FUNCTIONALIST, MARXIST AND FEMINIST VIEWS OF THE FAMILY

Functionalist, Marxist and Feminist views of the family

Functionalist, Marxist and Feminist views of the family

Question 1

Marxists are critical of the family and society. They believe society is based on a conflict between the classes - working class and ruling class. The family helps to maintain class differences in society as the rich can afford to give their children a better start in life than the poor, e.g. pay for a better education, get them a good job either in their own business or their friends businesses. Marxists believe the family socialises the working class to accept that it is fair that the classes are unequal.

Gender roles, as they pertain to the family, are interactive. Being a daughter implies that there is a mother or father. It suggests that being a daughter entails expectations about a female's behavior visà-vis a parent and a parent's behavior vis-à-vis the daughter. A daughter or son reasonably expects physical care and emotional support to a certain age, and parents might expect increasing domestic responsibility and self-direction with their child's physical maturation. Societies usually codify these responsibilities in general terms. In rural communities around the world, for example, in China and India, kinship responsibilities were well understood without specific laws. With urbanization and industrialization, informal relations weaken, and laws emerge to specify gender-kinship responsibilities. Precise rights and responsibilities are often interpreted by specific cases channeled through the society's legal and welfare systems, particularly for those families needing outside assistance.

Question 2

Feminists believe the family is bad for women. Girls and boys learn their different gender roles within the family through socialisation. Girls copy their mothers, doing housework, whilst boys copy their fathers, doing DIY. They then learn that this is how male and female roles should be. Feminists believe that the family is male dominated - the term for this is patriarchal. Like other institutions and ideas which form the superstructure, the family serves the interests of the ruling class by maintaining and reproducing the existing relations of production.

Question 3

Functionalists believe that all elements within a society interconnect and work together. They compare society to a human body where everything is useful and needed. Even things like crime have a purpose, which through Functionalists rose tinted glasses is that it creates jobs for policemen etc. It is a system used by cultures, which concentrate on, and emphasises the functional interactions of their societies, i.e. why and how certain rituals, daily chores etc. are performed. It makes "law-like" generalizations.

The “family” that is integrated is the “family of God.” We would reject, for example, statements such as “the family is the building block of the church.” While it is true that “strong families make strong churches,” the scriptures teach that we are members “individually one of another” (cf. Rom. 12:5; 1 Cor. 12:27). The “living stones” that make up the church are not families, but individual redeemed people who make up the corporate, covenant body of ...