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Critically Examine Functionalist Views of the Role of the Family in Society

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Functionalists see the family as an immensely important sub-system of society. Murdock acclaimed that one of the four essential functions that the family performs in order to meet the needs of society and its members is to 'stabilise satisfaction of the sex drive with the same partner'. As this prevents the ‘social disruption’ caused by promiscuity. However, Marxists would argue that this role serves more as an economic function, as it allows property ownership and wealth to be directly passed onto the legitimate heirs of the father.
The second function that Murdock believed that the family performed was to 'reproduce the next generation' as without this function, society would not continue. The third purpose of the family is to socialise the young into society's shared norms and values. And lastly, the fourth function of the family is to meet its member’s economic needs and provide basic amenities such as shelter, clean water and food.
According to Parson, there are two basic types of society, one of which is the traditional pre-industrial society, which he felt was more tailored to the extended family. In an extended family a vast number of people would be needed to successfully undertake tasks such as weaving and farming, in order for the family to make a profit and govern themselves. The other type of social group is the modern industrial society, which is more suited for the nuclear family, based on the theory of functional fit.
Parson's Functional fit theory suggests that one of the nuclear family's main purposes was to be a geographically mobile workforce, so that in modern day society where industries constantly ignite and decline, having a compact household with only two generations allows people to move around the country to find work with little upheaval. This suits our current economy and also suited it in the past during the Industrial Revolution.

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