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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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