R. Fletcher (1966) used the term ‘cereal packet family’ in his work, when he was identifying the essential functions of a family, which are: reproduction, stable satisfaction of sexual needs and the provision of a home. He also identified six non-essential functions: government, economic, education, health, religious and recreation.
Another group of people in which think that the nuclear family is the norm in today’s world is New Right thinkers. John Redwood, conservative MP (1993) stated that, ‘the natural state should be the two adult family caring for their children’. The Conservative government has promoted social policy to support the ‘nuclear family’; these are Clause 28 and Child support agency. There are many different groups of people in which do think that nuclear families are the norm, and they all have their own opinions in why so and theories.
But there are also many other people in which do not believe that the nuclear family is the norm, and who also have their own theories and statistics to prove it. In today’s society you would be able to see that there are many more different types of families around other than nuclear, some of these are: Homosexual relationship, stepfamily, extended family, adoption and single parent families.
Felicity Edholm (1982) believes that there is a range of variations available. She does believe Murdock’s claim in the functions carried out, but thinks the family can differ and vary quite a lot, so therefore thinks that Murdock’s view that the family is universal is not true.
The types of groups of people in which do not believe the statement about nuclear families, are: liberals, historians and feminists. Liberals and historians think that the family has always been characterised by diversity, that there is the organisation of families, e.g, single parents, reconstituted…, there are cultural variations (Asian background), class differences (middle class, working class). They say that every family can be put into every one of these categories, and therefore would all be varied. Feminists think that this image is very strong in today’s society because of the media, consumer packaging (family bag of sweets) and government policies, in which all persuade people into thinking that the only normal and appropriate type of family is a nuclear family. Feminists think that this is wrong because it automatically encourages the domestic role of women and that all the power is given to men, and that this is seen as correct and necessary.
Another form in which the nuclear family is not represented as the norm is the fact of diversity, in the structure, cultural and regional. Diversity in the structure would be nuclear, single parent, surrogate and stepfamily. In culture it could be English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish. Regional diversity means that people are living in certain parts of England, such as: rural – family (close knit), industrial – traditional, inner city – single parents, southern city – family builders (middle class), and the coast (i.e Devon, Cornwall) – retired.
There are many criticisms to the idea of the nuclear family, such as: there is no acknowledgement of conflict, it is an idealised view of family life, it is a typical American perspective, it ignores women (sexist), it assumes male superiority, ignores the role of children, there is no reference to class, ethnicity or gender, and it is functionally deterministic. H O’Connell (1994) said that, ‘we can’t know what a family is, only its functions’, meaning that the family cannot be defined as nuclear or matrifocal, only its functions can be defined.
Rhona and Rapport argue that there has been a steady decline in nuclear families from 38% to just 24% in 1992. And also supporting this argument is the fact that single parent families have increased from 2.5% to 10.1 %.
The New Right has been criticised by British Feminists Abbott and Wallace (1992), they argue that the New Right ignore the variety of alternatives, such as: living alone, homosexual couple, childless couples, single parent and female breadwinners with house-hold husbands caring for their children.
Therefore there is a split view of how a family is defined as normal in Britain in today’s society, and that there will always be a theory, which will only prove one side of the argument and will then criticise the other side. So no family can be considered as normal or morally right at any one time.
