Assess The Usefulness of The Functionalist Perspective for an Understanding of The Family in Contemporary Society

Assess the usefulness of the functionalist perspective for an understanding of the family in contemporary society.
 

To assess the usefulness of the functionalist’s views revising the set up of contemporary society functions, I will need to foremost explain and analyse the opinion of functionalists on different subject matters. Functionalism is a consensus theory and as a family unit they believe that this and every other main institution e.g. Education plays a primary part in socialization.  It is also a structural theory and believes that society shapes us as individuals. Some of the areas I will be covering matters notably such as sexual, economic, reproductive, educational and the stabilization of adult personalities and will be assessing if contemporary or modern society still needs and or values these matters. I will also be assessing the views of other theories, especially Feminism and Marxism, and comparing them to functionalism. Functionalism is a theory that overlooks the negative side of society and illustrates a utopia that does not exist in contemporary society. 
 

 The Functionalist view of sexual issues in society are that ‘every society needs rules about sex’ for example, for sex to happen it should be during a socially approved sexual relationship inside of marriage. However Marxist’s would disagree and put across that sex is a way to make sure that property is passed on to the male’s genetic offspring, with, juxtaposing the Post Modernist view believing as long as the individual is happy, then that is approvable. Despite these dated views, contemporary society does not value monogamy (when a person remains faithful to their partner) compared to the 1960’s functionalist view and adopts a more Post Modernist approach, as DNA tests can never now prove female fidelity, I also agree with contemporary society’s view as it’s an accurate assumption of how we live today.

 Economic circumstances affect the functionalist view as they believe ‘as a unit of consumption today, the family is still important’. Being strong believers of the typical nuclear family Functionalists approve of a capitalist society and the nuclear family being beneficial to it, for which the nuclear family proves workers and consumers creating more profit for the capitalist economy. Marxism takes a different view from the Functionalists and wants communism (equality between everyone) and believes that the capitalist system exploits the proletariats (poorer classes) in society, by under paying and longer working hours, benefitting the bourgeoisie (richer classes).  In contemporary society the Functionalist view could be a danger to health issues, do we not need to consume family size quantities of goods as obesity is on the rise and becoming a major risk to society’s health. I agree with Marxism on the economic issues of society as it is a more realistic view of update operational society.