![]() ![]() Any shift in this arrangement, they warned, would harm children and by extension the family as a social institution and even society itself. For example, most sociology and marriage-and-family textbooks during the 1950s maintained that the male breadwinner–female homemaker nuclear family was the best arrangement for children, as it provided for a family’s economic and child-rearing needs. Some children have advantages throughout life because of the social identity they acquire from their parents, while others face many obstacles because the social class or race and ethnicity into which they are born is at the bottom of the social hierarchy.īeyond discussing the family’s functions, the functional perspective on the family maintains that sudden or far-reaching changes in conventional family structure and processes threaten the family’s stability and thus that of society. As we have seen in earlier chapters, social identity is important for our life chances. Children are born into their parents’ social class, race and ethnicity, religion, and so forth. ![]() The incest taboo that most societies have, which prohibits sex between certain relatives, helps to minimize conflict within the family if sex occurred among its members and to establish social ties among different families and thus among society as a whole.įourth, the family provides its members with a social identity. One reason for this is to ensure that infants have adequate emotional and practical care when they are born. The family is the major unit for teaching these norms and the major unit through which sexual reproduction occurs. All societies have norms governing with whom and how often a person should have sex. Third, the family helps regulate sexual activity and sexual reproduction. It provides them food, clothing, shelter, and other essentials, and it also provides them love, comfort, help in times of emotional distress, and other types of intangible support that we all need. Second, the family is ideally a major source of practical and emotional support for its members. In most societies the family is the major unit through which socialization occurs. One of the most important functions of the family is the socialization of children. Parents, siblings, and, if the family is extended rather than nuclear, other relatives all help to socialize children from the time they are born. In most societies, the family is the major unit in which socialization happens. As previous chapters indicated, no society is possible without adequate socialization of its young. As such, the family performs several important functions.įirst, the family is the primary unit for socializing children. A functional understanding of the family thus stresses the ways in which the family as a social institution helps make society possible. Recall that the functional perspective emphasizes that social institutions perform several important functions to help preserve social stability and otherwise keep a society working. Romantic love is the common basis for American marriages and dating relationships, but it is much less common in several other contemporary nations. Wives and husbands have different styles of communication, and social class affects the expectations that spouses have of their marriages and of each other. The interaction of family members and intimate couples involves shared understandings of their situations. The family can also be a source of conflict, including physical violence and emotional cruelty, for its own members. ![]() The family contributes to social inequality by reinforcing economic inequality and by reinforcing patriarchy. In addition, sudden or far-reaching changes in the family’s structure or processes threaten its stability and weaken society. It socializes children, it provides emotional and practical support for its members, it helps regulate sexual activity and sexual reproduction, and it provides its members with a social identity. The family performs several essential functions for society. Table 11.1 Theory Snapshot Theoretical perspective Let’s review these views, which are summarized in Table 11.1. Sociological views on today’s families generally fall into the functional, conflict, and social interactionist approaches introduced earlier in this book.
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