One of the main contributions of Le Play to sociology is his typology of family. Le Play recognized three main kinds of family, present in all parts of the world and in all ages of history. These are the patriarchal family, the unstable family and the stem family.

The unstable family is a family where the father diverges from the traditions of his ancestors, and young men move off as soon as they can fund themselves. In unstable family, parents teach nothing to their children as part of the tradition, and they often become isolated in their old ages. It is called unstable because it has little flexibility in the face of economic crisis. The unstable family is the typical family form of the industrial working class.

Functionalists claim that the family is universal, natural and functional. This claim depends upon three main assumptions:
The family (a) exists in all societies;

(b) is the expression of
fundamental and universal biological needs;

(c) serves the
main social functions.

Murdock, a functionalist anthropologist, examined 250 societies in a wide range including both hunting and gathering societies and industrial societies. He concluded that a form of family exists in every society, thus the family is a universal social institution. For Murdock, the family is “a social group characterized by common residence, economic co-operation and reproduction. It includes adults of both sexes, at least of whom maintain a socially approved sexual relationship, and one or more children, own or adopted, of the sexually cohabiting adults”. In other words, according to Murdock, the family is a group, whose members share their resources, have sexual relationship and are biologically reproductive.

People are in need of being fed, being protected from natural and social dangers, and biological reproduction. Family as a primary unit in which domestic and sexual relationships and the socialization process take place, and the main needs of human beings are met within the family. The family provides food and shelter for children; establish necessary and powerful bonds among family members, especially among parents and children. The sexual and social dependency relationship among women and men is expressed in the family. The family also passes down the properties, status and positions to newer generations. Depending upon these points, functionalists claim that the family fulfills the fundamental needs of human beings.

Depending on his findings on Australian natives, well-known functionalist anthropologist Malinowski claimed that both the relationship of marriage and the institution of the family should be universal because these two fulfill a universal human need, the nutritional and nurturing needs of the offspring by the adults. According to Malinowski, in order to know which adults are responsible for children, families should have a commonplace assigned for the works related to child rearing. For Malinowski, the child rearing function is the reason of existence of the family.

For Murdock, family is a multi functional, indispensable and an inevitable social institution in society. Murdock claims that universal functions of the family are (a) sexual (b) reproductive, (c) economic and (d) educational functions. Murdock thinks that these functions are universal because without sexual and reproductive function, the society cannot exist; without economic function (for example, preparing and providing food), the society cannot subsist; and without the educative function, in the meaning of socialization, there would be no human culture.

One of the main agents of functionalist sociology, Talcott Parsons analyzed modern American family. Parsons claims that as a result of the transfer of the production function out of the family, the isolated nuclear family specialized on the socialization of children and the personal needs of the adult members. Therefore, Parsons claims that the family has two basic and irreducible functions in all societies. These functions are (a) the primary socialization of children and (b) the stabilization of the adult personalities.

Murdock in particular was criticized for ignoring the alternatives of the nuclear family. For example, Nayar society in Kerala, Southern India is a matrilineal society and has a different set of relationships. In Nayar society, all Nayar girls are ritually married to a man before puberty in the tali-rite, but these tali-husbands do not live with these girls. A girl’s only duty to her tali husband is to attend his funeral and mourn for him. After the puberty, women begin to be visited by a number of men. These men are called “sandbanham husbands”. The sandbanham husband arrives the women’s house after supper, have sexual intercourse with her and has to leave before the next morning. In this relationship, husbands and wives do not form a lifelong union or an economic unit. Sandbanham husbands do not have any duty about child rearing; and their biological fatherhood is not important. If Murdock’s definition of family is accepted, there is no family in Nayar society because husbands and wives do not maintain a sexually approved adult relationship, and they do not live together or cooperate economically. In this case, either Murdock defined family too narrowly or the family is not universal. Providing a detailed description of Nayar society, Kathleen Gayar claims that family does exist in Nayar society and she broadens the definition of the family beyond the definition of Murdock. Furthermore, Murdock has been criticized for not considering whether the functions of the family could be performed by another social institution and for being too optimistic about the family.

Parsons has been criticized for idealizing the family and ignoring the conflict between parents and among children. In addition, his analysis of the family largely depends on American middle class family and fails to explain working class or ethnic minority families. Parson’s notion of socialization process also has problems. Parsons regards socialization as a one-way process in which parents transfer their culture to children and shape their personalities. Yet, he is blind to the power of children as actors and the interaction between them and their parents.

