Functionalism is a branch of sociology that sees all institutions in society as serving a purpose that is for the good of all members. An institution is a large-scale social arrangement, such as the family, the education system or the criminal justice system, and in functionalist thought they are like organs in a human body, which work all together toward the common goal of survivor.
Functionalists hold an ideology of familism, which means they believe that there is one type of family which is superior to all others, and for them this is the nuclear family, more specifically, the cereal packet nuclear family. This family is composed by two heterosexual first-time married adults with their dependent happy children, which may be biologically their own or adopted. It is the one that tend to appear in cereal advertisement, hence its name. Murdock says that this family is the only functional and that all cultures have it (it's universal) because, since all cultures face the same basic struggle, it is only natural that they come to similar solutions. He goes on to argue that the nuclear family performs four main functions:
1) The Sexual function is where the couple satisfy each other's sexual needs, which stabilises adult behaviour.
2) The Reproductive function is where they bring the new generation of workers, thus helping society's economy prosper.
3) The Economic function is where they work to provide with the basic needs of shelter and food to their children, so that the next generation of workers will be healthy and effective (and they survive).
4) The Educational function is where they teach society's norms and values to their children, thus integrating them into mainstream culture to create social harmony.
Thus, functionalism believes that the cereal packet nuclear family is the basis on which all other things in society are based, and this benefits all people in it because it prevents social chaos.
Parsons argues that the family lost functions through the process of structural differentiation: in pre-industrial societies people lived from agriculture, growing their own resources, and they were the centre where all things necessary for the sustenance of life happened (nutrition, medicine, education). However, in industrial society these functions have been taken by institutions such as hospitals and schools, leaving the NF with only two irreducible functions:
1) Primary socialisation, which, like Murdock's educational function, involves passing on norms and values.
2) Stabilisation of adult personalities, which does include the Sexual function but also things like the warm bath, where a worker who returns from work is taken care of by his wife so he can be effective next day.
The process of industrialisation also created the NF through the functional fit: pre-industrial societies were based largely on agriculture, and thus needed a large family with lots of workers, in other words, an extended family with three generations, but industrialisation required people to move to cities, and because the elderly weren't physically able to walk such long distances, they were left behind. But to make such voyage, people would have to be given an immense incentive, and Parsons argues that this was social mobility: in the pre-industrial EF people had ascribed statuses - their position at birth determined their position later in life, and there was little anyone could do about it - but in modern society people can work their way up the social ladder. In this sense, the change to the NF was a march of progress, because it led people into a better condition than they were in the past. This theory argues that the family will mould to the requirements of the economy. The modern economy, the Neo-liberal free market, needs of consumption to maintain itself running, and therefore the family being a unit of consumption, as opposed to the unit of production that was the extended family, works alongside it in a harmonious cycle. Thus, Parsons sees the nuclear family as an element necessary in today's society because it is the best fit for modern economy, and the functions it once performed have been given out to professional institutions which are more efficient at it.
As suggested in the warm bath explained in Parsons' second point, functionalists believe in a segregated division of labour, where men take the instrumental role of breadwinners and women the expressive role of housekeepers and child-rearers. Essentialism argues that this difference in natural: men, having testosterone, which makes them more aggressive and competitive, are to go out and work to get resources for their family, while women, whose oestrogen makes them more caring, are to stay home caring for the house and her children. Functionalists believe that each of us has a role to play in society to make it work smoothly, and men and women are to take these segregated roles.
Functionalists receive opposition from many other perspectives, mainly Marxists and feminists. Many challenge Murdock saying that every time of family - extended, homosexual, lone parent, reconstituted, unmarried - can perform the functions he claims are exclusive of the NF. Furthermore, there is evidence that it is not universal nor the most functional in various cases. The Mosuo community in China have matrifocal matriarchal families, where the children live with their mother and her family, and the father lives apart and only presents himself to provide with economic resources; the Kibbutzim in Israel had a communal structure where all children lived in common buildings and were cared for by all adults alike; finally, Parsons himself shows that in pre-industrial societies the NF was not fit for the economy. Thus, functionalist claims of the NF being the most efficient seem ethnocentric and culturally biased.
Anderson argues against Parsons, pointing out that the NF was not the most fit for industrialisation. This is because since people had to work 14 to 16 hours a day, the presence of grandparents would have been beneficial for child-rearing, and thus families would have continued to be extended. Moreover, Laslett looked at official statistics of churches (1851 Census) and, analysing births, marriages and deaths, concluded that most families in preindustrial society were in fact two generational NF. This is probably due to the low life expectancy of around 44 years. This shows that the functional fit theory is erred in its premise, and thus must be looked at with scepticism.
Zaretsky, a Marxist, argues that rather than a warm bath, the nuclear family acts as a safety valve: when the male worker returns from work, he feels alienated and frustrated due to capitalist exploitation, and this is where his wife comes in, to relax him and get his stress off. Ansley notes that this can end up badly for women, who become the 'takers of shit', because some men may feel deprived of their hegemonic masculinity of power and dominance, and thus create for themselves that illusion through domestic violence. This benefits the capitalist economy because it diverts the rage that originally belonged to the bourgeoisie and which could have stemmed, Marxists argue, in the communist revolution. Barret argues that the nuclear family harms women because ideology of familism implies that they are incomplete outside of marriage and inside it they are oppressed to domestic labour. Feminists call double burden the sum of unpaid domestic work and emotional care both to children and husband, and in modern days there is a triple shift, where to this is added paid labour outside the house. Feminists and Marxist feminists argue that functionalists ignore the dark side of family life, which embraces domestic violence and child abuse. Thus, functionalists have idealised the family and ignore that not always is it beneficial for people.
Finally, Lyotard argues that functionalism, as are Marxism and feminism, is a failed meta-narrative. A meta-narrative is a theory that believes that history has a direction or fate. For functionalists this is the continuity of marches of progress; for Marxists it is the communist revolution; for some feminists the liberation from patriarchy. Lyotard writes from a post-modernist perspective, and he argues that in post-modern times, which are unpredictable and very unstable, meta-narratives are no longer applicable.
I hope you found this interesting. I am working on a new story, but I decided that I should not rush things, in order to produce quality stuff, so between stories I will post essays like this, explaining sociological theories mainly. I post every two weeks, check my stories The Isle of Arthur and A Story of Witch-doctors on this same page. Thank you.
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