SOCI 1F90 Lecture Notes - Nuclear Family, Homicide, Gender Inequality
24 May 2014
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Document Summary
Institution: complex social form that includes the way humans undertake their societies. Complex institutions humans devised to channel how we raise and produce children. Sociologists have argued that without understanding families you can"t understand societies. Functionalists argue that family is the most fundamental institution in society (fundamental for the good of society: functionalists came from a particular time, albeit american 20th century. Socialism without families there wouldn"t be society (site of socialization for children; otherwise we"re feral and socialization makes us human) Sociology of the family emerged from the functionalist perspective; without functionalism, we wouldn"t have sociology of the family. What family is he describing: traditional nuclear family (heterosexual parents and dependent, legitimate children, one proper form of family. What is the main practice that he links to the formation of the family: marriage (most important institution in human history) is at the heart of the nuclear family.
