{"id":9174,"date":"2020-07-24T20:14:50","date_gmt":"2020-07-24T14:44:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/?p=9174"},"modified":"2025-02-24T15:44:44","modified_gmt":"2025-02-24T10:14:44","slug":"social-functions-of-the-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/social-functions-of-the-family\/","title":{"rendered":"Social Functions of the Family"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Social_Functions_of_the_Family\"><\/span><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif;\">Social Functions of the Family<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h1>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Relevant_for_Sociology_Optional_UPSC\"><\/span><span style=\"background-color: #ffffff; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, palatino, serif;\"><strong>(Relevant for Sociology Optional UPSC)<\/strong><\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_68 ez-toc-wrap-center counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-light-blue ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<div class=\"ez-toc-title-container\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title \" >What's Inside this Blog!<\/p>\n<span class=\"ez-toc-title-toggle\"><a href=\"#\" class=\"ez-toc-pull-right ez-toc-btn ez-toc-btn-xs ez-toc-btn-default ez-toc-toggle\" aria-label=\"Toggle Table of Content\"><span class=\"ez-toc-js-icon-con\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-1'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/social-functions-of-the-family\/#Social_Functions_of_the_Family\" title=\"Social Functions of the Family\">Social Functions of the Family<\/a><ul class='ez-toc-list-level-2' ><li class='ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/social-functions-of-the-family\/#Relevant_for_Sociology_Optional_UPSC\" title=\"(Relevant for Sociology Optional UPSC)\">(Relevant for Sociology Optional UPSC)<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/social-functions-of-the-family\/#The_Family_and_Conflict\" title=\"The Family and Conflict\">The Family and Conflict<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/social-functions-of-the-family\/#Families_and_Social_Interaction\" title=\"Families and Social Interaction\">Families and Social Interaction<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-5\" href=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/social-functions-of-the-family\/#Conclusion\" title=\"Conclusion\">Conclusion<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-6\" href=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/social-functions-of-the-family\/#Read_more_Blogs\" title=\"Read more Blogs:\">Read more Blogs:<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n\n<table style=\"border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%;\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 100%;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-25969 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Social-Functions-of-the-Family.png\" alt=\"Social Functions of the Family by Vikash Ranjan sir at Triumph IAS, UPSC Sociology\" width=\"2600\" height=\"1965\" srcset=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Social-Functions-of-the-Family.png 2600w, https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Social-Functions-of-the-Family-300x227.png 300w, https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Social-Functions-of-the-Family-1024x774.png 1024w, https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Social-Functions-of-the-Family-150x113.png 150w, https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Social-Functions-of-the-Family-768x580.png 768w, https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Social-Functions-of-the-Family-1536x1161.png 1536w, https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Social-Functions-of-the-Family-2048x1548.png 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2600px) 100vw, 2600px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif;\">Recall that the functional perspective emphasizes that social institutions perform several important functions to help preserve social stability and otherwise keep a society working. A functional understanding of the family thus stresses the ways in which the family as a social institution helps make society possible. As such, the family performs several important functions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><strong>First,<\/strong><\/span> the family is the primary unit for\u00a0socializing children. As previous chapters indicated, no society is possible without adequate socialization of its young. In most societies, the family is the major unit in which socialization happens. Parents, siblings, and, if the family is extended rather than nuclear, other relatives all help to socialize children from the time they are born.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><strong>Second,<\/strong> <\/span>the family is ideally a major source of\u00a0<strong>practical and emotional support<\/strong>\u00a0for its members. It provides them food, clothing, shelter, and other essentials, and it also provides them love, comfort, help in times of emotional distress, and other types of intangible support that we all need.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><strong>Third,<\/strong> <\/span>the family helps\u00a0<strong>regulate sexual activity and sexual reproduction.<\/strong> All societies have norms governing with whom and how often a person should have sex. The family is the major unit for teaching these norms and the major unit through which sexual reproduction occurs. One reason for this is to ensure that infants have adequate emotional and practical care when they are born. The\u00a0incest taboo\u00a0that most societies have, which prohibits sex between certain relatives, helps to minimize conflict within the family if sex occurred among its members and to establish social ties among different families and thus among society as a whole.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><strong>Fourth,<\/strong><\/span> the family provides its members with a\u00a0<strong>social identity.<\/strong> Children are born into their parents\u2019 social class, race and ethnicity, religion, and so forth. As we have seen in earlier chapters, social identity is important for our life chances. Some children have advantages throughout life because of the social identity they acquire from their parents, while others face many obstacles because the social class or race and ethnicity into which they are born is at the bottom of the social hierarchy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif;\">Beyond discussing the family\u2019s functions, the functional perspective on the family maintains that sudden or far-reaching changes in conventional family structure and processes threaten the family\u2019s stability and thus that of society. For example, most sociology and marriage-and-family textbooks during the 1950s maintained that the male breadwinner\u2013female homemaker nuclear family was the best arrangement for children, as it provided for a family\u2019s economic and child-rearing needs. Any shift in this arrangement, they warned, would harm children and by extension the family as a social institution and even society itself. Textbooks no longer contain this warning, but many conservative observers continue to worry about the impact on children of working mothers and one-parent families. We return to their concerns shortly.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"The_Family_and_Conflict\"><\/span><span style=\"color: #333333; font-family: georgia, palatino, serif;\"><strong>The Family and Conflict<\/strong><\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif;\"><strong>Conflict theorists<\/strong> agree that the family serves the important functions just listed, but they also point to problems within the family that the functional perspective minimizes or overlooks altogether.