Blog post 5

Sammi Branch

11/26/11

How Functional is the Family?

The major point that functionalists make to explain why family is universal is that is a way for humans to survive in a functioning society. Functionalists say that family fulfills the six basic needs of people in society. The family, as a structure, promotes economic production, socialization of children, recreation, sexual control, care to the weak, old, or sick, and reproduction. I agree that the family satisfies these needs in a positive and effective way, but I would also argue that family as an institution could be the reason for some of these needs in the first place. That the family is a way to survive in society but also that the family as an institution might have created the society in which family is necessary for functional survival.

If the world had not been made up of families, and if from the beginning of human life there had been more of an “every man for himself” attitude, these needs might not be necessary to function today. This is why I wonder if family actually created these needs to be fulfilled but now that family life is so ingrained into humanity it is also the only thing that can fulfill them. At this point, it seems like it is too late to be able to figure out which came first, the needs or the structure. Is it human nature to want to take care of weak people? Or to socialize children? This fact that living in society is also so ingrained into our lives that it seems like “human nature” also complicates these questions. If we didn’t live in such structured societies there might not be anything to socialize our children into.

At this point it seems more valuable to study families and how they work, since the functions mentioned before have to be met in modern society. Also, a world that was based on complete individualism seems like it could lead to cannibalism and conflict fairly easily. That brings up the question: are the world’s forms of society and family natural reactions to human life? Clearly, the institution of family today performs functions necessary to survive in society, but it gets convoluted and confusing when we dig deeper and try to disentangle family and society to figure out which came first. Family supports society and functioning well in society, but family may have created these needs in the first place. Functionalists explain family as a necessary institution to fulfill societal needs, but it is interesting to think even further back and try to figure out why these needs are even needs to begin with.