Sociology Assignment: Functionalism and Family Structures Analysis

This essay critically analyzes the sociological theory of functionalism, focusing on its perspectives regarding family structures. The paper contrasts the views of functionalist Talcott Parsons, who advocated for the nuclear family, with the realities of modern family dynamics, including single-parent and same-sex marriage families. It argues against Parsons' conservative stance, emphasizing the importance of individual choice and the evolving nature of society. The essay explores the contributions of different family structures to societal stability and challenges the traditional gender roles and societal norms promoted by functionalism. It also touches upon the mechanical solidarity theory of Durkheim and the changing social landscape of Australia, highlighting the increasing acceptance of diverse family forms and sexual orientations. Overall, the essay provides a nuanced understanding of functionalism and its relevance in contemporary society, particularly concerning family structures and social change.

Running head: SOCIOLOGY THEORIES
SOCIOLOGY THEORIES
Name of the student
Name of the University
Author Note

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The respective paper is a discussion, analysis and interpretation of a sociological theory
based on a sociological perspective. The theory chosen for the discourse is functionalism. In the
respective paper, the role of nuclear family and family consisting of single parent or same-sex
marriage has been discussed along with contribution of each family system in building up and
down of the society. The respective paper is an argument that argues about the legitimacy of
nuclear family and the role of single parent or same sex marriage in the ever evolving and
changing society.
According to the discipline of sociology, functionalism is a framework of theories that
view society as a complex being with a plethora of complicated social structures amalgamating
with each other to promote stability and integrity of every individual and collective being within
its domain (Parsons 2017). The approach of functionalism helps in viewing the society at a
macro level and gives an idea and a concept that societies have evolved just as organisms have
evolved with the passage of time. Such view of the society helps the sociologists, scholars and
sociology students to dissect and segregate various social structures and its complexities
associated with it to understand the process of evolution with the help of a clear understanding of
the customs, traditions, cultural dynamics and institutions of the society (Parsons 2017).
The question put up on which the paper is focusing is the statement by an eminent
functionalist sociologist Talcott Parsons which said that only nuclear family would bring stability
to the society rather than families with single parents and families of same-sex marriage. I am
against the statement. It has to be understood that homosexuality or being a single parent is not a
criminal or an obnoxious affair; rather, it is preference and a choice which is entitled to every
individuals. Every person, irrespective of gender, race, ethnicity and nationality, has the right to

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choose his/her sexual orientation, conjugal partner or he/she can take decision to stay single and
become a single parent.
It has been often observed that the scholars of structural functionalism or functionalists
advocate for the importance of controlling and regulating sexual behavior to ensure marital
togetherness and stability of family. The functionalists believe that the family unit is the most
integral unit and part of the society. As they believe that family system is the most important
system in the society and it is the families that maintains peace and harmony in the society
strongly condemn any kind of act that hampers the dignity of society and also believes that
conservative attitude towards family system should be the ultimate for peace and harmony and
liberalism in families might bring discord and chaos in the society. Such concept can be broadly
and roughly defined as “Theory of Positivism” brought out by Comte, the father of “Positivism”
which stated that the society was needed to keep unified as many traditions and customs were
diminishing day by day with the advent or modernism throughout the world (Morgenthau 2017).
Comte had argued that society was an individual evolved figure and a product of development of
three stages, theological stage, from the ancient to the middle age of Europe when people
believed that society was an act of divine intervention; metaphysical stage when society was
viewed as a natural system and lastly, positive stage, where society was believed to be viewed by
scientific approach and application. Talcot Parsons, similar to Comte, advocated for traditional
solidarity and has always argued in favor of controlled sexuality and the traditional or
conventional marriage system (marriage between a man and a woman) and discouraged
homosexual marriages. According to Parsons, an individual can grow into an all-around
developed individual from childhood to adulthood only if he/she is subjected to parenting of both
of a mother as well as father in a traditionally coherent and conjugally competent family. Parsons

