Evaluate the View that the Main Aim of the Family is to Meet the Needs of Capitalism

Capitalism is an economic system characterised by private ownership of key resources such as the means of production. The Marxist perspective argues that the family is a key social institution which meets the needs of capitalism in several ways and plays a key role in it's maintenance; helping to maintain the class inequalities that captialism creates. Other perspectives such as functionalism would argue that serving the needs of capitalism is not the main aim of the family. They would argue instead that the family plays a key role in socialisation and maintaining social order. 

Marx argues that the nuclear family is a product of capitalism and is essential to its maintenance, as it functions to promote values that ensure the maintanence and reproduction of capitalism. Gramsci states that the family is a key ideological appartus of capitalism. This is because the family socialises people into accepting inequality as fair, justified and natural. This is achieved through the existence of hierachies in most families which teaches children to accept that the existence of authority figures, and prepare them for the worker, owner relationships they will experience in their later working life. This argument has however, been criticised by functionalists who state that marxist prespectives on the family marginalise the positive impact the family plays in society and the key role it plays in creating emotional wellbeing and social order.