Dark side of the family essay

To what extent does the dark side of the family life challenge the functionalist view on family?

Functionalists such as Murdock (1949) would define family as a social group made up of common residence, economic cooperation, reproduction, adults of both sexes, who engage in a socially approved relationship, and that the education system is important. Functionalists believe that the nuclear family is the best type of family for individuals and society. Functionalists believe that sexual relationships with the same partner are very important to society as it helps to prevent social disruption and can result in making a husband’s and wife’s relationship stronger. They believe that reproduction is important to keep society going. Economic cooperation is important for the family as it provides them with necessities such as food and shelter. Functionalists believe that the education system is important because it educates children into society’s norms and values, which they then pass down to different generations so when children grow up they support the functionalist views on society which they believe benefits society the most. This suggests functionalists have a positive view on families. However, the functionalists view on family encourages gender inequality and discriminates against homosexual and single parent families. This suggests that a functionalists view on family is not ideal and is not beneficial to everyone, and mainly benefit men and people with a high socio-economic class, therefore ignores family diversity.

Although functionalists think that family is a good thing, others believe that the family is bad, this is called ‘the dark side of the family life’. There are two main areas to the dark side of the family are child abuse and domestic violence. These are very difficult to measure as they are behind closed doors; this makes it very difficult to stop it from happening especially if people do not talk about it with others. There are four different types of child abuse, which are physical, neglect, emotional and sexual.

Feminists have many different approaches of domestic abuse. However, they usually focus on the male domination of society as the main cause of abuse of women, children and the elderly within the family. The feminist ‘Elliot’ argues that this is based in two linked arguments. The first argument is the assumption that all male domination is, in the last resort, supported by physical force. The second argument is that there is an equally persuasive assumption that male sexuality is both powerful and irresistible.

Some feminists suggest that such a construction of masculinity puts women at constant risk of sexual harassment, and that children are at risk of sexual abuse unless men are regularly ‘serviced’. Some feminists would also claim that male sexual violence gets support from the law, judges and the media. This infers that the dark side of family is the most common picture in family life. This would go against a functionalists view on the family. This view on the family can be criticised; this is because most men reject the fact that they are inherently violent and potential abusers of women and children, with no control over their sexual feelings and desires. Most men think that physical abuse to women and children is outrageous, and men in prison for child abuse usually have to be kept separated from other male prisoners for their own safety. The radical feminist approach fails to explain women’s abuse to children, men and other women. It also does not explain domestic abuse in same sex relationships. This suggests that although family does have a dark side to it, most people do gain from family relationships.

Marxists argue that it is the specific requirements of the capitalist mode of production that have shaped the development of the family in Western societies. Marxists see family as the reproducers of future generations of workers, consuming the products of capitalism, providing emotional support to workers, helping them to cope with the capitalist society they live in, and socialising children into accepting the inequalities of the capitalist society. Overall, Marxists view family as a negative thing as they disagree with living in a capitalist society, as they believe it is the high socio economic class that exploits the lower socio economic class.

The New Right theorists agree with functionalists and think that if the nuclear family were the dominant family it would benefit society the most. The New Right theorists would argue that nuclear families are important for the young to be socialised to respect traditional sources of authority. They also support a traditional allocation of gender roles while taking into account that a dynamic market economy might need an increase in the amount of married women to take up employment. However, New right theorists argue that in practice, as a result of increasing divorce, cohabitation, increasing numbers of lone parent families and the increase of homosexuality, the nuclear family is less secure than functionalists imply.

Vogel and Bell think that the dysfunction of child abuse is not as bad as the breakdown of the family. They focus on emotional abuse where the child is used as an emotional weapon by the parents who argue. This might suggest that emotional abuse is better than divorce because of all the different outcomes as a result of divorce.

Parton suggests child abuse is only found in extreme cases. He argues that structural circumstances in which people live can put a huge strain on a personal relationship. For example at the lower end of the economic scale, it may be the stress of poverty, unemployment, debts and marital problems that lead to abuse. Middle-class abuse might be due to a lack of job satisfaction, financial anxieties and fear of redundancy.

Overall functionalists view is challenged a huge amount by the dark side of family life. Functionalists believe that sexual relationships with the same partner is important to society as it helps to prevent social disruption making a husband’s and wife’s relationship stronger. However, if there is domestic abuse within this relationship it will only cause more of a social disruption and weaken a husband and wife’s relationship. Functionalists also believe that nuclear family is important to educate children into society’s norms and values, which they pass down to different generations, however, domestic abuse is not normal and children should not be educated to think it is.