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believed the fact that women should get married quickly after they reach adulthood because
according to him, they might lose the prospect of getting married due to the loss of their fertility
with age. However, such theory dehumanizes and disrespects the integrity of women and echoes
the concept of utilitarianism where women have been traditionally considered a device for
childbirth. He discourages single parenthood in case of women because he believed that women
were not capable of raising children alone without the help of a man and the identity of a man.
Single mothers are professionals, job holders or entrepreneurs who earn their own livelihood as
well as take care of their children. However, Parsons believed that it was not a woman’s job to
earn outside, rather, her job was to provide a safe haven for her husband by performing her
domiciliary duties and responsibilities solemnly which would help in binding the family ties
much strongly and it would also ensure that the integrity and dignity of the family is not
vanquished. Parsons viewed the gender roles more stereotypically and rigidly giving no room to
the basic freedom and independence to women (Parsons 2017). Rather, he posed statement such
as economic independence of women in the family might lead to an ultimate discord between
husband and wife, thereby, narrowing down the path of women who had been opting for being
single mother. However, such sexist theories and remarks can be clearly called misogynistic as it
curtains the basic rights of women only because of her gender. Parson was a functionalist who
believed in conservatism in terms of society where he condemned the idea of free sex, premarital
sex and extramarital sex. He discouraged the psycho-sexual relationship between same-sex
persons by bringing the logic that such concept was completely opposite to the “natural” order of
copulation; therefore, it could not be implemented in real life. Such theory can be widely
categorized under the influence of “political conservatism”. While the theories of cohesive
system is emphasized by the structural functionalists, it has its deep rooted dispute with the

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“conflict theories” (materialist interpretation of the society) which emphasizes not cohesiveness
but social inequality, injustice and problems.
Parsons believed in family style of Post World War II. The post world war II
isolated family style, which can roughly be called the ideal nuclear family, according to
Parsons, was the ideal form of family that can be possessed in the world. Parsons,
however, could not understand that the evolution of social structures and institutions is a
normal and an inevitable process. He apparently considered that the evolution of family
system might have come to a pause and might never be revived, rejuvenated or revisited
anymore. Nevertheless, to contrast the conventional theories laid down by Parsons, the
“mechanical solidarity theory” laid by Durkheim can be stated which proposed that
certain families and societies in the world maintained their integrity and dignity with the
help of internal stability and have successfully survived and thrived over time (Thijssen
2012). The “mechanical solidarity theory” states that a society is bound together with the
complex social bonds and an evolved and complicated interdependence on each other.
The mentioned theory can be linked with the present situation of the society where
gender roles have been completely modified, evolved and sometimes reversed with
complex social dynamics and new form of interdependence. In such situations, the
mechanical solidarity can be viewed as a positive way to bind the society together,
without utilizing any kind of prejudice or notion. Globalization, cultural amalgamation,
evolution and reversed gender roles, the liberal ideologies which highlighted the beauty
of homosexuality, the evolution of scientific temperament in the society has ultimately
led to a drastic change in the social structures of the Australian society. The Australian
society is now more liberal, progressive, rational, scientific, organic and diverse where

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every kind of people, beginning from the colored to the sexually diverse people to single
parents are given equal amount of respect, dignity and integrity (Brinkman et al. 2014).
According to the statistics of the Roy Morgan Research Institute of Australia, it has been
researched and found out that , in the last wave of movements of homosexuality that
happened in Australia, 4.1% of men and 2.8% of women have been considered to be
homosexuals, according to the time period of 2006 to 2014. The research was based on
by interviewing 18,000 Australians who were aged around 14 years old or above
(Australian Bureau of Statistics 2014). The result declared that Australian men have
happened to outnumber Australian women in terms of homosexuality and diversified
sexual orientation. Australia has been progressing in the sectors of sexual identification
and freedom which is a sign of a liberal and a rational society. As the world has seen a
remarkable change in the position of women since the last century, it can be found that
more women are opting for career and professionalism rather than sticking to their
conventional roles of being a part of family or taking relationships more seriously than
their profession. Globalization has enabled women with jobs and business prospect and
has provided them with the power to earn by themselves and financial freedom.
Therefore, an average, career oriented woman of Australia is not much interested in
getting married and taking up unnecessary responsibilities that might hamper her
profession. However, there are women in Australia who are eager to conceive and bring
up their children alone and single handedly without the aid or assistance of a male
guardian or a male parent. Such initiative among the women of Australia can be
categorized as progressive initiative as it gives more room to the freedom of women and
emancipation of women from patriarchy and conventional, stereotyped position in the

