AS Sociology

Families & Households

Studyguide 2

Functionalism, the social structure and the

family

Functionalist sociologists such as Murdock, Parsons, Fletcher and Wilmott

& Young etc see the nuclear family as the most important social institution
or agency in society because it performs key functions necessary to bring
about benefits such as social order and stability.

Most early sociological thinking about the family was dominated by the theory of
functionalism. Functionalism is a structural theory in that it believes that the social
structure of society (which is made up of a social system of inter-dependent
social institutions such as the economy, education, media, law, religion and
family) is responsible for shaping the behaviour of individuals and
determining social experiences and life chances.
Functionalists assume that society has certain basic needs called functional
prerequisites that need to be met if it is to continue successfully into the future. For
example, a successful society is underpinned by the need for social order and
economic stability.
Functionalist sociologists are interested in how the family functions for the greater
good of society and, in particular, how it contributes to the maintenance of
social order and stability. They argue that the family alongside other social
institutions contributes to social order by helping to bring about:
 Value consensus - shared agreement about how people should think
and behave which is achieved through parents transmitting particular
values, norms of behaviour, traditions etc to children.
 Social solidarity - the social ties that unite people as a common culture.
 Social integration - people’s sense of belonging to society.
 Social conformity – once people have learnt the rules, they need to be
encouraged to stick to them via a system of rewards and punishments.
 Skill transmission – people need to take their place in the specialised
division of labour (the organisation of the workforce into a hierarchy of
skills and jobs) and to be taught particular skills in order that the economy –
the engine-room of society – operates effectively
 Role allocation – people need to be allocated to the family and occupational
roles which make the best use of their talents and abilities.

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Functionalists see the family as playing a major role in achieving these social and
economic goals. They view it as the cornerstone of society because it plays the
dominant role amongst all social institutions in making individuals feel part
of wider society. Moreover, the family also fuels the economy as a unit of both
production and consumption.
Finally, functionalists argue that the family also functions for the benefit of the
individuals who comprise it. Both adults and children benefit from the emotional
well-being and satisfaction associated with marriage and family life. The
family also provides identity and security as well as economic and social
supports. Consequently family members are happy to take their place in
society as responsible and well-behaved citizens.
Overall, then, functionalists see the family as extremely functional, i.e. its existence
is both beneficial and necessary for the smooth running of society and the
personal development of individuals.

G.P. Murdock
The functionalist sociologist George Peter Murdock (1949) compared over 250
societies and claimed that the nuclear family was universal – he argued that the
nuclear family existed in every known society. He defined the nuclear family as

‘a social group characterized by common residence….(which) includes adults

of both sexes, at least two of whom maintain a socially approved sexual
relationship, and one or more children, own or adopted, of the sexually
cohabiting adults’.
Murdock argued that this nuclear unit performed four functions essential to the
continued existence and smooth running of society:
 Reproductive – Society requires new members to ensure its survival.
Murdock noted that child-bearing generally occurs within a marital and family
context.
 Sexual – Sexual behaviour has the potential to be socially disruptive
because it can lead to the powerful imposing their will on others through
violence and rape. Moreover sexual jealousy can undermine cooperation and
consensus.
The nuclear family functions to positively regulate sexual behaviour
and therefore functions for the good of both the individual and society. With
regard to individuals, marital sex creates a powerful emotional bond
between a couple which encourages both fidelity (faithfulness) and the
commitment of the individual to family life. In many societies, breaking
the marital contract either through divorce or adultery is still regarded with
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strong moral disapproval.

Moreover, sex within marriage contributes to social order and stability
because society is agreed that marriage is a social goal that all
members of society should strive to attain. The institution of marriage is
regarded as something that others should respect and not undermine whilst
marital fidelity sets the moral rules for general sexual behaviour, e.g. in
some societies and cultures, sex before marriage still attracts strong moral
censure.

 Educational – This function refers to the primary socialisation that occurs

within the family. Culture needs to be transmitted to the next
generation, so parents teach their children the dominant values,
norms, customs, rituals, etc., of a society. For example, parents civilise
their children by teaching them toilet behaviour, manners, respect for others
and to avoid behaviour and language that might offend other members of
society.

 Economic – Unlike many newly-born animals, the human baby is generally

helpless and requires adult economic support and protection for a
prolonged period of time. Murdock argued that parents therefore show their
commitment to the care, protection and maintenance of their children by
becoming productive wage-earning workers in order to provide housing, food,
clothing, etc for their dependent children. This economic function also
benefits society because members of society generally agree that family
members should take their place in the economy as specialized
workers thereby contributing to the effective organisation of the economy and
society.

