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Functionalist View On Family

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Marriage and Family Functionalist perspective Family is a type of social institution concerned with the support, care, protection, and socialization of the children. The functionalist perspective on family focuses on the functions of the family, the functions being the socialization of children, providing love and companionship, regulation of sexual behaviour, and the occupation of various economic roles. Functionalists also look at how a family relates to the rest of society and how it helps maintain it. According to the functionalist view, the economic functions of a family include production and consumption, and the inheritance of wealth and other material assets from one generation to the other. The functionalist view on family even dates …show more content…

The first function is sexual, sexual intercourse with the same marital partner which reduces the chances of social disruption caused by sex outside marriage; this also strengthens the tie between the husband and wife. The second function is reproduction, through reproduction a society is maintained and continues to prosper, without it a society would not continue to exist. The third is economical, which involves the provision of food and shelter for children and spouse. The fourth function is the education system, which facilitates socialisation amongst the young and educates them of society’s norms and values (Murdock, 1947). The positive side of Murdock’s view is that is show an insight to the importance of families, as it critically examines its functions in society. Another functionalist perspective of family comes from Parsons, who believes that the functions a family has to perform will affect its shape or structure. Parsons looks at two types of family structures, the nuclear family and the extended family. His argument on extended family was that extended family has multiple functions, consumption and production included, whilst the nuclear family seemed to fit the needs of modern …show more content…

It is irrelevant to modern society as modern society consists of many different types of families. Murdock’s functionalist view ignores diversity amongst families and does not consider other family structure such as the Kibbutz, which is a collective community is Israel based on agriculture. The Kibbutz can perform all of the 4 essential functions mentioned. The Nayer, known for practising polyandry and matrilineal social organisation. The conflict perspective however only identifies the inequalities observed in the society and provides no solution to bridge the gap between the rich families getting richer and the poor families getting poorer. The conflict perspective does go in depth to provide substantial information on the different types of families and the cause of their fortunes or misfortunes, but only presents a simplistic view of dominant groups and non-dominant

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Looking at society as a whole with individual units that work together to make society function efficiently is the structural functionalism concept. Each unit has a part and is describe as institutions such as family, religion, education, politics, economy and inequality. Because structural functionalism looks at social structure and patterns of behavior it is able to create values for society. As well as, distinguish between visible and suppressed problems within the social structures that may need to be addressed. For instance, homelessness is indication of dysfunction in structural functionalism system.

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Conflict theory can best be defined as viewing self interest as a basic human motivation. This human motivation comes from the will to survive and a strong desire to fulfill one’s needs and desires in life. It is said that conflict typically arises between individuals, groups or family members out of competing interests. Conflict theory doesn’t see conflict as being problematic, instead conflict theory suggests that conflict is necessary and often desirable to produce change (Chibucos, Leite & Weis, 2005). When it comes to the family unit, conflict theory argues that power among family members is unequally distributed with the male figure typically having the most power within the family.

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The functionalist perspective argue that society provides us with norms or guidelines (Leon-Guerrero 2014). There can be shown a difference of the way people expect to behave when drinking. According to Caetano, Clark, and Tam, people who lack norms to control their behavior, they are likely to purse self-destructive behaviors such as alcohol abuse (Leon-Guerrero 2014). For instance, doctors warn about the dangers of alcohol use and even advertisers promote the use of alcohol and the affects. Yet we still drink no matter what the causes are.

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“Foundation of Family” Family is the fundamental building block of all societies. It is all inclusive across generations and cultures. Based on the epic poem The Odyssey and current families today, we see that family is where we learn to love ourselves and each other, to bear one another’s burdens, to find meaning in our life and to give purpose to other’s lives, and to feel the value of being part of something greater than ourselves. Family is where we experience our biggest triumphs, deepest vulnerabilities, and where we have the greatest potential to do good.

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Guided by the Davis and Moore thesis, why would societies reward some people so much more than others (Macionis et al ,2015, p.199). The structural functionalism theory allows the connection to be made by equating the structure of the family with the statistics of people in

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Families can be regarded as the foundation of society. For Fleetwood (2012: 1), the importance of families is highlighted by the fact that it would be difficult to comprehend a society that could function without them. In addition, even though families and their compositions vary across societies and cultures, the family can be viewed as a universal social institution (Macionis & Plummer, 2012: 625. Specifically, according to Macionis and Plummer (2012: 625) and Neale (2000:1), it has the ability to unite individuals into cooperative groups via social bonds (kinship) and is ultimately experienced differently from individual to individual. However, the family can be a source of conflict, tension and inequality, which is why one of the key practices

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