Sociological Perspectives on the Role of the Family

• Murdock studied over 250 societies and found the family was a universal feature
• Murdock focused on the nuclear family, which he found in every culture he studied, and claimed it performed clear functions for its members
• Murdock claimed the family performed 4 functions: economic, sexual, reproductive and educational
• Economic: the family pools resources and money to provide for all members. Often with the man as the breadwinner while the woman does unpaid labour - both help every member
• Sexual regulation: the family provides a stable sexual relationship for a man and woman to resolve sexual urges, and promotes heterosexuality
• Education: the family teaches children the norms and values of society through primary socialisation, including gender roles
• Reproduction: the family provides the next generation of society and encourages heterosexuality to continue reproduction for future generations
• Feminists say Murdock fails to recognise the universal unit is a mother and child, not a nuclear family
• Murdock's research may be outdated - there are changing gender roles and a greater diversity of family types in contemporary society
• Parsons - privatised nuclear family: the nuclear family is self-sufficient and can rely on other social institutions rather than kinship networks
• Parsons argued the family performed two roles that no other institution could: primary socialisation of children and stabilisation of adult personalities
• Primary socialisation occurs in the family where children learn how to behave from their parents. They are praised and sanctioned for good or bad behaviour and absorb information
• Stabilisation of adult personalities: coming home from work to the family is like a warm bath, washing away the stresses and worries of the rest of the world, giving adults a sense of fulfilment and emotional security
• Functional Fit theory: the family was originally extended with many generations under one roof, but with industrialisation, there was a greater need for being geographically mobile, so the family adapted
• Sex Role theory: men take on an instrumental role as the breadwinners, earning money and providing discipline, while women take on an expressive role, nurturing children and providing emotional support
• Feminists argue Parsons' ideas are patriarchal and buy into stereotypes about men and women
• Parsons' ideas may be outdated as there is less emphasis on gender roles in contemporary society
• Functionalists ignore the negative side of family life
• Engels suggested the family unit evolved in a response to capitalism and ownership of property
• People wanted legitimate heirs (children they were biologically related to) to inherit their wealth. Thus monogamous relationships developed to ensure children were their own
• Engels - women were glorified prostitutes, exchanging reproduction for shelter and food
• Engels describes promiscuous hordes before capitalism where there were no restrictions on sexuality, but there is little historical evidence for this
• Althusser - the family acts as an ISA, socialising children into the correct behaviours that benefit capitalism. Other institutions monitor this and ensure children are 'brought up properly'
• Hochschild - family life is becoming commodified. Alienation of work is no longer soothed by the family because relationships are more transactional and are severed if they aren't positive, placing strain on households
• Beck - men more likely to label themselves as fathers than by their job title due to precarity of work in modern society
• Zaretsky - the family has changed from a unit of production to a unit of consumption
• In the pre-industrial era families produced their own goods, often with every member helping. Post industrialisation families instead work to consume goods as the family no longer produces them
• Keeping up with the Joneses - families strive to have the same goods and products as neighbouring families
• Pester power - children are now an economic liability rather than an asset. They are targets of advertising and beg parents to buy them products
• Zaretsky - the family provides a cushioning blow, absorbing worker's anger rather than directing it at the bourgeoise
• Women's unpaid domestic labour allows male workers to focus on their own jobs
• Zaretsky says the family props up capitalism as it makes members feel personal responsibility - they must keep working to provide for their loved ones
• Marxists focus on the economic functions of the family but ignore that there may be other reasons people have families
• Liberal feminists see a march of progress - family life is changing for the better both through the law and wider societal changes
• Policies that help women in employment indirectly affect family life - girls are more interested in careers than marriage, and gender roles are changing too
• Policies that give women control over reproduction have meant women can choose to have children later or not at all, and also that women may marry for reasons other than having children
• Women now have more rights within marriage like the ability to divorce and the recognition of rape
• Dual burden - women go to work but are still expected to do all the housework
• Triple shift - women work and look after the house and must also provide for everyone else in the family emotionally
• Ansley - women are takers of shit