Page 121 - DSOC201_SOCIAL_STRUCTURE_AND_SOCIAL_CHANGE_ENGLISH

Social Structure and Social Change

Notes conflicting roles or social norms or group loyalties) does not necessarily cause family disorganization.
Individual’s disorganization may be temporary or transitional due primarily to the immediate situation
in which he finds himself, or it may be more lasting and deep-rooted in his personality.
William Ogburn (1955) has discussed family disorganization as resulting from the loss of family
functions. According to him, one symptom of a disorganized family (which does not perform the
expected functions) is the rapid increase in broken homes, signifying unhappy men and women
whose expectations of harmonious marital life are frustrated in the functionalized family. Divorce
produces problems not only for the parents but also for the children who suffer emotional conflict,
loss of a parent, and often financial privation and destitution. Other symptoms of a disorganized
family include illicit sexual activity, family desertion, frequent conflicts, frequent delinquent behaviour
of children, etc.
In 1934, Ogburn discussed some major functions of the family before modern times and the changes
which occurred in them with rapid advances in technology. These functions are: economic
(production), protective (against illness, unemployment, accident, etc.), religious (teaching of ethical
standards, scriptures, family prayers, etc.), recreational, educational, and status-conferring (which
defined person’s place in the community). He says, development in technology stripped the family
of these traditional functions which are now being performed by other institutions. Family is no
longer engaged in the production of food, tools, furniture, medicines, soaps, sewing clothes, etc.
Protective function has been assumed by public organizations and the state. Religion has been largely
removed from the home and family prayers have become uncommon. Recreation has become
commercialized. Recreation ranging from clubs, games, amusement parks, swimming pools, takes
people away from their families. Academic training is imparted not by families but by schools, colleges
and other institutions. The function of individual’s status being determined by his family is minimized.
It now depends more on his occupation and income. Thus, family has fewer functions today according
to Ogbrun. He calls this process (of transfer of functions to other institutions) ‘defunctionalization’.
His approach to family is, however, criticized on the basis that he oversimplified the role of material
invention. Instead of using Ogburn’s progressivist theory of change in family, cyclical theory (for
example, Zimmerman’s theory of family changing from trustee to domestic and atomistic, or Ross’s
theory of family changing from large joint to small joint and to nuclear family), and structural-
functional theories (which focus more on the integration between the family and other institutions,
particularly the occupational system, namely, Parson’s ‘structural isolation’ theory) are used in
explaining family change.
Self-Assessment
1. Fill in the blanks:
(i) Chattophadhyay has given ............... types of family.
(ii) Burgess and Locke have classified families as institutional and ............... .
(iii) The large kinship family comprises four types of kin: primary, secondary, ............... and distant.
(iv) The minimum age of marriage fixed in the Child Marriage Restriant Act in ............... .
(v) On the basis of kinship ties, the family has classified at conjugal and ............... .
4.6 Summary

• In the functionalist approach, family is regarded as a sub-system or as a part in relation to society
as a whole. The functionalist approach assumes a universality of certain functions of family
and around specific functions, it conceptualizes roles also. It further explains the relationship
among family roles and considers the change in family functions or family roles mainly due to
change in society or in norms and values.
• As a social unit, a family is defined as a group of persons of both sexes, related by marriage,
blood or adoption, performing roles based on age, sex and relationship, and socially
distinguished as making up a single household or a sub-household.

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