Assess The Functionalist View Of The Family

Discuss the functionalist views of the role of the family in society

The traditional family would be the nuclear family. It consists of a father, a mother, and two or three children adopted or biological. In this nuclear family, the two parents are generally married. Functionalists stress the positive aspects of family. In particular, they focus on the positive role of the nuclear family. The four functions of the nuclear family is: economic, educational, sexual and reproduction. Functionalists use an organic analogy to compare society to the human body. They argue that all parts of society need to work together in order for society to maintain consensus. e.g. if one body part stops functioning correctly then the rest of the human body will

For Parsons, there seems little prospect that any other social unit could perform this function effectively. Parsons believed that the family unquestionably benefits individuals and society. He used the idea of 'the warm bath' to represent the home and family. The husband worries about competition, money, job insecurity etc and takes these strains home, whereas the mother provides the care and psychological security for the family. Fran Ansley, who is a Marxist feminist, would see the emotional support that the woman gives her husband after a hard day at work in the capitalist system as a safety valve. The husband comes home from a hard day at work, and lets out his frustrations on his wife. She soothes him, tends to him and makes him feel better. He feels better and goes back to soak up another frustrating and boring day at work. Ansley says: “When wives play their traditional role as takers of shit, they often absorb their husbands’ legitimate anger and frustration at their own powerlessness.” The wife is basically the sponge to soak up the negativities of a capitalist system for the male worker. However Ronald Fletcher (1966) (also comes from a functionalist perspective) argues the functions of the family Parsons talks about never really occurred in the first place as many children were neglected, indeed peasant families often cared more for their livestock than

They see the nuclear family as serving the ruling class (bourgeoisie) They focus on the way family life operates in a capitalist society. Marxists explain how future generations of workers being maintained by the family keep capitalism going. Marxists regard the norms and values people learn through family socialisation in terms of ideology. For example, people learn to conform, not question authority, to have a work ethic, to prioritize work commitments and the like. Zaretsky (1976) examines the family in a modern capitalist society where work is alienating, providing little fulfillment. The exploitive nature of Capitalism leads to people seeking refuge in the family. However, Zaretsky says the family cannot meet the high expectations placed upon it. In the 1970s, Zaretsky observed how housewives kept capitalism going, performing free household tasks in the home and socializing a future generation of workers (the children) into a way of thinking that suited capitalist