. Economic security for members who do not work; e.g. wife and children
  3. Socialising the next generation into the value consensus
  4. Stabilising the sex drive by providing a form of appropriate relationships
• Murdock claimed that the nuclear family was universal. He studied over 200 tribes across the world and reported that in all cases the sexual division of labour meant that the men carried out the instrumental role and the women carried out the expressive role.
• Murdock claims that the nuclear family is universal. 4 main functions of the family are

  • Reproductive : create new generations
  • Sexual : unregulated sex can be socially disruptive, cheating causes conflict, marriage prevents conflict, provides social order
  • Educational : passing on norms and values, traditions and culture from in generation to the next. (primary socialisation)
  • Economic : parents become productive workers, the family is a unit of consumption