Family and its Social Functions

“The author of this book is concerned with the social purpose of the family and its functional relationship to other aspects of society: institutions, government, education, religion, etc. While a reciprocal relationship between the family and those other units is noted, the emphasis is on the support the family gives these units rather than on the mutual relationship among them all. The nature of the family is discussed, interactive relationships within the family are noted, and the evolution of social thought concerning the family is reviewed. There is also a discussion of the future of the family. Lessons aids are provided, and the author has a mimeographed bibliography available for those who wish to write for it.”— Reviewed by Dr. L. Guy Brown in The American Journal of Sociology

Brief Contents
I. The Nature of the Family
II. Socialized Motives of the Family
III. The Survival Functions of the Family
IV. The Incentive of Identity and the Lengthening of the Infancy Period
V. The Incentive of Perpetuity and the Lengthening of the Infancy Period
VI. The Incentive of Transcendency and the Lengthening of the Infancy Period
VII. The Family Support of Culture
VIII. The Family Support of Formal Institutions
IX. The Family Support of Government and Public Opinion
X. The Family Support of Education
XI The Family Support of Sex Status
XII. The Family Support of Religion
XIII. Family Interactions
XIV. Emotional Characteristics of Family Experience
XV. The Family and the Aggressive Mechanisms
XVI. The Family and the Defensive Mechanisms
XVII. The Clash of Loyalties within the Family
XVIII. The Environmental Sensitiveness of the Family
XIX. The Evolution of Social Thought Concerning the Family
XX. The Evolution of Social Thought Concerning the Family (Continued)
XXI. The Future of the Family

Detailed Contents
I. The Nature of the Family
The concept “family.” The family as a statistical unit. The family as an economic unit. The family as a social institution. Sociological interpretation. Family case study. The research approach. The art of family counseling. The family and society. Familial reality. Familial motivations. The family a conventionalized ideal. The changing family. Points of tension.

II. Socialized Motives of the Family
The meaning of motive. Society and motives. The fundamental psychic drives. Union of sex and reproduction. Sex as hunger. Sublimation of sex. The institution of marriage. Reproduction and marriage. A common element, co-operation. The power motivation. The home and the power urge. The
social urge. Desire for social standing. The religious urge. Religion and the home.

III. The Survival Functions of the Family
Survival organization. Social evolution and survival. The larger meaning of survival. The family and biological survival. Ego survival. The family and social survival. Effects of economic co-operation. The family and group interests. Social survival and child training.

IV. The Incentive of Identity and the Lengthening of the Infancy Period
Incentives to domestic sentiments and activities. The incentive of identity. The birth process and identity. Identity in simple society. Family identity. Close contact and feelings of identity. Ancestors and domestic identity. Identity based on confidences. Totemic kinship. Blood brotherhood. Ancestor worship. Adoption identity. Milk ties. Sex kinship. Incest. The protest against “identical” matings. The sex attraction of the unfamiliar. The assumption of identity.

V. The Incentive of Perpetuity and the Lengthening of the Infancy Period
Spread of kinship identity. Out-of-the-family pressure. The human craving for perpetuity. Perpetuity as a human desire. Some primitive expressions of perpetuity. Perpetuity and family experience. Society’s use of family perpetuity. Family perpetuity and property. Family perpetuity and immortality. The contribution of sex to family perpetuity. Domestic perpetuity through fixation. Using the child for parental perpetuity. Domestic perpetuity through the growth of the child. Family perpetuity and environmental instability.

VI. The Incentive of Transcendency and the Lengthening of the Infancy Period
The construction of society. More than family co-operation. A continuous social process. The family contribution to society. The other-than-self motives. Mother love and the principle of other-than-self. Language and transcendency. Play and transcendency. Emotional maturity and love of others. Excesses of parent love. Vicarious transcendency.

VII. The Family Support of Culture
Living as adjustment. Society, an extension of adjustment resources. Culture as increased resources. The family and material resources. The family and immaterial culture. The family and social introduction. Family influence and the unconscious. Social standardization. The family and the folkways. The family and the mores.

