Explain and assess the diversity of family structures in contemporary societies.
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Explain and assess the diversity of family structures in contemporary societies. 25
In traditional society, family was considered as a united whole. People were tied together in an classical extended family in order to produce a large amount of products that could last longer for them to survive. This notion as Parson (1959) argued was extended family is a unit of production who worked together and supported each other in order to survive. While the men worked on fields, women helped them and organized the housework, such as looking after the elders and children in turns.
Therefore, in traditional society family was a unit of production who were emotionally, socially and economically together to support each other, this is the evidence of fit thesis in which traditional society relied on extended family. However, as the industrial revolution took over agriculture into factory work people geographically dispersed to find work in urban areas. This is when a new family type was formed. Nuclear family structure was a result of males of extended families’ intended to move in to urban areas with their partners and children to find better work. This as Murdock (1949) argues has since become the universal family structure as generations after this move were following the nuclear trend. In this respect, town and cities were mostly populated with upper-class and middle-class societies who were living in a nuclear structure but many formed a cohabitation which was due to people preferring a relationship without being legally married to each other and staying stress-free from commitments that knot-up an individual’s space of freedom. Therefore, cohabitation involved couples forming a sexual relationship and reproducing children but outside of legal binding.
