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Before the industrialisation of Britain the extended family was better suited towards the society. They spent their whole lives working on a farm in the same village. The nuclear family makes it easier for the children to move when their older and not be dependent on the family they can move to different parts of the country or the world because industries are constantly moving.
Murdock is a theorist with the functionalist ideology. He supports the idea that the family is an important subsystem and believes the family performs four essential functions to meet the needs of society he came to this conclusion after the analysis of 250 societies:
Parson believes that the family meets other needs like welfare, military, political and religious functions. The functions it performs will depend on the society at the time. Parsons says that there are two different types of families, the nuclear family and the extended family...
Marxists and feminists reject his "rose tinted" harmonious consensus view that the family meets the needs of the wider society and all members of the family. Feminists see that family as serving the needs of men and oppressing women. Marxists argue that it meets the needs of capitalism.
Modern industrial society is based on constantly evolving science and technology and so it requires a skilled technically competent workforce. In modern society a person is able to work towards their own high status with their own efforts and ability. Alternatively before in society with an extended family, adult sons lived in their fathers house and if he achieved a higher job status tensions would arise and conflict would occur. The nuclear family encourages social mobility and geographical mobility.
This is to equip them with basic skills and society's values, to enable them to cooperate with others and begin to integrate them into society.
Parsons concentrated his analysis on the family in modern American society. His ideas have a more general application since he argued that American family retains two basic functions which are common to family in all societies. These are primary socialisation of children and stabilization of adult personalities.
Adult personalities are stabilised by the parents' role in the socialization process. This allows them to act out "childish" elements of their own personalities which they have retained from childhood be can't be inclulded in adult society.
Peter Lasletts (1972) study of the English household said that 1821 nearly all the families were nuclear. Late childbearing and short life expectancy meant that grandparents were unlikely to be alive for a long time after their first grandchild. There is no evidence that the nuclear family has become the dominant family type today. The extended fmaily hasn't dissapeard because it performs important functions like providing financial help, childcare and emotional support