... It was based on interviews with 40 women with pone or more children under 5. The findings showed that the wives saw the housework and child care as their own responsibility and received little help from their husbands. Oakley's results ...

... that religion promotes harmony and encourages value consensus. Another Functionalist believer is that of Malinowski. He had the same ideas as that of Durkheim, being that religion reinforces social norms and values and promotes social solidarity. All of the aspects ...

... know began to be referred to as the middling sort. The question of weather the middle class was really a new and autonomous group or weather they were simply an extension of what had gone before is central to this ...

... certain methods in specific circumstances and shaped by an underlying rationale. The purest example of the scientific method is the experiment. In the mid eighteenth century science became, as Hamilton (1992) would say it, "for the intellectuals of the Enlightenment, ...

... motherhood is a biological function, one that all women should aspire to. While men go out and earn the money to support their family, women should stay at home taking care of the children and creating a comforting environment for ...

... 1944 the Tripartite system was introduced, and then in 1988 the National Curriculum was brought in. This is what we still have today; it was introduced to make 'core subjects' (English, maths and science) compulsory for children aged up to ...

... money. Men spent their leisure time away from home, socialising with work mates and the females spent their time at home, only socialising with female kin and neighbours. In the third stage, the Symmetrical Family had appeared, once again with ...

... children were put to work at what now seems the very young age of seven or eight years old this differs considerably from today's society where it is thought that children under ten years of age do not know the ...

... easier, more people have divorced. Whether or not this is evidence of "widespread" marital breakdown (always allowing for the fact that the number of divorces in any society will have implications, on the micro level, for family life), we must ...

... that the nuclear family with two parents and dependent children living together in a home in relative isolation is 'the' family form in western societies therefore they are against single parent families and think that they are a matter of ...

... of the dominant male within the family seems to be eroding. This could be due to the high number of single families, same sex families and the rising number of teenage pregnancies. Statistics reveal that one of the most important ...

... on. The Item discusses Parson's argument further as he believes that the nuclear family 'was particularly well suited to an industrial economy' due to role specialisation and the fact it could be 'geographically mobile'. This item therefore agrees with the ...

... system. This existed for two thousand years, and huge inequalities between the different castes were explained, justified and maintained by religious beliefs, particularly that of reincarnation. In simple terms this meant that Hindus believed that only if they strictly obeyed ...

... symmetrical family was more common amongst younger couples, those that are socially isolated and generally families that are better off. They also see the rise of the symmetrical nuclear family as the result of the major social changes that have ...

... 1973. They found that family roles are now becoming symmetrical and that the men do their fair share of domestic work. They see this as representing 'increased personal democracy' in the family. Willmott and Young take a 'march of progress' ...

... symmetrical family was more common amongst younger couples, those that are socially isolated and generally families that are better off. They also see the rise of the symmetrical nuclear family as the result of the major social changes that have ...

... that arise from relating the family to industrialization or modernization: they are not fixed states but constantly developing processes, they do not follow the same course in every society and some writers believe we are in a stage of post-modernity. ...

... NWBF's as matrifocal families where women were supported economically by their mother as the father was usually absent. This suggests that the nuclear family does not infact need a father, only a mother, supporting the family economically which does not ...

... personal views and theories on the matter. One main sociologist named Murdock claimed in 1949 that there are four main functions of the family. He concluded this theory after closely studying 250 different societies. Murdock felt for a society of ...

... generalisation. All of the societies in Murdock's sample displayed some form of family organisation. More specifically, although many societies were organised into polygamous and extended families, even these had at least two nuclear families per polygamous or extended family household as ...

... saw religion as maintaining the status quo in the interests of the ruling class rather than those of society as a whole. 'Conservative' may, however, be used in another way: it can refer to traditional beliefs and customs. Usually if religion ...

... and began to be popular in the 1950's and 60's when civil rights movements were taking place. The idea behind liberal feminism is that blame is not put on structures and institutions within society, such as agencies of socialisation e.g. ...

... importance of traditional institutions and values. They also believe society is in decline due to a breakdown in social order. Functionalists assume that all societies have certain basic needs that have to be met if each society is to operate efficiently ...

... advocate the micro-perspective of society. Nevertheless a group who shares the same views, as functionalists, are the New Right. These views being that the stability of the family is an important and integral ingredient for harmony and equilibrium of society. ...

... on how functional prerequisites (basic needs or necessities of existence) are met. This emphasis has resulted in many institutions being seen as beneficial and useful to society. But this view has led critics to argue that functionalism has a built-in ...