Evaluation of Murdock
(a) Murdock’s definition is very ethnocentric (culturally biased) and reflective of
a particular time. It is based on his own experience of the American family as
it was in the 1940s.
(b) It is consequently very dated. It fails to take account of a number of distinct
modern trends which have changed the face of the family since the
1940s particularly in the UK such as:
 Changes in UK birth and fertility rates as well as mass migration
into the UK.
 The relaxation of social attitudes and reform of laws which have
made cohabitation, divorce, abortion and gay rights more socially
acceptable.
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 The feminisation of the economy and the workforce which has

dramatically altered women’s attitude to marriage, family and
child-rearing. For example, women may regard getting married and
having children as optional in the 21st century compared with previous
generations who saw it as obligatory.

These changes have resulted in alternative family forms appearing. This family
diversity is now challenging the dominance of Murdock’s nuclear ideal and
its functions. For example, a range of different attitudes towards bringing up
children can be seen in the UK which have their roots in affluence and poverty,
religion, child psychology practices, etc. Think about how the educational
function may differ with regard to boys and girls being brought up in an
upper or middle-class White family compared with a White family living
on a deprived inner-city estate or being brought up in a Muslim or Sikh or
Catholic family.

(c) Murdock’s emphasis on two parents and particularly heterosexual marriage (i.e.
heavily implied by his use of use of the phrase ‘socially approved sexual
relationship’) is politically conservative in that it deprives certain
members of society of family status; it implies that certain types of
parenting – single, foster, homosexual and surrogate – are not quite as beneficial
as the classic two heterosexual parents’ nuclear model. In this sense,
Murdock’s model is clearly taking a right-wing value position because
it is clearly saying there are ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ ways to organize family
life.

Functionalism and the evolution of the family

Functionalist sociologists, such as Talcott Parsons (1965), have attempted to trace
the historical development or evolution of the family in order to explain why the
nuclear family form has been so dominant. Parsons’ theory of the family focused on
examining the influence of industrialization and the economy on family
structures and relationships.
Parsons argued that the economic systems of pre-industrial societies were largely
based on extended kinship networks. Land and other resources were commonly
owned or rented by a range of relatives extending well beyond the nuclear family unit.
For example, it was not uncommon to live with and work alongside grandparents,
cousins, aunts and uncles etc. This extended family was responsible for the
production of food, shelter and clothing, and would trade with other family groups
for those things they couldn’t produce themselves. Very few people left home to go to
work. Home and workplace were one and the same place.

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Roles in these families were the product of ascription rather than achievement. This
means that both the family status and the job a person did were the product
of being born into a particular extended family known for a particular trade
or skill. For example, if the family were pig farmers, then there was a strong likelihood
that all members of the family – men and women, old and young alike – would be
involved in some aspect of pig farming. Moreover, these roles would be passed
down from generation to generation. Few family members would reject the roles,
because duty and obligation to the family and community were key values of pre-
industrial society.

In return for this commitment, the extended family network generally performed other
functions for its members:
 The family equipped its members with the skills and education they needed to
take their place in the family division of labour, although this socialization rarely
extended to literacy and numeracy.
 The family functioned to maintain the health of its members, in the absence of a
system of universal health care. However, the high infant mortality rates and low
life expectancy of the pre-industrial period tell us that this was probably a constant
struggle.
 The family also provided welfare for its members. For example, those family
members who did make it into old age would be cared for, in exchange for services
such as looking after very young children.
 The extended family was expected to pursue justice on behalf of any wronged
family member. This was known as the ‘blood feud’. Such conflict between
families could last several generations.

The effects of industrialization on the family

As a structural-functionalist sociologist, Parsons believed that all the different
social institutions that make up the social system or society contribute
positively to the functioning of the system as a whole.
In particular, Parsons argued that the extended family was effective for the
needs of pre-industrial society but no longer practical in terms of what was
required by the industrial revolution and the industrial manufacturing
economy that developed from it. Parsons argued that the extended family had
to evolve into a smaller and more streamlined nuclear unit in order to
effectively meet the needs of an industrial-capitalist society. He argued then
that the industrial revolution brought about five fundamental evolutionary
changes to the family:
(1) Industrialization meant that the economy demanded a more geographically and
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socially mobile workforce. The responsibilities and duties which underpinned

