This essay discusses the evolution of the concept of family, critiquing the traditional definition by American social anthropologist Murdock in 1949. It highlights how Caribbean society's family structures, roles, and functions differ from Murdock's rigid model, emphasizing factors like single-pare...
A social group characterised by common residence, economic cooperation 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, 1949). This is how the American social anthropologist who was known for his
seminal work on family and kinship categorization, defined the family.
Today, Murdock’s definition of the family has been criticized for being excessively rigid
since it excludes groups of individuals who consider themselves to be a family. This being
that over time, many new types of family have evolved: extended, visiting, sibling,
single-parent, reconstituted, and same-sex marriages. Murdock’s definition paints an image
that only the nuclear family is to be accepted in society. Unlike how Murdock describes the
family as being responsible for sexual, reproductive, educational, and economic. By
Murdock’s functions of the family, the Caribbean family would be very and would violate
social norms. As well as depicting families who fail to carry out these 4 functions as a failure.
The Caribbean has not met the Western standard of a family.
Reproduction is simply defined as the word, reproducing. In Murdock’s theory, men and
women become intimate and produce the next generation. This was also to ensure that there
was a constant replenishing of the people. Unlike in Murdock’s concept of the family where
there would be a man and a woman having a child or children through marriage. In the
Caribbean there is a constant rise in promiscuity. This being that men and women are having
relationships with multiple partners, emerging in a high increase of illegitimate children. In
Jamaica, about 80% of the children are born out of wedlock. Many children don’t even have
the names of their father’s on their birth certificate. Murdock’s sexual function entails the
relationship between the two adults to be stable. This is not a common occurrence in the
Caribbean. There is often animosity between the two adult after having a sexual relationship.
This, unlike in Murdock’s view of the family as producing a child after marriage, is seen as
irresponsible.
Murdock’s image of a family would be a stereotypical view, that in a family, the man should
be the head of the household. The man would provide the basic needs (food, shelter, water,
and clothes). The woman would provide domestic and economic needs (unpaid labour in the
house like cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the child/children). In the Caribbean, this
image has been evolved. Now, many single-parent families have begun to emerge. A single
parent family consists of one parent/guardian who has one or more children. In the
Caribbean, it is common to see many matrilocal households (Sociology Themes and
Perspective, Harlombos and Halborn, 2008). In Murdock’s concept of the family the man
would be the provider and head. Though in Caribbean society today, a woman is now viewed
as a provider for her family (breadwinner). In Murdock’s concept of the family, women are
perceived as the nurturers and housewives. This concept of the family cannot be knitted into
the fabric of Caribbean Society. Social Pathology is a thesis developed in the Caribbean. This
examines the family in the context of certain societal challenges. The West Indian Royal
Commission of 1937 adopted this approach, concluding that the male in West Indian culture
was not head in the home. It also named the woman as the head of the household.
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