Sociology Essay – Conor Crawley

Discuss the view that the nuclear family can have a negative effect on its family members.

The Nuclear family, as defined by many functionalists, entails a household containing an

instrumental father, expressive mother, and at least one child. This means that the father would be
the member who goes to work and is the main breadwinner in the household, while the mother is
the home builder. Many sociological theories have different ideas behind the nuclear families, with
very few agreements across the board.
The functionalist perspective strongly agrees with the nuclear family, seeing it as a
cornerstone of society. They suggest that the nuclear family has developed to suit the needs of
modern industrial society. This is known as the functional fit theory. The characteristics that make
the nuclear family suitable for modern society are mainly that people are no longer relying on wider
family networks for survival, and they are able to move to where the work is. Talcott Parsons argues
that the family fulfils two main roles for society, The primary socialisation of children and the
stabilisation of the adult personality. Another functionalist, Murdock, argues that the nuclear family
has four common traits in a variety of cultures. These are the sexual, reproductive, economic and
educational traits. In essence, the control of sexual behaviour, the reproduction of society, economic
support for children within the family, and education of all family members. Overall it shows that
functionalists recognise the importance of family and organisation within society. However, the
feminists and Marxists claim that functionalists overlook the dark sides of family life, such as the
exploitation of women or the way families are forced to conform around a capitalist society.
Furthermore the Nuclear family only accounts for 18% of all families today, so is it really that
prevalent nowadays?
The Marxist perspective has some similar views to functionalists, for example they agree
that the family passes on core ideas and values and both see family members as part of an economic
unit. However, they differ in the sense that functionalists see that the family is good for society,
while Marxists suggest that it is bad. Marxists tend to argue that the purpose of the family is to
socialise children into the norms of a capitalist society, shown by the dominant father. This shows
them that different people have power and that they have none themselves. Athusser, argued the
family taught children to accept social inequality. Also, Marxists see the family as a control
mechanism for women, as they work unpaid labour for up to 60 hours per week, while raising the
next generation of workers for the Bourgeoisie to exploit. Lastly, they also see the family as a unit of
consumption, as families purchase goods and services, further supporting capitalism. Zaretski (1976),
claimed that the family supports capitalism because it is the one place that working males can feel
they have power, helping them accept their lack of control in wider society. They also argue that
men with families are less likely to take action against employers, as they feel they need to support
their family. Marxists are mainly criticised as they are seen to only look at the negative side of the
nuclear family, and they overlook the main female inferiority within the home.
The feminist perspective, although being a contested theory, all agree that women
experience injustice on the basis of their gender within the family. They see that women work for
free within the home, and experience male dominance as they cannot earn their own significant
wage. However, different feminists have different opinions on the matter. For example, liberal
feminists want to change cultures and laws to make society more equal. They view gender
socialisation as the cause of inequality. A good example is Emma Watson, and her HeForShe
campaign, as she recognises the march of progress within society, and that male abuse is not
recognised. Marxist feminists see the family as the cause of inequality as women are domestic
servants for men, and this mirrors the inequality of capitalist society. This implies that women are
not able to gain jobs in a capitalist society, showing the ‘glass ceiling’ theory, that many women are
unable to gain high jobs due to their gender. Radical feminists see men as the enemy. Marriage is a
fantasy which women are drawn into in order that men can control their behaviour. An article
written by Sophie Zadeh, Fatherless Families, shows how some women now feel that for various
reasons that they no longer need a male figure within the family. This can be because of divorce or
abuse. They would use sperm banks to have children. This can show how the Nuclear family isn’t
necessary today, as these people are surviving fine without a male figure. This also shows how
radical feminists want matriarchy within society, not equality. Dobash and Dobash’s study,
researched domestic abuse in Scotland. They stated that marriage legitimised the abuse within more
impoverished areas, as the wife becomes dependant and cannot leave the abusive male as he is
their only source of income and survivability.
The postmodern perspective is the most recent theory to become popular, showing
prevalence around the 1980s. Postmodernists suggest that people are now choosing their family
type to suit their individual emotional and social needs, rather than strictly following a traditional
pattern. It suggests that the older traditional values are giving way to a more individual approach to
living. Postmodernists claim that families are too varied to be generalised about, so ideologies about
certain family types being better than others are meaningless. This completely contrasts the New
Rights view to family life, as postmodernism claims that there is no dominant family type, which is
now shown by macro-sociological statistics, considering only 18% are nuclear. The Rapoports (1982)
described the variety of types of family diversity in modern society as; Ethnic and Cultural variations,
social class differences, Life course (event that occur), and cohort (your generation). In 1993, Cheal
theorised that the family has undergone major change due to society’s unpredictability. Nowadays
people have more choice in their lifestyles, so they don’t feel the necessity to conform with family
norms that we saw in the past. Some criticisms of the postmodernists include that they claim that
metanarratives are too simplistic, while being a metanarrative themselves. Also, they overlook the
persistence of the Nuclear family and the importance of traditional marriage to most people. Lastly,
it tends to overstate or emphasise the amount of social change in society.
The New Right are recognised as the most influential during Margaret Thatchers era. Charles
Murray, claims that the traditional nuclear family is the best type of family overall. He went on to
claim that the traditional nuclear family is threatened by the welfare state. He believed that young
women had babies in order to gain money from the state, which meant that young men did not have
to take responsibility for fatherhood. The children of single parent families did not have a proper
male role model in the family and in turn grew up to be lazy, benefit dependant and criminal. They
are particularly against cohabitation because they argue that marriage strengthens family bonds so
that cohabiting couples are more likely to split up than married couples. They see the grown of
mothers in full time work as unhelpful because it means that mothers cannot fulfil the expressive
role of bringing children up to be good citizens. However, since they strongly believe in minimal state
intervention, they are accused for blaming the victims of society for their own poverty and
deprivation. Likewise it has a negative influence on government policy so that it is now more difficult
to get benefits, and those who are benefit dependant are seen in a bad light.

Overall the Nuclear family can be seen to have a negative effect on the members within, yet
it is seen to have different effects depending on the sociological perspective. The Functionalists and
the New Right favour the family and see that it has minimal defects, while the Feminists argue that it
has a detrimental effect on the view of women within society.