extended families, (e.g. members of such families felt a strong sense of obligation to
remain near to their extended kin and to defer to their elder kin) did not suit these
modern economic demands. Most people in the UK in the 18th century had lived in
rural communities for generations. However, manufacturers were building their
factories and mills in urban areas.
Parsons argues that because of mechanised farming (which resulted in many of the
rural poor losing their land) people did gradually break away from their
extended families and move to the towns and cities to take advantage of
the wage-labour opportunities brought about by the industrial revolution.
Between 1700 and 1830, the proportion of the UK population living in urban areas
increased from 15 per cent to 34 per cent.
This geographical mobility therefore led to the gradual numerical dominance of
nuclear families in urban areas. This leaner type of family was relatively
‘isolated’ from its kinship network and therefore less reliant on relatives
such as grandparents for economic and social supports. Members of such
families became more independent as individuals and less prone to the sorts of
pressures from extended kin and community that might have made them less
adventurous in their social ambitions and choice of jobs.
(2) In nuclear families, individual achievement and talent became more
important than the ascription and nepotism (i.e. the favouring of relatives)
that was the common practice in extended families. This meant that industrial
society could function more efficiently because members of nuclear families were
no longer constrained by influential extended kin from specialising in
particular skills. Industrial workers therefore could be more effectively allocated to
particular occupational roles.
(3) The 18th and 19th centuries also saw the emergence of specialized agencies
which gradually took over many of the functions of the family. Parsons
referred to this development as ‘structural differentiation’.
A key difference between rural extended families and urban nuclear families was that
the latter had experienced a separation between home and workplace as they
had become wage-earners in the mill and factory system and were no longer in a
position to grow or rear their own food, build their own homes, make their own
clothing etc. Members of urban nuclear families therefore became dependent
on outside agencies -businesses – which evolved to meet many of these
needs. For example, processed canned food was mass produced in factories and sold
in stores which eventually developed into supermarket chains. In this sense, Parsons
saw the nuclear family as functioning as a unit of consumption rather than
as a unit of production.
(4) The state also eventually took over the functions of education, health,
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welfare and justice during the course of the 19 th century. Parsons suggests this
process of structural differentiation left the nuclear family to specialize in two
essential functions:

(i) The primary socialisation of children

Parsons believed that the family was the main centre of primary socialisation –
the teaching and learning of the attitudes, values, behavioural norms and
traditions which mainly occurs during childhood and which prepares a child
to take their place as an adult in a particular culture or society.

Parsons believed that personalities are ‘made not born’ – a child could only become a
responsible and effective social adult if parents made sure that they were socialised
into the shared norms and values of the society (value consensus) to which they
belonged. He therefore saw nuclear families as ‘personality factories’, churning out
young citizens committed to the rules, patterns of behaviour and belief
systems which make positive involvement in social life possible. In this sense,
Parsons saw the family as a crucial bridge connecting the individual
child/adult to wider society. He also particularly saw mothers as playing the
major role in this process of nurturing and socialisation in families.

Discussion point: Children internalise the norms, values and culture necessary to
survive and fit into society. Can you think of some examples of these values, norms
etc?

For example, what sorts of behaviour do we learn from our parents that ‘civilises’ us?

(ii) The stabilisation of the adult personality

Parsons argued that the second major specialised function of the family is to relieve
the stresses of modern-day living for its adult members. This function,
sometimes referred to as the ‘warm bath’ function, claims that family life
‘stabilises’ adult personalities which may be potentially stressed by the
demands of a highly competitive world of work.
Steel and Kidd note the family de-stresses the adult by providing ‘in the home a
warm, loving, stable environment where the individual adults can be themselves and
even “let themselves go” in a childish and undignified way. At the same time, the
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supervision and socialization of children gives parents a sense of stability and

