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The role of the woman is subordinate to the role of the man.
However, Parsons argues that women have greater freedom in modern societies than they did in Feudal societies.
But they have no real opportunity to benefit from these freedoms and rights.
If women were to benefit, argues Parsons, then a fundamental structural change within the family would be needed in order to achieve equilibrium.
Criticisms and critiques
Parsons was describing the post second world war, white, middle class family.
Other forms of the family are ignored or viewed as deviant,
i.e. different from the ?normal? white, middle class family.(Stevi Jackson, 1999, cited Taylor et al)
Eugene Litwak argues that the ?isolated nuclear family? stripped of functions is incorrect.
?Extended Kin Relations in an Industrial Democratic Society?, 1965. The functions are shared with other institutions and so the family is still responsible for the education, healthcare needs of its members.
Modified Extended Family
Kinship ties have merely changed, not disappeared altogether.
"?a coalition of nuclear families in a state of partial dependence." E. Litwak, cited, Morgan, D. Social Theory and the Family, pp66)
Criticism of Litwak
Social Integration refers to how individuals relate to one another in a society.
Social isolation in the context Parsons refers to how the Family as social unit becomes isolated from other social units, like kin.
The claim is that, Litwak is mistaking two terms.
Litwak refers to what the members of the families are doing, their activities and mistakes it for a function of the nuclear family unit.
Within Functionalism it is the social units that effect the society, not the members/individuals who make up the social unit of the family.
The Biological Analogy
The activity of the heart is that it beats.
The function of the heart is to pump blood around the body.
The function is how it inter-relates to other organs in order to benefit the whole body.
Explanation
Criticisms of March of Progress Theorists
Parsons is a ?march of progress theorist?.
If , as the process of structural differentiation suggests, societies are moving from simple to complex forms, then why is the family changing from the complex ?extended? to simple ?nuclear?. (Lee & Newby, 1989 :pp298)
R. Fletcher states that there never was a golden age of the family prior to industrialization. 1966. So how can the Family be in decline.
Fletcher argues that the family is now more egalitarian than it was in this supposed ?golden era?.
Criticisms cont...
E. Short argues that pre-industrial families did not fulfil the function of affection as outlined by Parsons. That the family was only a means of economic support.
E. Short continues by saying that modernization has resulted in the family attending to the emotional needs of the individuals as well as an economic relationship.
W.J. Goode argues that with the state taking over some functions of the family it has meant that extended family members don?t have to maintain unwanted contact.
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