Roles/perspectives on the family

• Murdock 1949 - functionalist


  • The nuclear family is universal, not just cultural
  • Compared over 250 societies and found that the nuclear family existed in some form and it always performed 4 essential functions to the continued existence of those societies: Reproductive, Sexual, Educational (socialisation), Economic (someone providing for the family)
• in every family even if they have different values and norms they have the same principles that are held within their family even if it is different to other families
• Murdock 1949 - functionalist


  The nuclear family is universal, not just cultural
• Murdock's study


  1. Compared over 250 societies

  2. Found the nuclear family existed in some form

  3. It always performed 4 essential functions to the continued existence of those societies
• 4 essential functions of the nuclear family

  • Reproductive (stability for producing and rearing children)
  • Sexual (sexual desires are being met in a socially approved context)
  • Educational (socialisation - important unit of primary socialisation, where children learn socially acceptable forms of behaviour and the culture of their society. This helps to build a stable through value consensus)
  • Economic (someone providing food and shelter for the family)
• The nuclear family has the same principles that are held within their family even if it is different to other families
• Feminist views on Murdock

  • Rosetinted view of the nuclear family
  • Ignores the domestic violence and neglect the dark side of the family
  • Family meets needs of men and oppresses women
• Marxist views on Murdock


  • Serves needs of capitalist society
• Other criticisms of Murdock


  • Ignores other benefits of different families
  • Results of culture not biology so variations in society will exist (interpretative)
  • Accused of being political- tells use right and wrong to live
• Other institutions can perform the functions of the nuclear family
• Parsons - Functional fit theory


  • Families play different functions depending on the society in which they are in
  • Depending on functions, distinguished between 2 family structure: nuclear family- modem industrial society, Extended family- pre industrial society
  • He also argues that families lost their function outlined by Murdock after the Industrial Revolution
  • Now families have just two irreducible functions - primary socialisation and stabilising adult personalise
• Pre-industrial (1600's) family characteristics (parsons)

  • Means of production -as they make everything on their own
  • Means of consumption
  • Ascribed status- from birth
  • Multiple children and live with grandparents
• Modern industrial (1870) family characteristics (parsons)

  • Made a work place - dad works, but the means of production is in the factories, and family is means of consumption
  • Geographically mobile workforce and socially mobile workforce (there for is better to move a nuclear family then extended)
  • To alpha males could clash as there is not just on alpha males
  • This has made society meritorious
• Stabilising adult personality (parsons)


  There is competition, promotions talent skills, stressful. So needs a place of comfort and can recharge to do that- also the emotional support
• Patriarchy


  Male dominance in society, central to the feminist approach
• Patriarchy


  • Established and reinforced in family relationships
  • The personal is political
  • Men benefit from family at women's expense
• Gender inequality


  A social construct (made)
• Liberal feminism


  Concerned with campaigning against sex discrimination and for equal rights and opportunity for women
• Woman's oppression is being gradually overcome, we are moving towards greater equality but that fully equality depends on further reforms (policies)
• Studies have suggested that men are now doing more domestic labour and parents are socialising their sons and daughters equally
• Sex discrimination act 1975
• Marxist feminism


  The nuclear family benefits capitalist society by providing free domestic labour - way that capitalism exploits women
• The nuclear family was important to capitalism because it rears the future workforce with little not know cost to capitalism
• Marxist feminism


  The main oppression on woman is not because of men it is because of capitalism
• Marxist feminism


  • Women reproduce the labour force - unpaid for their work
  • Women absorb anger - takers of shit - absorb their husbands frustration
  • Women are 'reserve army' of cheap labour - turn on when extra work is needed but then leave them when they are not needed
• Family must be abolished and have more of a social unit
• Radical feminism


  All societies have been founded by patriarchy, the key division in society is between men and women: men are the enemy
• Radical feminism


  • The family and marriage are the key institutions in patriarchal society
  • The only way for the oppression of women to be overturned is by abolishing the family as it is the root of the patriarchal system, this can only be done through separatism
  • Key effects of industrialisation was that women were excluded from paid work and their roles were redefined as mothers and housewives who were dependent on the family wages earned by the male breadwinner
• Difference feminism


  Every individual, and every woman has a different experience of the family
• Black feminists argue that by looking at the family mainly as a source of oppression, white feminists neglect black racial oppression
• Black feminists see the family as a source of support and resistance against racism
• Other feminists argue that women still experience a greater risk of sexual violence, low pay
• Personal life perspective


  Have the bottom up approach of interactionism, emphasises the meaning that individuals family members hold and how these shape their actions and relationships
• Personal life perspective


  • Takes a look at families beyond just the blood and marriage, focus on relationships of an individual, fictive kin: close friends treated as relatives, chosen families, effects of dead relatives, pets
• Nordqvist and Smart found that the issue of blood and genes raised a range of feelings, some parents emphasised that the importance of social relationships over genetic ones in forming family bonds
• Personal life perspective


  • Helps to give us a understanding of how others construct their families and others opinions of family
• Primitive communism


  Earliest classless society with no private property, means of production owned communally, no family as such, instead called 'promiscuous horde'
• Monogamy became essential - Engels


  Because of the inheritance of private property (men had to be certain of the paternity of their children, legitimate heir)
• This has led to a 'world of historical defeat of the female sex' where woman have been turned into 'a mere instrument for the production of children'. (Engels)
• Woman's position in the family (Engels)

  Not much different from a prostitute - she exchanged sex and heirs in return for economic security