responsibility’ (Steel and Kidd 2001, p.42).
This emotional support and security, and the opportunity to engage in play with
children, acts as a safety valve in that it prevents stress from overwhelming
adult family members and, as a result, it strengthens social stability. In this
sense, Parsons viewed the family as a positive and beneficial place for all its
members – a ‘home sweet home’, a ‘haven in a heartless world’ and a place in
which people can be their natural selves.
(5) Parsons argued that the new nuclear unit provided the husband and wife with
very clear and distinct social roles. Parsons claimed that the male should be
the ‘instrumental leader’ – this means he is responsible for the economic welfare
and living standards of the family group and the protection of family members. He
is the main wage-earner and consequently the head of the household.
Parsons claimed that the female is best-suited to being the ‘expressive leader’
– this means that she should be primarily responsible for the socialisation of
children and the emotional care and support of all family members.
Parsons argued that this sexual division of labour is ‘natural’ because it is based
on biological differences. For example, Parsons believed that women have
‘maternal instincts’ which make them best suited to be the emotional caretakers
of both children and their spouses. However, Parsons did see the relationship between
husbands and wives as complementary, with each equally contributing to the
maintenance of the family but in a qualitatively different way. Chambers notes
that,
‘Through these family roles, this intimate nuclear family was able to
specialise in serving the emotional needs of adults and children to facilitate
the adaptation of family members for a competitive and impersonal world
beyond the home’ (p.21).
In conclusion, then, Parsons states that extended families with their emphasis on
tradition hindered progress and modernity. In contrast, only the nuclear
family unit can effectively provide the achievement-orientated and
geographically mobile workforce required if modern industrial economies are
to be successful.

The critique of Parsons’ idea of family functions

Not all functionalist sociologists agreed with Parsons’ idea that the nuclear family now
only performs these two basic functions. Fletcher (1988), a British functionalist,
argues that the family performs three essential functions that no other social
institution can carry out. These include (a) the long-standing satisfaction of the
sexual and emotional needs of parents, (b) having and rearing children in a

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stable environment and (c) the provision of a common residence – a home –

where all family members return after work, school etc.

However, Fletcher also argues that the family retains its educational, health and
welfare functions albeit in a diluted fashion. He notes that child-rearing and
socialisation in families are made more effective by the support offered by state
institutions in the form of antenatal and postnatal care, health clinics,
doctors, health visitors, social workers, schools and teachers and housing
officers. Moreover, he notes that the majority of parents often take primary
responsibility for their children’s health – by teaching them hygiene and caring
for them and treating them when they suffer minor illnesses. Furthermore, many
parents often guide and encourage their children with regard to educational
and career choices and provide material and welfare supports well beyond
the period of childhood. Children often reciprocate these supports when their
parents enter old age.

Fletcher accepts that the nuclear family has largely lost its economic function of
production although many family firms continue to exist. However, both Fletcher and
Wilmott and Young highlight the family’s alternative economic function as a
major unit of consumption. The modern home-centred nuclear family spends a
great proportion of its income on family or home orientated consumer goods, e.g. the
family car, garden paraphernalia, the latest electrical appliances for the kitchen and
leisure use, toys etc. As Day Sclater notes:
‘from ready-made meals, through washing machines and cars, to
telecommunication services, the advertisers on our TV sets and in magazines
clearly regard families as providing the main market for the goods and
services they promote. Family income is expended largely on things for the
family.’ (Sclater 2000, p.24)
Wilmott and Young suggest that this particular function motivates family members as
workers to earn as much as possible as well as motivating capitalist entrepreneurs and
businesses to produce and market what families want. In other words, the nuclear
family is essential to a successful economy.
Other critics of functionalism suggest that the functions of the nuclear family are
not as important as they once were because of social and economic changes
such as the feminisation of the workforce and the decline in both the birth
rate and family size. Some sociologists argue that secondary agents of
socialisation such as the mass media, adolescent and adult peer groups and
fundamentalist forms of religion are more influential over family members in
the 21st century than parents. The table on page 10 illustrates the impact of social
change and secondary agents of socialisation on parents’ responsibility for family
functions.
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Family Recent social trends – have these undermined or supported

function family functions?
Procreation The size of families has declined as people choose lifestyle over the
expense of having children. Some women prefer to pursue careers and
are making the decision not to have children. The UK birth rate has
consequently fallen. Many children are now born outside of marriage to
cohabitating couple or single women.

Regulating Sex outside marriage is now the norm. Alternative sexualities, e.g.
sex homosexuality and lesbianism are also becoming more socially
acceptable.

Stabilising A high percentage of marriages end in divorce. However, some argue

personalities that divorce and remarriage rates are high because people continue to
search for emotional security. Family crimes such as domestic violence
and child abuse suggest that family life continues to be stressful.

Economic Welfare benefits are seen by some sociologists as undermining family

economic responsibilities. However, the family may still a crucial agency
of economic support, especially as the housing market becomes more
expensive for first-time buyers, and young people spend longer periods
in education with the prospect of debt through student loans.

