Critics of Murdock suggest that in his passion for his work he may have been caught up in the fact that there maybe other institutions within society which can perform various functions of the family which he describes as being indispensable.
It is hard to say what is expected from a family and or what functions the family actually performs to its infantile. The family provides for its members many different things. But there are other structures in our society that can perform some sort of equivalent function for example the family is said to give economic support to its members but the government Welfare office would provide sufficient service. The government can provide or replicate many of the functions of the family although there are two irreducible functions that only the family can perform.
Talcott Parsons was an American researcher who also followed the functionalist perspective believed that the family performs two irreducible functions these are “Primary socialization of children” and “stabilization of the adult personalities of the population”. Primary socialization is described by Talcott Parsons as being the socialization during the early years of childhood. He suggests that there are two parts to primary socialization, internalization of societies culture and the structuring of the personality. Internalization of society is that people accept and absorb shared values and norms. Without that he believes society would cease to exist. He also says that the internalization of society becomes ingrained into the structure of a person’s personality. Talcott Parsons describes the family as a “factory“ which produces a person’s personality; his view is that they are essential for this purpose because primary socialization needs warmth, security and mutual support.
He also believes that the family enables adult stabilization. The role of an adult being a parent is the most important and is the final stage in an adult’s maturity. The fact that a father/mother can be childish and have a bond with his son/daughter enables him/her to have a retreat from the daily strains of mundane life.
The flaws to the work of Parsons are, his views of the family appear to be very idealistic compared to that to the realities of families within society. He conducted his work on white middle class American families and this isn’t representative of the other religious, multi – cultural, ethnic and different social class families in America.
In modern society the family has built up an image of itself as being a rosy place were love manages to conquer all problems. The media of today is notorious for pumping out ideas that are thought as being the stereotypical family. These images and ideas of the family are universal although many of them are just idealistic. The fact of the matter is your stereotypical family has changed. Although the nuclear family still is what makes up the majority of the society, there has been an increasing number of more “hybrid” and “single parent” families. Views of marriage in our society have changed and they can account for change, which has occurred.
With this in mind is it no wonder that the functionalist theories of the family seem to be rather idealistic? Other sociologists have formed opinions of the family and the role that they play. One of these perspectives is the Marxist perspective. Friedrich Engels was a Marxist who studied the family and its purpose back through past generations. His perspective is that the family was at its most pure, served best to its members, in the early stages of time. His theory is that conflict within society has molded the family away from its origins and his become the monogamous nuclear family that is the norm of today.
Other critics of the functionalist perspective are Marxist Feminists. They believe that family role exploits and suppresses women within society stopping them form having equal rights in workforce etc because of the duties, which they are expected to perform within the family. The typical view of the family is one were the husband earns money to support his family economically while the wife supports the household emotionally etc. If this were true then the husband is helping to maintain capitalist exploitation within society because he must work at a certain rate to support his family. They believe that the family is a valuable economic stabilizing force in capitalist society, which has the function of producing and rearing cheap labour.
Finally there is the Radical Feminist perspective that believes that the role of the family is important in maintaining male domination within society. Criticisms of both arguments are that both are theories, by and for women, and therefore see no need to compromise with existing perspectives or agendas.
Although each perspective brings valid arguments to the table so to speak, I believe that each is being to specific in the roles of the family and its duty in society. My perspective on the subject is that the family and society are linked very closely and that the two feed of each other to create what is not always idealistic but important institution in which the young are reared into products within society. I also feel that the family is an important sanctuary to its members and agree with the fact that the family stabilises adult personality. The decisions that a parent makes are significant to both the child and the parent and therefore I believe forces out a sense of maturity.