Symbolic interactionist approach concerns with the marriages and families as processes more than as structures. For symbolic interactionists, the family is a site of social reproduction in which meanings are negotiated and maintained by family members. They also focus on the changing meanings attached to family. They argue that emotional bonds among the members of the family are built, reinforced and regenerated by shared activities. These shared activities such as family meals and holidays are symbolic mechanism rituals. Symbolic interactionists also argue that marriage and family relationships are based on negotiated meanings, and examine how family members interact on a daily basis and arrive at shared understandings of their situations.

According to the symbolic interactionist perspective, the reasons of family problems are often related to different understandings, perceptions and expectations that wives and husbands have about their marriage and family. The increase and intensification of these differences may result in conflict between wife and husband and may even cause divorce. For example, the findings of Mirra Komarovsky (1964) show that wives in blue-collar families like to talk with their husbands about their problems, but husbands tend to be quiet. However, such communication problems are less common in middle-class families.

In his study entitled “A Runaway World?”, Leach addresses family in industrial societies from a pessimistic point of view. Leach shows that in small-scale pre-industrial societies, the family is a part of a wider kinship network and this network provides people more support than the nuclear family. On the other hand, nuclear family in industrial societies is isolated from the wider kinship network and people lack their kin’s individual and continuous moral support. In the isolated nuclear family, members expect and demand too much from each other but cannot meet the expectations of other members. For Leach, the result of this increased stress between the spouses and the stress between the parents and the children is conflict. Leach argues that because of the privacy of the nuclear family, family members cling to each other and consider themselves as being separated and isolated from the wider society. For Leach, this consideration may create suspicion and fear of outsiders, and this fear may lead to greater violence in society.

Laing argues that the close link existing among family members places them in a vulnerable situation. He uses “family nexus” term to describe the common view and the set of values and beliefs that are held by the majority of the family. All members of the family are expected to adhere this nexus. The nexus exists to help to maintain the family identity. However, according to Laing, this maintenance often occurs at the expense of individual members of the family. Each member of the family concerns about the other’s opinions, feelings and thoughts and is deeply affected by the other’s attitude toward him/herself. In this vulnerable situation, members can easily be hurt. Thus, Laing argues that nexus can result in conflict and exploitation, and some family members may take advantage of the others. In family, in terms of the nexus, there is a constant demand for mutual concern and attention.

The works of Leach and Laing has been criticized in a number of points:
• Neither has conducted a detailed fieldwork on family, and Laing’s work is limited to families with a schizophrenic member.
• The work of Laing, unlike Leach, lacks historical perspective.
• They give little or no reference to social class, or the relationship between class and family.
• Both examine only Western family.

Feminists argue that sex and reproduction, the realms which are considered private, must be a part of political realm. They think that they have to be subject to principles of justice for three reasons. The first reason is that families are not “natural” orderings, they are social institutions which are backed up by laws related to marriage or heritage. The state intervenes in families depending on this fact. Although there are families that base on love and consent, many families are based on coercion and characterized by disagreements, even by domestic violence. The internalization of the justice norms would provide improvement for these families. The second reason is that the state has a critical interest in the development of future citizens. The third reason is that the division of labor in traditional families constrains women’s opportunities and freedom in the wider society. Women’s role in parenting limits their ability to receive education, gain occupational skills and have careers, and this makes them vulnerable to poverty even after divorces.

Endogamy is the practice of marrying only within a specific ethnic, social or religious group and rejecting people out of this group. The most common subcategory under endogamy is cousin marriages. A cousin marriage may be a parallel cousin or a cross cousin marriage. A parallel cousin is a cousin from the parent’s same sex sibling, like the child of the father’s brother or the child of the mother’s sister. A cross cousin is a cousin from the parent’s opposite sex sibling, like the child of the fathers’ sister or the child of the mother’s brother. 

Patriarchy means the institutionalization of male dominance over women and children in the family,and the extension of male dominance over women in society in general. It implies that “men hold power in all the important institutions of society” and that “women are deprived of access to such power” . In Walby’s (1990:20) words, patriarchy is “a system of social structures and practices in which men dominate, oppress and exploit women”. In short, patriarchy refers to male domination, the power relationships by which men dominate women, and it characterizes a system whereby women are kept subordinate in a number of ways.

The attempts to establish a relation between industrialization and family came under criticism in three points. First, the process of industrialization does not follow the same course in every society. Second, industrialization is not constant, it is an ongoing, developing process, and it cannot be taken as a fixed historical event. Third, there are more than one form of pre-industrial families. 

Sex refers to the biological and physiological characteristics that define males and females. According to physical, mainly genital differences, a newborn is labeled as a boy or as a girl. Nevertheless, after birth, people learn the gender expectations in society and learn to be a man or woman by following the norms. Gender refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that the society considers appropriate for men and women. It refers to the differences in norms, roles and behaviors between men and women, which are described as masculine and feminine.