Evaluate the View That The Nuclear Family is the best type of family for

individuals and for society

Functionalists are the main people who stress the positive aspect of family. In
particular, they focus on the positive role of one particular family type, the
traditional nuclear family. They claim that the nuclear family is good for
individuals and for society. [interpreting the view as a functionalist one]

Parsons suggests that the nuclear family is the best family type for meeting the needs of
society and the individual. He claims that the family performs two irreducible functions
that satisfy some of society’s functional pre requisites. The first and most basic of these
functions is the primary socialisation of children. So Parsons is really suggesting that the
family, and in particular the nuclear family is the best family type to pass on norms and
values.

Parsons agrees that the nuclear family has lost some of its functions as state
education and welfare have taken over, but he claims that it enabled a nuclear
family to concentrate on the two main functions, the socialisation of children;
this involves passing on the norms and values and appropriate gender roles and
the stabilisation of adult personalities; this involves being supportive the adult
family members.
Add more detail of the functionalist view here
Comment and a ref to Q
However this positive view of the family is not shared by everyone for example
AN ALTERNATIVE VIEW OF THE FAMILY IS SUGGESTED BY R.D Laing who
regards it as a key source of madness, especially schizophrenia. He saw the
family as a tangled web of conflict and tensions. Such tensions can pull children
apart resulting in psychiatric problems. Edmund Leech also has a very negative
view towards the nuclear family being good for people and society. He describes
the nuclear family as a claustrophobic institution where parents fight and
children rebel. He likened family life to like living in a “chicken coop” and families
behaving like “overloaded electrical circuits.” Comment……say what this suggests
about the view in the Q
A similarly negative view is put forward by David Cooper who applies a Marxist
analysis and sees the family a “dangerous socialising agency” producing obedient
citizens. His argument is largely about how the family helps prop up the
capitalist system through encouraging blind obedience to authority figures. At
the same time, he sees the family as a place where people are controlled. Analysis
of this and ref to Q

Feminists also see the nuclear family as patriarchal and hence dysfunctional to
women. Fran Ansley responding to Parson’s function of women as stabilisers of
adult personalities sees women as “takers of shit” whereas Abbot and Wallace
adopting a third-wave feminist analysis concede how women’s experiences are
within the family. Betsy Stanko found that an act of domestic violence is
committed every 6 seconds in Britain. It is also estimated that a quarter of all
violent crimes committed are domestic. A & E
On the other hand The new-right claim that non-traditional families such as
single parent families or same sex families for example are characterised by
freckless parenting which are dysfunctional to both society and to individuals.
Norman Dennis for example sees children damaged by lone parent families
which are headed by women. Therefore the New Right would argue that the
traditional nuclear family is the “best fit” for contemporary society. Indeed………
[more evidence etc here]
The new right claimed that single parent families are the source of social
problems; therefore they maintain that the nuclear family is best. They believe
that families need fathers and those that do not have them produce delinquent
children. Cockett and Trip link problems with children to single parent hood.

Charles Murray Agrees that lone parent families are bad for young boys in
particular. David Morgan suggests that whilst children in two parent families
tend to do better than those in single parent households, it is unclear what the
cause is. Add analysis and evaluation
Many suggest that it is lack of resources or material disadvantage so…..

Cashmore stresses that many single parent families cope well and raise their
children in a loving caring environment. Poly Toynbee suggests that problems
are linked with poverty and many families are better off without father
especially if they are violent. SO…..

The problem with linking these problems to the absence of a father is that there
are other factors that can cause such problems such as poverty
So perhaps it is not poor parenting but poverty that is the problem.
Whether the family is good for individuals and for society is taken up by Marxists
who see the nuclear family exists as being good for capitalists. Marxists
emphasise how the family works the interest of society rather than in its
members. The unpaid work of women is seen as keeping wages lower than they
otherwise would be. Women are seen as reproducing labour on a daily basis. The
also constitute a “reserve army of labour.”

Zaretsky suggests that we are all persuaded to believe that the family is not
connected to the economy; the family exists to serve the economy. He also
suggests that Marxists claim that that family are good for capitalism. According
to Zaretsky, the capitalists system relies on women who work for nothing in the
home, but looking after and reproducing workers. The family is a vital unit of
consumption feeding and perpetuating the focus on surplus value. Engels went
so far as to say that marriage was created by rich men as a way of controlling
women and ensuring that their children were in fact their children to whom they
could pass on their wealth.
If this is the case then it would be fair to suggest that families are good for
Capitalists but not for anyone else.