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif;\"><strong>First, the family as a social institution<\/strong> contributes to social inequality in several ways. The social identity it gives to its children does affect their life chances, but it also reinforces a society\u2019s system of stratification. Because families pass along their wealth to their children, and because families differ greatly in the amount of wealth they have, the family helps reinforce existing inequality. As it developed through the centuries, and especially during industrialization, the family also became more and more of a patriarchal unit (see earlier discussion), helping to ensure men\u2019s status at the top of the social hierarchy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif;\"><strong>Second, the family can also be a source of conflict for its own members.<\/strong> Although the functional perspective assumes the family provides its members emotional comfort and support, many families do just the opposite and are far from the harmonious, happy groups depicted in the 1950s television shows. Instead, and as the news story that began this chapter tragically illustrated, they argue, shout, and use emotional cruelty and physical violence. We return to family violence later in this chapter.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Families_and_Social_Interaction\"><\/span><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; color: #333333;\"><strong>Families and Social Interaction<\/strong><\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif;\">Social interactionist perspectives on the family examine how family members and intimate couples interact on a daily basis and arrive at shared understandings of their situations. Studies grounded in social interactionism give us a keen understanding of how and why families operate the way they do.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif;\">Some studies, for example, focus on how husbands and wives communicate and the degree to which they communicate successfully (Tannen, 2001).Tannen, D. (2001).\u00a0You just don\u2019t understand: Women and men in conversation. New York, NY: Quill. A classic study by Mirra Komarovsky (1964)Komarovsky, M. (1964).\u00a0<strong>Blue-collar marriage.<\/strong> New York, NY: Random House. found that wives in blue-collar marriages liked to talk with their husbands about problems they were having, while husbands tended to be quiet when problems occurred.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif;\">Such gender differences seem less common in middle-class families, where men are better educated and more emotionally expressive than their working-class counterparts. Another classic study by Lillian Rubin (1976)Rubin, L. B. (1976).<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif;\">Worlds of pain: Life in the working-class family,\u00a0found that wives in middle-class families say that ideal husbands are ones who communicate well and share their feelings, while wives in working-class families are more apt to say that ideal husbands are ones who do not drink too much and who go to work every day.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif;\">Other studies explore the role played by romantic love in courtship and marriage.\u00a0Romantic love, the feeling of deep emotional and sexual passion for someone, is the basis for many marriages and dating relationships, but it is actually uncommon in many parts of the contemporary world today and in many of the societies anthropologists and historians have studied. In these societies, marriages are arranged by parents and other kin for economic reasons or to build alliances, and young people are simply expected to marry whoever is chosen for them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif;\"><strong>This is the situation today in parts of India, Pakistan, and other developing nations and was the norm for much of the Western world until the late 18th and early 19th centuries (Lystra, 1989).Lystra, K. (1989).\u00a0Searching the heart: Women, men, and romantic love in nineteenth-century America. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Conclusion\"><\/span><span style=\"color: #333333; font-family: georgia, palatino, serif;\"><strong>Conclusion<\/strong><\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif;\">The family ideally serves several functions for society. It socializes children, provides practical and emotional support for its members, regulates sexual reproduction, and provides its members with a social identity.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif;\">Reflecting conflict theory\u2019s emphases, the family may also produce several problems. In particular, it may contribute for several reasons to social inequality, and it may subject its members to violence, arguments, and other forms of conflict.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif;\">Social interactionist understandings of the family emphasize how family members interact on a daily basis. In this regard, several studies find that husbands and wives communicate differently in certain ways that sometimes impede effective communication.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<h3><span class=\"amp-wp-ead8d03\" style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif;\" data-amp-original-style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif;\"><span class=\"amp-wp-303d451\" data-amp-original-style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif;\">To Read more topics like Structural Functionalist Theory<\/span>\u00a0<span class=\"amp-wp-303d451\" data-amp-original-style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif;\">in Public Posts, visit:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/?amp=1\">www.triumphias.com\/blogs<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Read_more_Blogs\"><\/span><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif;\">Read more Blogs:<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"pTjJJT7WED\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/contribution-of-unpaid-labour-in-economic-growth\/\">Contribution of Unpaid Labour in Economic Growth | Sociology Optional Coaching | Vikash Ranjan Classes | Triumph IAS | UPSC Sociology Optional<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; 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&#8212; TriumphIAS\" src=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/reforming-financial-regulators-of-india\/embed\/#?secret=iGuWRgZPbD#?secret=W3QOSkBoMp\" data-secret=\"W3QOSkBoMp\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Social Functions of the Family (Relevant for Sociology Optional UPSC) &nbsp; Recall that the functional perspective emphasizes that social institutions<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6643,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,13,114,115,116],"tags":[4551,4553,4547,2560,3791,4549,4554,4548,4546,2469,1915,4552,4550,1442,392],"class_list":["post-9174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-studies-i","category-society-and-social-issues","category-sociology-optional","category-sociology-optional-paper-i","category-sociology-optional-paper-ii","tag-conflict","tag-courtship","tag-emotional-support","tag-family","tag-marriage","tag-reproduction","tag-romantic-love","tag-sexual-activity","tag-social-functions","tag-social-identity","tag-social-inequality","tag-social-interactionism","tag-social-stability","tag-socialization","tag-union-public-service-commission-upsc"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9174"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25970,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9174\/revisions\/25970"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}