Functional basis of study of family:
Sexual Function: Family includes the husband-wife relationship to fulfill a sexual function. Unlike most other female primates, the human female is more or less continuously receptive to sexual activity. The continuous female sexuality might have created a sexual problem in that it might have fostered considerable sexual competition between males for males. Society might have prevented such competition in order to survive and it might have developed some way might have developed some way of minimizing the rivalry between males for females in order to reduce the chance of lethal conflict. Permanent paired mating, that is mating on a regular basis between people of opposite sex, might have become a solution to this problem. As a result marital union husbands-wife relationships have come into existence. The husband-wife relationship has become a socially approved means to control sexual relations, and socially approved basis of the family. However there are some exceptional cases where it is not the husband-wife relationship- established by marriage, rather .the father-mother relationship established by the foundation of the family that grants sexual privileges to the males and females. For example, among the Banzaro of New Guinea and some of the peasant societies in Eastern Europe, a groom is not permitted to approach his wife until she bears him a child by a special relative of his father. With the exception of such small number of societies, In a vast majority of the societies the family institutionalizes and channelizes the sexual outlets, and it gives each partner a monopoly in the sexuality of the other.
Economic function: The family serves economic function also. Husband-wife relationship is not merely a sexual union. It is sexual with economic cooperation. There are sexual unions without economic cooperation. There are also economic units without sexual relationship. ’the relationship between employer and secretary is an example of sexual union without economic cooperation but the relationship between brother and sister is an example of economic union without sexual union. But husband-wife relationship exists only, when the economic and sexual are united into one relationship and this combination occurs only in the context of the family. The family entails both sexual and economic relationship. By virtue of sex difference the spouses make a unique and efficient cooperating unit. Man with his superior muscular strength, undertaken more strenuous tasks. Woman with her physiological burdens of pregnancy and nursing performs lighter tasks. In all societies there is some kind of division of labour on the basis of sex. Each partner performs tasks according to sex-based division of labour. With the birth of offspring the division or labour based on age and generation come into play. As the children come of age, they offer their parents considerable relief and help. Siblings are similarly bound to one another through the care ad help given by an elder to a younger, through co-operation in childhood games and through mutual economic assistance as they grow older. The reciprocal economic obligations, tie together parents and children. In simpler societies where the family is a self contained unit of production, consumption and distribution, it encompasses all economic roles characteristic of a society, but in advanced societies where the family is not a self-contained unit of production, consumption and distribution, it includes only some of the economic roles characteristic of a society. Thus family serves economic functions.
Reproductive function: The task of perpetuating the population of a society is an important function of the family. Sexual cohabitation between the spouses automatically leads to the birth of offspring. The family nurses and cares its offspring to physical and social maturity. However there are some simpler societies which have a low birth rate of children and hence procure children from their neighboring societies through frequent raids and rear them as their own children. In these societies the family does not perform the reproductive function as in other societies do. Not responding such exceptional cases, it may be said that a society reproduces itself biological through the family.
Educational function: The family fulfills educational function. The young infant must acquire an Immense amount of traditional knowledge and skill must learn to subject his inborn impulses to the many disciplines prescribed by his society, before he can assume his place as an adult member of his society. The burden of enculturalion and education falls primarily upon the family. The task of enculturaring and educating the children is distributed between the parents. The father alone a capable of training the sons In the activities and disciplines of adult males. Likewise the mother alone is capable of training the daughter in the activities and disciplines of adult females. Older siblings also play an important role imparting knowledge and disciple through daily interaction in work and play. There are a few societies in which the family does not undertake the enculturative and educative functions. For example, in some societies in West Africa and Australia there are bush schools where youths receive instruction in tribal several years and acquaint themselves with many cultural aspects of their society. In many advanced societies the educational function is performed by the education institution in the form of schools, colleges and universities. Even then the family continues to be to some extent the first school. Ignoring such exceptions, it may be said that in a vast majority of the societies collective responsibility for enculturation and education welds the various relationships of the family together.
Religious functions : common deity and ancestor worship.
Structural basis of study of family:
Every society has its own structure. Its structure depends on its constituent units. The unit of matter is atom; the unit of organism is cell; the unit of society is family. The family is the building block of a society, it serves as the nucleus for the growth of other types of grouping.
A family may enlarge and group into a lineage. Two brothers of one family may become the heads of two lineages. The two lineages may grow in size and split into different lineages and at the same time lose contact with each other but all claiming to be descendants of a particular ancestor in the long run end forming into a clan. The nuclear position of the family can also be understood in terms of the importance of one’s membership in various kinship groups in relation to the family.
The family regulates social life. Every society maintains rules, standards or norms according to which it guides its members regarding who has to interact with whom, when and in what manner, and how to establish a network of relations amongst themselves, depend upon one another and fulfill their needs for their individual survival. It is through the survival of its members it makes sure of its survival for ever. To make every member of society follow the rules, standards or norms of a society there must be love, mutual affection, and blood tie amongst the members of a society. The best way to make the members of a society have mutual affection and blood ties is to create conjugal relations and through conjugal relations to create the blood ties and consequently allows the people involved in conjugal relations and blood ties to live in a small group, namely the family. Through its various families every society ensures a wide network of relationships and thus regulates and orders life for its members.
Best case study of structure of society is family by Evans Pritchard text the Nuer