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society. Parsons did not understand the fact that industrial family system can be soon
converted to post-industrial family system with a plethora of gender identities and
complications. An average post-modern family is subjected to an ever evolving process
of family system, denying the archaic patriarchal lineage where the man is the man of the
house and the woman is a subjugated wife who has domestic duties and no voice of her
own (Turner and Holton 2014).
Structural functionalism can be termed as regressive and un-modernized because it
creates obstacles to social change and socio-cultural development of a particular society by
applying absurd and obsolete archaic concepts of family dynamics which has become non
functional and outdated in the modern socio-cultural, socio-economic, economic and political
dynamics in a global world where a constant amalgamation and exchange of ideas and concepts
are circulating across the globe. Parsons, the structural functionalist, had an apathy towards
people who believed and practiced their own will when it came to family system or sexual
activities. Parsons always advocated for conformist attitude towards cultural guidelines. Parsons
believed that if there is no strong and clear societal norms for the population, the men and
women would behave in the most utilitarian way and become self-centered, which might affect
the growth and development of the society, the worst sufferers would be the children and the
young adults as they are greatly influenced by their parents and people from their families
(Alexander 2014). According to Parsons, unprecedented sexual freedom and freedom in
selection of sexual partners can turn the society dysfunctional, anarchic and chaotic holistically
and can lead to an ultimate failure. However, in the global world of constant cultural as well as
national amalgamation, such regulation of sexual behavior has become obsolete and inept. With
the rise in social media and other social connectivity platforms, the youth from different parts of

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the world have come together and amalgamated with each other. Such connectivity or contacts
might as well give rise to romantic as well as sexual relations between them. The Structural
functionalists who were conservative by nature, condemned same sex marriage and single
parenting by giving conformist sentences that children belonging to same sex parents and single
working mothers would be liable and subjected to innumerable and uncountable defects such as
personality defects and psychological distress with depression, anxiety and hypersensitivity due
to lack of proper parenting or parenting neglect (Alexander 2014). Such allegations regarding
such unconventional institutions have been deemed to be completely vague among the Australian
population due to the all over growth and development of the Australian society.
It has to be noted that when the men and women of Australia, during the period of 1960s
and 1970s began to question the conventions of society and started propagating and practicing
their choices about motherhood, sexuality, abortion, sexual orientation, co-habitation and single
parenthood dominantly, the structural functionalists perceived that there has been degradation of
social order and justice (Brinkman et al. 2014). However, the structural functionalists had also
failed in bringing a completely conservative social order without changing the socio-economic
and economic dynamics of the society. Such failure shows the limitations of the structural
functionalists. The structural functionalists had no theoretical insights or pragmatic views as to
how to tackle the social conditions along with the economic and political dynamics. Structural
functionalists, unfortunately, had no mechanisms to understand, comprehend, analyze and
interpret the complexity of social change and social order in the post-colonial and post-modern
Australia. Therefore, the concept of Structural functionalism had to be abandoned by the
Australian social scientists and theorists as their views were regressive, unproductive, passive

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and obsolete in nature which could not be put with the changing composition of the
heterogeneous and ever evolving Australian population (Holmwood 2014)
The respective paper concludes with a discussion, analysis, interpretation and an
argument of sociological theories based on a sociological perspective. The theory chosen for the
discourse is functionalism. In the respective paper, the role of nuclear family and family
consisting of single parent or same-sex marriage has been discussed along with contribution of
each family system in building up and down of the society. The paper widely and broadly
discusses the growth, development and evolution of societies with time and the arrival of new
social dynamics and interdependence with a new set of unconventional gender roles and
sexuality. The paper discusses how the functionalism theories interpret the ever evolving
societies where theories such as “mechanical solidarity” and theories of “positivism” has been
defined and interpreted with the current social structure and situation of Australia. The respective
paper has been concluded with an argument that argues about the legitimacy of nuclear family
and the role of single parent or same sex marriage in the ever evolving and changing society of
Australia.

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References:
Alexander, J.C., 2014. Modern Reconstruction of Classical Thought (Theoretical Logic in
Sociology): Talcott Parsons. Routledge.
Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2014. 3101.0–Australian demographic statistics. Australian
Bureau of Statistics, 2015.
Brinkman, S.A., Gregory, T.A., Goldfeld, S., Lynch, J.W. and Hardy, M., 2014. Data resource
profile: the australian early development index (AEDI). International Journal of Epidemiology,
43(4), pp.1089-1096.
Holmwood, J., 2014. Founding Sociology? Talcott Parsons and the Idea of General Theory.
Routledge.
Parsons, T., 2017. The present status of “structural-functional” theory in sociology. In The idea
of social structure (pp. 67-84). Routledge.
Turner, B.S. and Holton, R.J., 2014. Talcott Parsons on Economy and Society (RLE Social
Theory). Routledge.
Thijssen, P., 2012. From mechanical to organic solidarity, and back: With Honneth beyond
Durkheim. European Journal of Social Theory, 15(4), pp.454-470.
Morgenthau, H.J., 2017. Positivism, functionalism, and international law. In The Nature of
International Law (pp. 159-184). Routledge.