Murdoch saw the family as integral to society and ideal for producing capable adults, his research proved useful in understanding how the family’s functions are beneficial not only to its individuals but for the society as a whole.
The American sociologist Talcott Parsons (1955) argues that the typical family unit is the ‘isolated nuclear family’ and states that there were two basic and irreducible functions of the family, rather than four. The socialisation of children; the meeting of their developmental needs and the transmission across generations of social norms and values. The stabilization of adult personalities; the family provided a ‘locus for the contained expression of emotional and sexual needs, that otherwise would be disruptive of society.’ Central to his account was the idea of sex-role differentiation where men and women performed different tasks within the family based largely upon assumed biological imperatives. Men, Parsons said, performed an ‘instrumental role’ that of ‘breadwinner’ whilst women’s role was an ‘expressive’ one, as nurturer and emotional provider. He argued that the family functions to relieve the stress of modern-day living. This is frequently referred to as ‘the warm bath theory’, in that the family provides a relaxing environment for the male worker to immerse himself in after a hard day at work.
Functionalists believe the family controls society’s members on a daily basis in order to maintain consensus and social order. However modern functionalists such as N W Bell and E F Vogel have shown that the modern family can contain great tensions and they do not share Murdoch's view on harmony and integration. D.H.J. Morgan states that ‘Parsons fails to explore differences between working and middle-class families’. Both in Murdoch’s and Parsons’s study of the family, they both fail to explore alternatives to the family e.g. Nayar and Kibbutz presenting an ideology of the nuclear family unit. Goode preferred to talk about the conjugal family, based on marriage. He therefore saw this as an ‘ideal type’ and recognised that real families cannot always be reduced to their nuclear core. He disagreed with Parsons that the family had ‘evolved to fit the needs of an industrial economy and instead placed the family of modern Western industrialised nations into context and was aware of the complexities of social change’.
Some sociologists presented a challenge to the mainstream functionalist view by pointing out that the state education, health services, social services etc.) is increasingly taking over the functions previously performed by extended families in pre-industrial societies. British sociologist, Ronald Fletcher argued that the functions of the family had increased in detail and importance. Like other functionalists, however, Fletcher recognised that in pre-industrial societies the family was an economic unit of production but with the coming of industrialisation the family was no longer the main economic unit of society but was a unit of consumption, consuming products of Capitalism allowing the bourgeoisie to continue producing surplus value.
However since the late 1960’s criticisms of the functionalist view began to emerge as a result of which the functionalist approach is no longer regarded as adequate to explain the ‘complexities of contemporary family life’. Marxism emphasises the part played by the family in reproducing and maintaining a capitalist society and the contribution of Marxism to family sociology began in 1884, with the work of Friedrich Engels. Engels stated that the family aided and served the needs of Capitalism by rearing and socialising children to accept gender roles and authority. He believed the family represented a ‘haven’ from the ‘exploitation and alienation inherent in wage labour and that women constitute a reserve army of labour, available to be called upon when the economy requested.
The feminist approach challenges the functionalist notion of the family as a ‘haven’ and instead identifies it as a locus of oppression and a site of violence and abuse. Ann Oakley, in the 1970’s carried out a major empirical study of housework in which she documented the burdens that women carried and the contradictions they had to resolve between ‘romanticised views of love and marriage and the hard physical labour involved in homemaking and childcare.’ Fran Ainsley sees the emotional support provided by the wife as a safety valve which in their traditional roles of ‘takers of shit’ they absorb their husband’s anger and frustration at their own powerlessness and oppression. Delphy and Leonard believe that women’s work in the family home is exploited work because they are not working for themselves, but for the head of the household. Women in particular are oppressed because their work is appropriated within the family.
Walby argues that the family restricts women and helps to maintain male domination as the ‘heterosexual marriage constitutes a patriarchal structure’. Like other feminists Walby sees violence as a form of power over women and the use of violence or the threat of violence helps to keep women in their place and discourages them from challenging patriarchy.
Functionalism sees the family as an important social institution functioning positively both for society and the individual. It is useful to study the functions performed by a family but its research especially by Murdoch and Parsons is limited because it fails to explore alternatives to the family, it ignores social problems such as divorce, abuse, and violence and ignores other influences such as class and religion. Barrett and MacIntosh saw Functionalism as contributing to an ideology of the family, whose role it was to maintain the status quo, including the oppression of women. The language of roles in the Functionalist account participates in social control by creating an ideology in which roles appear to be natural and inevitable.
Radical feminists have contributed a great deal to debates about women’s position within society, Liberals have fought against laws and practices that give rights to men but not to women and Marxist Feminism provides a structural approach which means that its theory can be applied to all areas of society, including the family. Therefore the feminist approaches perhaps have made their greatest contribution to family sociology in drawing attention to the importance of family in relation to the social relations of the broader sex/gender system within society.