Family is losing its functions Essay

Using material from Item 2B and elsewhere respect the view that, in like a shots cabaret the family is losing its functions. As give tongue to in Item 2B, the family fulfils a number of important functions for individuals and for society, such as the socialisation of children and the stabilisation of adult personalities. However, some sociologists suggest that, in todays society, the family is losing its importance as these functions are being taken over by other mental institutions for example, nurseries have an increasingly important role in the socialisation of young children whose parents are working full-time. Functionalists set the family as a particularly important sub-system they believe that the nuclear family is a key institution as it meets basic take. Murdock (1949) argues that the family performs four essential functions to meet the needs of society and its members. Firstly, they offer economic support to provide the children with all the fundamental necessities they overlook in life e.g. food, shelter and water.They too give a unchanging satisfaction of the sex drive with the same partner, making their partner life more than safe and secure, as hygienic as reducing the chances of acquire STDs. Another purpose is reproduction of the next generation, without which society could not continue. further to this, it also provides the child with 2 role models and so, they will feel more safeguarded of having both parents. Lastly, it socialises the young into societys shared norms and values- without this, society would bear out from negative impacts e.g. feral children. A criticism to Murdocks study is that it is out-dated, umpteen sociologists argue that society has now changed and these functions can be performed equally well by other institutions, or by non-nuclear family structures.Marxists and Feminists reject his rose-tinted consensus view that the family meets the needs of both wider society and all the members of the family. They argue that functionalists dont come off exploitation and conflict within society. Marxists argue that the family maintains class inequality and capitalism and so, the functions of the family are performed purely for the benefit of the capitalist system. They do not see the nuclear family in the same way as functionalists and believe that they omit the dark side