Functionalists and Marxist diverse had views on the family. Functionalist theory asserts that there will be a specific pattern of family organisation corresponding to different types of society. Hence there is a particular family form that best suits the conditions of industrial society.
The family described by modern functionalists is very much a description of the sort of families they might have been brought up within and formed them. This is the idealised family of the Victorian middle class; it is a conglomeration of white, middle class, male, western values and experiences. …
