ABSTRACT
The ‘functional theory’ of the family seeks to explain the existence of the family by showing that it has certain social functions. Most theorists prefer to take the more modest course of describing the effects that family activities universally have. This is in fact very modest, since they are often able to get out of explicitly stating how they decide which of the activities that the family performs have effects which are ‘functional’. Parsons’ writings on the family have recently been subject to criticism partly because of his analysis of the American family which is regarded as being biased empirically and normatively towards the middle-class American family. The allocation of leader/follower roles is determined by age and the allocation of instrumental/expressive roles is determined by sex: that is to say, that age and sexual differences are the criteria for the allocation of these roles.
