How functionalism contributes towards our understanding of families and society.
by
uhwkhdkawjl (student)
Functionalism works to support society as a whole, It has been said that society is like a human body. Each organ is linked up with a part of society the idea explains about how independent each part is, it shows that if one part of the human body fails then it effects the rest of the body. This then links to society as if one part fails then it effects the rest of society as it has a knock on effect. All parts of society are inter related which explains why they all have to be maintained in order to have a successful society. A biological function is seen as the role that a part of the body has to play in order to keep the body alive, however a function in society is fairly similar but it is the part it plays in the social life as a whole and that contribution maintaines the structure.
George Murdock defines the family as “A social group characterised by common residence, economic co-operation and reproduction. It includes adults of both sexes, at least two of whom maintain a socially approved sexual relationship, and one or more childeren, own or adopted, of the sexually cohabiting adults”. Murdock has quite a traditional view of the family, the family type he is explaining here is the nuclear family. Murdock analysed 250 societies and came to the conclusion that the family has four basic functions, these are sexual, reproductive, socialising and economic. He explained them to be universal so they happened in every society. Murdock only talks about the four functions in a nuclear family, but he does not show any recognition to any other family type. Each society has a range of family diversity, this means that there are different types of family for example nuclear, same sex, cohabitation, living together apart. Does this mean that murdock does not think that these types of family have any functions or does he not class them as familys. He emphasises the sheer practicality of the nuclear family as it is a unit of production and therefore a unit of consumption which allows the flow of income as they get paid for work then they spend it of goods. Murdock challenges the idea that the nuclear family is socially constructed to fit the needs of society, this would explain why there is a lower number of nuclear familys now the family diversity is seen as socially acceptable.
