Compare and contrast other sociologist's and perspectives against Murdock's view that the family is a universal institution.
Murdock believed that the family is a universal institution. He sampled and examined 250 different types of families and came up with a definition of a family, in his exact words this was his definition: .
"The family is a social group characterised by common residence, economic co-operation and reproduction. It includes adults of both sexes, at least two of whom maintain a socially approved sexual relationship, and one or more children, own or adopted, of the sexually cohabiting adults". Murdock was a functionalist therefore suggestively did not consider other alternatives to what a family could be, to me his definition of family is strong proof of his functionalist views. He believed the family had 4 functions: economic for provision of food, educational for socialisation and culture, sexual to bring husband and wife together and reproductive to provide members for society, also for the functionalist point of view that a family was like a machine: preparing children for adulthood/jobs, thus a relationship between family and economy was started leading to Murdock's view that the family is a universal institution.
Kathleen Gough (1959) researched into the Nayar society where Nayar girls were married to a suitable Nayar man according to the Tali rite. Where the husband did not live with the wife or take responsibility for her children, her only responsibility was to mourn his death, men could have unlimited numbers of sandbandan wives whereas women could only have 12, in Murdock's view, this kind of family would not be "right" and only 3 functions of a family would be fulfilled: economic, sexual and reproductive. Education would not be, as it would require the father to socialise the children, spend time with them, therefore in this case the family would not be entirely universal as not all functions would be met and even though the "husband and wife" would have a socially approved relationship they would not be in common residence nor living together.
