SOCIOLOGICAL

PERSPECTIVES ON
FAMILY
BY ALLEGRA KATTO, MARK LUIS,
CRYSTAL KAKWANZI,KREG,
ANGAIR
1.The functionalist view
• Functionalists argue that all institutions in society have important roles to play in
the smooth and functional running of society, and the family is no different. They
argue that the family has important functions both for society and for individuals.
 The classic functionalist statement on the roles of the family comes from George Murdock (1949) who looked at
families across the world and found four functions that were common to all of them:

• Educational: children are taught the norms and values of society (also known as
primary socialisation)
• Economic: the family provides an economic function to all its members by pooling
resources and ensuring all have what they need.
• Reproductive: produces the next generation of the society.
• Sexual: ensures that adults’ sexual relationships are controlled and stable.
The Marxist view
The traditional Marxist view on families is that they perform a role not for everyone
in society but for capitalism and the ruling class (the bourgeoisie).
As is often the case, there are similarities between the functionalist and Marxist
case: they both think that families perform important functions for the society as it
is currently constituted. The difference is that Marxists disagree with the way society
is currently constituted. Instead of seeing a consensual society which works to
benefit all its members, they see a society based on class struggle, which works to
benefit a rich minority.
Sociologist studies based on marxism
• Engels (1884) on Family
• Engels argued that family had a clear economic function for capitalism, by
ensuring that wealth remained in the hands of the bourgeoisie.
• Family relations, based on clear legal contracts, facilitate inheritance and
therefore when rich people die it is their children who keep hold of their wealth.
• For Engels, then, family is all about blood lines and proof of parentage.
Zaretsky (1976) on Family
• An interesting variation on Parsons’ warm bath theory, Zaretsky argued that
family life gave proletarian men something they could control and a space where
they could be the “boss”. This provided a clear function for capitalism because it
meant that workers would tolerate the powerlessness and frustration of being
exploited at work because they had this private domain where they were “king of
the castle” and could take out their stress and frustrations.
• This again ties in with Fran Ansley’s Marxist-feminist perspective of women being
the “takers of shit”.
The feminist view
• Feminists, such as Ann Oakley, agree with Marxists and functionalists that the
family is essentially a conservative institution that preserves the social order.
They disagree with functionalists and agree with Marxists that in doing so it
benefits only a powerful group within society. For feminists, this group is men.

• They argue that families preserve, support and embed patriarchy.

Liberal feminism and family
• Liberal feminists focus on striving for legal equality between the sexes. The family
has long been a clear source of inequality. Marital rape was not formally
recognised as a crime in the UK until 1991 (because of the notion that marriage
gave a man “conjugal rights” that could not be withdrawn save through
annulment or divorce). Divorce laws have been reformed on many occasions to
make them more equal, but it used to be much easier for a man to get a divorce
than a woman (see a later section), etc. Liberal feminists argue that most of those
battles for legal equality have been won, however there is clearly still inequality
between the sexes (for example, in relation to domestic work). They put this down
to the need to also change cultural values in society.
• As such, while families currently play a part in the oppression of women, they do
not have to: it is possible to have family life and gender equality.
Radical feminism and family
• Radical feminists do not believe that changing the law will ever be enough, on its
own, to end the oppression and subjugation of women. They argue that men will
always oppress women and the family is a vehicle for that oppression. As such
women should find alternative ways of living where they are not subject to male
oppression. This has led some radical feminists to favour gender separatism.
• Radical feminists argue that girls are socialised (not least through families) to
believe that oppression and inequality are normal and therefore they accept the
inequality of family life: indeed they dream of it and work for it.
Marxist feminism and family
Marxist feminists argue that families help to preserve both capitalism and
patriarchy, and that the two work hand in hand. They point out that the capitalist
system gets the benefit of unpaid female work as their workforce (and the next
generation) are fed, looked after and kept happy to ensure they keep working hard
and making profits for the bosses.
•THE END