Assess the view that family diversity is harmful both to the individual and society

Family diversity is a move away from the traditional nuclear family within British Society. One example of family diversity is an increase in lone parenting. Both Functionalists and more recently the New Right, argue that a move away from the nuclear family is destructive to individuals and society. Conflict theorists such as Feminists and Marxists take a different stance and argue that a move away from the nuclear family could be beneficial to both the individual and society. Functionalists, such as Murdock, encourage the nuclear family. Murdock’s theory is that the nuclear family performs four essential functions within life – stabilising the adult sex drive which prevents illegitimate children and can reduce stress, reproducing the next generation which helps to carry on mankind, socialising the children which creates a stable society and finally, meeting the family members’ economic needs which limits welfare dependency, all in which avoids anomie. Therefore, a move away from the nuclear family would be harmful to both the individual and society. However, it can be said that Murdock is making many assumptions as he is assuming people will be promiscuous if unmarried. In addition, lone parent families also create functioning children and statistics have shown that abuse rates within marriages are higher, showing that the nuclear family may in fact be harmful and damaging to both the individual and society. However, Parsons supports Murdock with his idea of ‘functional fit’. This is the idea that the family performs functions that will ‘fit’ the needs of the society in which it is found. Parsons also argues that within the nuclear family, both a male and female are needed in order to carry out the ‘instrumental’ and ‘expressive’ roles. The instrumental leader is the man, who is responsible for the economic welfare of the family, preventing welfare dependency. The expressive leader is the woman, who in a stereotypical fashion is responsible for the welfare of the home and the childcare. Arguably it can be said that both roles are needed for the primary socialisation of the children and the stabilisation of adult personalities. Primary socialisation is where children are taught key social norms and values to allow them to integrate into society. Stabilisation of adult personalities involves the ‘warm bath’ theory which is the idea that the family unit helps to reduce stress and tension, enabling workers to return back to work happy, benefitting the economy. Therefore, a move away from the nuclear family may cause harm to both the individual and society as without primary socialisation, children may struggle to integrate into society and unstable adults and tensions may be created – also affecting the economy due to unhappy workers who may produce less satisfactory goods/outcomes. On the other hand, conflict theorists would disagree with functionalists and argue that the nuclear family may in fact itself be damaging to the individual and society. Critics of Murdock and Parsons may argue that the nuclear family cannot always be seen as a harmonious institution and that they have not considered variations in family life. Furthermore, Marxists argue that diversity is good as the nuclear family is a tool to support the Bourgeoisie and Capitalism. One Marxist, Althusser argued that the primary socialisation of children within the nuclear family socialised children into accepting their social position within society and that they are below others, creating an idea of social oppression and false class consciousness. Therefore, a move away from the nuclear family may be beneficial to both the individual and society as they would have more freedoms and feel less oppressed. Another Marxist, Engels, also argued that males had more control of property and greater control of women within the nuclear family. Radical feminists would support Engels point as they believe that the nuclear family is a way for men to maintain patriarchy and control women. Therefore, a move away from the traditional nuclear family would be beneficial to both the individual and society as women would be able to have the same rights as men and same opportunities rather than stereotypically given the ‘expressive’ role. Lone parent families support this as sometimes either a mother or father has to play both the expressive and instrumental role and functioning, stable children are still created – some more stable than those from nuclear families. Therefore, a move away from the nuclear family would benefit both the individual and society. One group that really support the idea that any move away from the nuclear family would be harmful to both the individual and society are the modern political face of functionalism, the New Right. Evidence of the New Right is in fact displayed within our current government through policies such as the tax break policy which involved giving married couple’s tax breaks to encourage the nuclear family. Politician Iain Duncan-Smith also encourages the nuclear family with his pledge of £30mil for couples mediation and counselling in an attempt to keep the family unit together and discourage family diversity. Government policies also reflect the idea that the government is very judgemental of the underclass and target all of their animosity at the underclass which mainly consists of more diverse family units including, lone parents and unmarried couples. Therefore, the New Right believe that a move away from the nuclear family would be damaging to the individual and society as without the nuclear family meeting the economic needs of its members, more may rely on welfare from the government creating a larger underclass. However, Government policies, such as the gay marriage policy of 2014, actually encourage diversity. This reflects the idea that society is in fact very accepting of diversity and it should be encouraged. One example of a move away from the nuclear family which may benefit the individual and society is the reconstituted family. Reconstituted families may be happier and also help to reduce welfare dependency by providing for themselves. Both the expressive and instrumental roles can also be carried out within the reconstituted family, as well as the ‘warm bath’ theory. Therefore, the reconstituted family can be seen as a stable unit with similar benefits to the individual and society as the nuclear family. However, there can be an increased amount of abuse and unhappiness within reconstituted families and not all members may live harmoniously and children may not want to have ‘new’ siblings and parents who have no relation to them. Similarly, lone parent families can also be both beneficial and damaging as some can result in improperly socialised and unwilling to work children/adults, whilst others can result in more ambitious and grateful children/adults. Therefore, a move away from the nuclear family could be more harmful than beneficial to the individual and society. Lastly, Post-Modernists such as Giddens and Beck encourage family diversity as they believe the family has become a more dispersed extended family due to the ability to remain in contact using social media and mobile etc. However, it can be argued that this has weakened social bonds in the home as it is easier for families to split up. Therefore, a move away from the traditional nuclear family may be damaging to the individual and society as they are not properly socialised and there is no family to carry out the ‘warm bath’ theory and relieve tensions/stress at the end of the working day. In conclusion, it is apparent that a move away from the traditional nuclear family may in fact benefit society and the individual. Liberal Feminists may argue that a more neo-conventional nuclear family may be the best answer to improving family diversity whilst also retaining traditional values. A neo-conventional nuclear family is one that has altered its family structure in order to ‘fit’ into society - much like Parsons Idea of functional fit. This then allows women to have more freedom and perhaps fulfil the instrumental role while men fulfil the expressive role, which also prevents male patriarchy within families. To conclude, a move away from the traditional nuclear family and more towards the neo-conventional nuclear family would be beneficial to both the individual and society.