views on family

• Murdock's definition of family


  A social group characterized by common residence, economic cooperation and reproduction. It includes adults of both sexes, with two maintaining a socially approved sexual relationship and one or more child (biological or adopted)
• Family

  • Based on kinship ties such as biological or legal
  • Functionalists were very influential in defining what is meant by 'family'
  • Families are essential for the survival of society
• Murdock studied 250 societies and found that the family was in all with some variations in structure
• Murdock concluded that families are a 'universal institution'
• Ideal family according to Functionalists and New Right


  • Heterosexual couple and their children (nuclear family)
• Parsons' view on the family


  Family is essential to the survival of society as it fulfils basic functions of socialisation of children and the regulation of the behaviour of adults
• Other sociologists have disagreed with Murdock's definition of the family, suggesting that other relationships within families can exist that are not how Murdock describes them
• Kathleen Gough's research on the Nayar tribe of Southern India


  • Women bore children to up to 12 'Sandbanham' husbands
  • Biological fathers took no responsibility for their upbringing - they did not even live with them
  • The mother's brothers were economically responsible for her children
• Parsons' view on gender roles in the nuclear family


  • The father carried out the instrumental role as he was responsible for going out to work and being the breadwinner
  • Women traditionally carried out the expressive role which involved being the primary caregiver to children and extended family
• Functions of the nuclear family according to Murdock


  • Sexual
  • Reproductive
  • Economic
  • Educational
• Parsons' view on the functions of the nuclear family


  • Primary socialisation of children
  • Personality stabilization of adults
• Functionalists and the New Right see marriage and nuclear family as being a stable basis for raising a healthy and well socialised family than other structures such as lone parent
• Leech's reference to nuclear families


  • Cereal packet families - used in advertising due to the ideal image of a mum, dad and children
• Postmodernists argue that providing an exact definition of family has become complicated over past few years due to changing patterns of divorce, remarriage, cohabitation etc. meaning that there has been an increase in the number of diverse (different) family forms
• 2021 Census data reveals that there were 3.0 million lone parent families, which accounts for 15.4% of families in the UK
• Weston's view on 'families of choice'


  Many people no longer choose traditional family forms and the definition of family should focus on emotional connection
• Carol Smart states that for some of us, we classify pets as family members
• Allan and Crow argue that there is now greater diversity in people's domestic arrangements so there isn't a clear 'family cycle' through which most pass
• Tamara Hareven states that people can live in many different households across their life
• Household


  One person living alone or a group of people living at the same address/sharing accommodation along with domestic and/or financial responsibility. Not always related.
• Due to increasing family diversity, there are an increasing number of household types, i.e. reconstituted, same-sex and lone parent households
• The 2021 UK Census reports that the number of cohabitating couple households saw an increase of 22.9% in the past decade to 3.6 million
• Postmodernists argue that due to society being characterised by a plurality, or diversity, of household and family types, the term 'household' better reflects modern society than the term 'family'
• Two types of extended family

  • Vertically extended (three or more generations living together or close by)
  • Horizontally extended (relatives from two generations living together or near one another)
• Young and Willmott's study of 1950s family life in Bethnal Green

  • Strong bond between married daughters and their mothers, who often lived close together, even if not under the same roof and offered one another support
• Charles, Davies and Harris' study in Swansea in the early 2000s


  • Families were focussed on female relationships
  • Nuclear families were only a short part of people's lives
  • Many people have a series of highly complex family arrangements to which they belong at the same time
• Parsons argued that due to industrialisation, the geographically mobile nuclear family was not compatible with extended family relationships
• Wilmott identified dispersed extended families who actually live very close together and dispersed families who were spread out geographically but maintained contact
• The role media played in maintaining familial contact during the Covid-19 pandemic
• The extended family is becoming more common in contemporary society, mainly due to the increase in life expectancy and decrease in the fertility rate
• Dykstra and Knipscheer's concept of the 'verticalisation of family'

  The original pyramidal structure, where few generations are alive at the same time and where the members of the younger generations outnumber those in the older generations, has been replaced with a vertical structure
• Brannen refers to this family structure as a 'bean pole family'
• Grandparents are an important source of childcare and child-rearing in modern Britain
• Conflict theories' views on the nuclear family


  • Marxism - highly critical
  • Feminism - highly critical, argue women are forced to endure a 'dual burden' and 'triple shift'
• While the nuclear family remains the most common family type, ONS statistics reveal that the nuclear family is in decline and more diverse family and household structures are increasing
• Ideal family


  Heterosexual couple and their children - the nuclear family
• Family


  • Essential to the survival of society
  • Fulfils basic functions of socialisation of children and the regulation of the behaviour of adults
• Parsons


  Father instrumental role, women expressive role
• Murdock's view of nuclear family


  • Performs four functions: sexual, reproductive, economic and educational
• Parsons' view of nuclear family

  • Performs two key functions: primary socialisation of children and personality stabilization
  • Metaphor of the 'warm bath'