The Open University of Hong Kong

School of Science and Technology — Nursing

Bachelor of Nursing with Honours in General Health Care

Year of entry: Year 08/09

【SOCIA123F: Foundation of Social Science: Sociology】

Topic: _Assignment 2 – Family_

Name of Student: __Tam Wing Yin Alice__

Student No.: _10088719_

_General Health Care, Group_T05_

Tutor’s Name: __Dorothy Wong__

Date of Submission: __6 March, 2009__

10088719-Tam Wing Yin Alice-SOCIA123F 1

 Introduction

Sociologists define family as an association with the following dispensable

elements: association through blood ties, marriage, adoption or affection, shared

budget and may-be-presented child-rearing practice. Though they share similar

definitions, sociologists from different perspectives hold different views on family.

The followings will explain and compare the Functionalist and Marxist analyses on

family functions.

Functionalist perspectives

According to functionalists, family helps maintain social order and stability.

William F. Ogburn outlined six major functions of family: reproduction (to replace

dying members by giving birth to new members), protection (giving care and

economic security for the upbringing of children), socialization (monitoring ones’

behaviours and transmitting norms, values and language to the next generations),

regulation of sexual behavior (defining standard of acceptable and proper sexual

behaviors), provision of affection and companionship (providing warm, intimate and

mutually-understanding relationship to help members feel satisfied and secure) and

provision of social status (providing race-and-ethnicity-based ascribed status that help

determine one’s place in the society) (Ogburn and Tibbits, 1934). These enable

survival, maintain social norms (consensus) and keep social order.

Besides, Talcott Parsons suggested another function– the stabilization of adult

personality. With reference to the functionalist assumption that extended family

(relatives together with a couple and their children living together) transferred to

nuclear family (a couple living together with their children) during social

differentiation, family now is largely isolated from kin. Without the security got from

relatives, couples increasingly seek emotional support from each other through which

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relieves the stress and anxiety in everyday life that may destabilize personality. The

effect is more obvious in the sexual division of labour in which females’ expressive

roles (providing love and understanding) relieve the tension faced by the husbands

due to their instrumental roles (being the income earners). Personality is stabilized

also through the parents’ role in socialization because while adults are not allowed to

express their “childish” personality in the outside-home society, they are enabled to

do so in their interaction with their children. These consolidate one’s personality.

Marxist perspective

Marxists emphasize the class society in which the capitalists exploit the

workers by grabbing the surplus value produced by the workers. Such exploitation is

said to be supported by the superstructure. As family is regarded as one part of the

superstructure, Marxists suggest that family helped support the economic base.

First, family benefits the economy with the supply of labour (Zaretsky, 1976).

Reproduction and nurturance of children supply future workers and the huge

population enables the capitalists to employ them cheaply. Besides, female members

are used as the reserve army of labour for they can provide a cheap additional source

of labour that helps keep wages down and facilitate profits accumulation during rapid

industrialization and can be sent home to do domestic chores (as unpaid labour) when

the need of labour decreases. Therefore, family fuels the industrial society with not

only male labour, but also a flexible source of female labour.

Second, early Marxists like Engels suggested that family, especially nuclear

family, is a means of passing on private property to heirs. As in a nuclear family one

male is married to one female only (or vice versa), there is proof of blood ties of the

offspring. This allows property to be pass on to the right persons and thus stabilize the

transmission of wealth and poverty to the capitalists and proletariate respectively.

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 Third, family helps pass on the ideology of the capitalists (Althusser, 1971).

Socialization in which elder generations share their experiences with and pass on

values to the next generations, like teaching children to obey to the authority, is

primarily practiced at home. This internalizes beliefs that accept the existing social

order and enables the ruling class to maintain false class consciousness. Family thus

helps consolidate and justify social inequality, oppression and exploitation.

Comparison

After looking at the two perspectives, it is observed that they share some

similarities while at the same time hold some different viewpoints on family

functions.

Similarly, both of them use a structural perspective to analyze family

functions. They are commonly interested at how family helps maintain social

structure. While functionalists investigate how family helps maintain the order and

stability of social structure (with Ogburn’s six major functions or other models such

as Murdock’s four functions), Marxists look at how family helps maintain the two

classes structure. This shows the agreement between the both perspectives that family

serves a structure-maintaining function.

Though the two perspectives share similar interest of investigation and have

pointed out some common functions of family, they analyze the purpose and necessity

of family functions differently.

First, about the reproductive function of family commonly suggested, the

purposes explained are different. According to the functionalists, the purpose of

giving birth to new members is to maintain human survival as the new members can

replace the passed-away members. Differently, Marxists argue that reproduction as

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well as the nurturance of children provides the capitalists with future cheap labour

force which favors the development and maintenance of industrial social structure.

Second, both agree with the socializing function of family, but they analyze

the purpose differently. Functionalists explain that family socializes children into

shared norms and values so as to maintain social harmony and enable social

functioning as, proposed by Parsons, shared culture allows people to communicate

and work towards shared goals. Marxists however regard socialization as the

internalization of ruling class ideology so as to make people accept and thus protect

the existing exploitative and oppressive structure. Therefore, different from

functionalist, Marxists argue that family helps perpetuate inequality.

Then are these functions necessary? The two parties have different answers.

Functionalists regard family as functionally necessary as it promotes order and

stability which are important for proper functioning of society by, for example,

regulating behaviors through socialization and stabilizing adult personality through

emotional support. However, Marxists do not regard it as functionally necessary, but

argue that it is just an agency used by the ruling class to protect the capitalist structure

by, for example, diluting the working class consciousness through socialization.

Conclusion

To conclude, in analyzing family functions, the two parties similarly adopt a

structural perspective. However, their analyses are not the same in light of their

interpretation of the purpose and necessity of family functions, with functionalists

interpreting the functions positively and Marxists interpreting negatively.

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 Reference

Browne, K. (2004). Introducing Sociology for AS level. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Giddens, A. (with the assistance of Simon Griffiths) (2006). Sociology (5th ed.).

Cambridge: Polity Press.

Haralambos, M., & Holborn, M. (2008). Sociology: Themes and Perspectives (7th ed.).

London: HarperCollins.

Schaefer, R. T. (11). Sociology Matters (3rd ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill Higher

Education.

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