“Assess the view that the family is functional for society”
Functionalists believe that society is based on a value consensus into which society socialises its members. This enables them to cooperate harmoniously to meet society’s needs and achieve shared goals. Functionalists regard society as a system that depend on each other such as the family the education system and the economy.
Functionalists stress the positive role of the nuclear family in providing for the basic needs of each individual and all of its members and how important it is for the efficient working of society and the maintenance of social order. A functionalist’s view of the family sees the interaction of the family with society’s institutions as harmonious and based on consensus and that these inter-relationships contribute to social solidarity. Functionalists look at what the family does for the whole of society, not just certain people. George Peter Murdock (1949) argues that the family performs four essential functions to meet the needs of society and its members: Stable satisfaction of the sex drive with the same partner, preventing the social disruption caused by sexual free –for-all. Reproduction of the next generation, without which society could not continue. Socialisation of the young into society’s shared norms and values. Meeting its member’s economic needs, such as food and shelter.
Murdock accepts that other institutions could perform these functions. However he argues that the sheer practicality of the nuclear family as a way of meeting these four needs explains why it is universal – found in all human societies. However, while few sociologist would doubt that most of these are important functions, some argue that they could be performed equally well by other institutions, or by non-nuclear family structure. Other sociologists have criticised Murdock’s functionalist approach.