VIII. The Family Support of Formal Institutions
The development of formal institutions. Survival and the formal institution. The child’s entrance into institutional traditions. The child’s own culture. Family co-operation and other institutions. The family and institutional variation. Concept and structure.

IX. The Family Support of Government and Public Opinion
Government as a social institution. Primitive government. The family’s contribution to primitive government. The basis of governmental control. The family and maintenance of authority. The family trains as it functions. Domestic relationships vs. political relationships. The family and public order. The family and public opinion. The family an ally of social control. The family’s judicial function. The family and the state.

X. The Family Support of Education
Education, a social necessity. The family and primitive education. Primitive education through nurture. Primitive curriculum. The family as a conditioning agency. The family curriculum. Vocational training. Moral and spiritual guidance. The family as the educating institution. The school as a formal institution. Family training a functional aspect. The child’s reality. Education for family life. Sex education.

XI The Family Support of Sex Status
Masculine-feminine status. Natural trends toward domination. Masculine-feminine functioning. The reproductive cycle and division of labor. The social significance of woman’s contribution. The fashioning of a social code. Child and sex status. The mother vs. the female. Antagonism between the sexes. The masculine code. Family conditioning by masculine-feminine status.

XII. The Family Support of Religion
The family and religion. Religion an extension of control. Familial motives for religion. Family experience and the development of religion. Phallic worship. The child’s responses to religious stimuli. Religion and adolescence. The family and the church. The modern family and the church.

XIII. Family Interactions
The meaning of interaction. Interaction modifies behavior. Contact a prerequisite to interaction. The family and the significance of contact. Cursory contact and domestic relations. Contact and courtship interaction. Family contact a special association. The family and the individual. The individual in the family setting. Family association and inward response. Family association and outward response. The interacting family and its cultural setting. The family a social habit. Domestic security through mutual meaning. The domestic ideal.

XIV. Emotional Characteristics of Family Experience
Meaning of emotion. Emotions as life-responses. The emotions as social adjustments. The significance of domestic attitude. The morbid attitude. The development of emotional traits. The domestic significance of childhood attitudes. The child’s integrity and the domestic environment. The emotional exploitation of children. Pubic upheaval. Emotional change within the family.

XV. The Family and the Aggressive Mechanisms
The family invitation. The family an incubator for emotion. The family and subjective maladjustments. The family and emotional maladjustments. Jealousy as emotion. Jealousy a liability of socialization. The child’s jealousy due to replacement. Common incitements to childish jealousy. Studies of jealousy among children. Jealousy in courtship. Adult jealousy within the family. Jealousy as social motivation. Domestic dominance.

XVI. The Family and the Defensive Mechanisms
The family and emotional retreat. Liabilities of parental influence. Childhood overprotection and retreat. Fear and dependency. Childhood illness and protection. Marriage and family incentives to dependency relationships. Marriage and dependency. Inferiority feeling and marriage and the family. The analysis of inferiorities of domestic origin.

XVII. The Clash of Loyalties within the Family
The meaning of loyalty. Loyalty within the family. The drive for loyalty. Ancestral loyalty. The ambivalent basis of clashing. Individualism and clashing. Childhood loyalties and their clashing. Adolescent clashing of loyalties. Parental clashing of loyalties. Matrimonial clashing of loyalties. The illusiveness of parenthood.

XVIII. The Environmental Sensitiveness of the Family
The family and its environment. The physical environment. The family and inventions. The family and environmental adjustment. The family’s sensitivity to change. Urbanization and the family. Urbanization, tension, and the family. Modern civilization and reproduction. Housing and the family. Significance of familial environments.

XIX. The Evolution of Social Thought Concerning the Family
Religious leaders. The philosophers. The evolutionists. The anthropologists.

XX. The Evolution of Social Thought Concerning the Family (Continued)
The sociologists. The economists. The feminists. The radicals. The birth control movement. Freud and psychoanalysis. The sexologists. Education for marriage and the family. Legal thinking.

XXI. The Future of the Family
Permanence of familial functioning. The future of the family. The complexity of family changes. The sexual element of the family complex. The economic element of the family complex. The companionship element of the family complex. The parenthood element of the family complex. Future civilization and the family.