Welfare A decline in state funding of welfare in the 1980s led to the

encouragement of ‘community care’, in which the family – and
especially women – became responsible for the care of the elderly, the
long-term sick and the disabled. This may have encouraged a new type
of extended family to emerge in the modern UK.

Socialization This is still rooted in the family, although there are concerns that the
mass media and the peer group have become more influential, with the
result that children are growing up faster. In 2014, it has been
suggested that fundamentalist forms of religion may have become more
influential than parents especially as some young British Muslims head
out to Syria to join IS.

Power has shifted between parents and children as children acquire

more rights. This trend, alongside attempts to ban smacking in England
and Wales, is thought by some sociologists to undermine parental
discipline. Some sociologists argue that families need fathers to impose
discipline and see the absence of fathers in one-parent families as one
of the major causes of delinquency today.

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Criticisms of Parsons’ theory of family evolution

Historians suggest that Parsons was far too simplistic in his interpretation of the
impact of industrialisation on the family. They point out that the evidence suggests that
industrialisation follows different historical patterns in different industrial
societies. For example, the Japanese experience of industrialisation stresses the
importance of a job for life with the same company. Employees are encouraged to view
their workmates as part of a larger extended family and consequently duty and
obligation are encouraged as important cultural values. The result of this is that
Japanese extended kinship networks continue to exert a profound influence
on their members and the isolated nuclear family has failed to gain a
significant foothold in Japanese culture.

Laslett’s (1972) study of English parish records suggests that only 10 per cent
of households in the pre-industrial period contained extended kin. In other
words, most pre-industrial families may have been nuclear to begin with and
not extended as Parsons claimed. Such small families were probably due to late
marriage, early death and the practice of sending children away to become
servants or apprentices.

It may also be the case that industrialisation took off so quickly because nuclear
families already existed – and so people could move quickly to those parts of the
country where their skills were in demand. However, Laslett’s data has been
criticised as unreliable because the parish records he used do not give sociologists
any real insight into the quality of family life, i.e. how people actually experienced the
family or the meaning they attached to family life. For example, people may have lived
in nuclear units but may have seen and spent quality time with other relatives on a
daily basis. They may have regarded themselves as members of extended families.

Michael Anderson’s historical study (1971) of the industrial town of Preston,

using census records from 1851, also contradicts Parsons’ view that, after
industrialization, the extended unit was replaced by the nuclear family.
Anderson found a large number of households in Preston were shared by
extended kin. These probably functioned as a mutual economic support system
in a town in which unemployment and poverty were common. In other words, people
probably pooled their low wages in order to share the cost of high rents and
to help out extended kin who were sick, disabled and elderly.

The evolution of the British family

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The British functionalist or March of Progress sociologists Young and Willmott

(1957) take issue with Parsons over the speed of family change that occurred as a
result of the industrial revolution. They suggest that the movement towards the
nuclear unit was not as quick as Parsons implies. They suggest that it was more
gradual in nature and that urban communities dominated by extended families
existed well into the 20th century. Their empirical research conducted in the 1950s
in the Bethnal Green area of East End of London showed that extended families
still existed in very large numbers in this period.
The Bethnal Green extended kinship network was based upon emotional attachment
and obligation. Relatives saw each other on a daily basis. It was also a mutual
support network, offering its members assistance with money, jobs, health
and welfare, childcare and advice. For example, men would use their influence with
their employers to get relatives, especially sons, jobs in the factories in which they
worked. Women and their daughters spent much of the day in the home together. The
marital or conjugal roles in these extended families were very segregated –
females took exclusive responsibility for the home and childcare whilst men often spent
much of their leisure time in the company of other male relatives and workmates in the
pub or at the football.

Young and Willmott (1957) argue that the extended family unit only went into
decline in the 1960s, when working-class communities were re-housed in
new towns and on council estates after extensive slum clearance. Moreover,
the welfare state and full employment of the 1950s undermined the need for
a mutual economic support system. Bright working-class young men also made the
most of the opportunities and qualifications made available by the 1944
Education Act and were less likely to follow their fathers into manual work. Their
social mobility into white-collar and professional jobs often meant
geographical mobility, i.e. moving away from traditional working-class areas
to progress their careers and consequently less frequent contact with kin.

