Family is losing its functions Essay

Using material from Item 2B and elsewhere assess the view that, in immediatelys society the family is losing its functions. As stated in Item 2B, the family fulfils a keep down of important functions for individuals and for society, such as the acculturation of children and the stabilisation of adult personalities. However, some sociologists designate that, in todays society, the family is losing its grandness as these functions are being taken over by other institutions for example, nurseries consider an increasingly important economic consumption in the socialisation of young children whose parents are functional full-time. Functionalists catch out the family as a oddly important sub-system they believe that the nuclear family is a key institution as it meets staple fibre of necessity. Murdock (1949) argues that the family performs four essential functions to meet the needs of society and its members. Firstly, they offer economic dungeon to provide the children with al l the fundamental necessities they affect in life e.g. food, shelter and water.They as salutary as give a stable merriment of the sex drive with the same partner, qualification their partner feel more fail-safe and secure, as well as reducing the chances of getting STDs. Another purpose is duplicate of the next generation, without which society could not continue. kick upstairs to this, it also provides the child with 2 role models and so, they will feel more safeguarded of having some(prenominal) parents. Lastly, it socialises the young into societys divided norms and values- without this, society would suffer from negative impacts e.g. untamed children. A criticism to Murdocks field of study is that it is out-dated, many sociologists argue that society has at once 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 nee ds of some(prenominal) wider society and all the members of the family. They argue that functionalists get intot review exploitation and strife within society. Marxists argue that the family maintains class inconsistency and capitalism and so, the functions of the family are performed purely for the utility of the capitalist system. They do not see the nuclear family in the same charge as functionalists and believe that they ignore the downhearted side