Further research by Young and Willmott (1973) in another area of London –

Greenleigh – concluded that the nuclear family (which they call the ‘symmetrical
family’) only became the universal norm in Britain in the late 20th century.
Young and Wilmott argue that this family first emerged from the middle-class
but spread into the working-class via skilled blue-collar workers. These types
of workers in industries such as car manufacturing were reasonably well-paid.
Furthermore, changes in the economy, particularly the increase in service
sector jobs in retail and finance which mainly employed women and the
introduction of equal opportunities legislation meant that their wives often
went out to work too. Their joint incomes allowed them to buy their own homes and
to invest in consumer goods such as televisions and music centres which made the
home, particularly for men, a more attractive place to spend time in.
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Wilmott and Young identified a number of features which characterised their

symmetrical family:

 It is composed of two parents who are probably both in work plus their children.
In other words, it is nuclear in structure.

 It is home-centred – the family spends much of its leisure time in the home.
For example, the television became the focal point of family interaction from the
1960s on whilst DIY became a central leisure activity for many men.

 It is ‘privatised’ – the family has infrequent contact with extended kin

and neighbours.

 It is egalitarian – men and women have more economic equality and this
has led to the adoption of ‘joint conjugal roles ‘ - domestic tasks,
childcare, decision-making and leisure time are more likely to be
shared rather than segregated into male and female activities. The evidence for
this particular feature will be discussed later in study-guide .

Other criticisms of Parsons’ functionalist theory of the family

(a) Like Murdock, Parsons’ model has also been criticised as dated and
ethnocentric because it is based upon the 1950s American middle class nuclear
family. Critical sociologists have pointed out that the UK today is experiencing
family diversity – the nuclear family is only one type of family among
many types. Moreover, marriage is no longer seen as essential to family life
and consequently a high number of couples with children now cohabitate.
Moreover very few women are full-time housewives as they were in 1950s USA.
Most women combine a career and family today.

(b) Like Murdock, Parsons assumes that experience of the nuclear family life is a
universal experience. However it is not because of factors such as social
class, patriarchy and subculture. For example, Parsons does not consider
the fact that wealth or poverty may determine whether women stay at home to
look after children or not. Religious and ethnic subcultural differences may
mean that Parsons’ version of the family is no longer relevant in contemporary
multicultural British society.

(c) Parsons presents a very positive picture of relationships within the nuclear family
but evidence suggests that living in such a unit can sometimes be very
dysfunctional or harmful to its members. As Cheal (2008) notes, functional
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relationships can easily slip into dysfunctional relationships, and love can often
turn into hate in moments of intense emotion. He notes that ‘we have to face
the paradox that families are contexts of love and nurturance, but they are also
contexts of violence and murder’. For example, one child a week in the UK on
average dies at the hands of its parents and the NSPCC point out that neglect
and child abuse are more common that the official criminal statistics suggest.
Furthermore domestic violence is also a norm in many family households – it
is estimated that on average two women a week are killed by their male partners
or ex-partners.

(d) A big problem with structuralist sociologists like Parsons is that they spend so
much time examining the relationships between society and social institutions
that they neglect individuals. They often fail to look at the interaction
between family members or they fail to explore how members of
families view or interpret family life.

An alternative bunch of sociologists who belong to the ‘social action’

perspective and who sometimes call themselves ‘interpretivists’ or
‘interactionists’ are critical of Parsons’ functionalist theory of the family
because in their view it paints a picture of children as ‘empty vessels’ being
pumped full of culture by their parents.

These sociologists argue that this is an ‘over-socialised’ view of children

because in reality socialisation is a two-way interaction which can involve
children socialising and modifying their parents’ behaviour by, for
example, taking part in family decision-making with regard to consumer
spending and influencing parents taste in fashion, music, television viewing, use
of social media sites etc. Parents may learn to modify their behaviour towards
their younger children because of their interaction with their first-born.

(e) The functionalist theory of the family has been attacked by both Marxist
sociologists and feminist sociologists. These extremely important criticisms will
be dealt with by study-guides 3 and 4.

You need to know the following important concepts well

 Function/functional
 Dysfunction
 Value consensus
 Social integration
 Social solidarity
 Specialised division of labour
 Role allocation
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 Social order
 Universality of the family
 Prerequisite
 Extended family
 Mutual support system
 Isolated nuclear family
 Structural differentiation
 Primary socialization
 Stabilisation of adult personality
 Warm bath function
 Unit of consumption
 Secondary socialization
 Expressive leaders
 Instrumental leaders
 Warm bath theory
 Symmetrical Family
 Segregated conjugal roles
 Joint segregated conjugal roles

Important names

GP Murdock
Talcott Parsons
Ronald Fletcher
Wilmott & Young

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