Murdock made the claim that the Nuclear Family is a universal feature of all societies in his study entitled "Social Structure". He made this claim following case studies and anthropological work on 250 societies, all of which he found had nuclear family structure in place. The concept of a Universal family is important to Functionalists like Murdock as it add weights to their claim that the nuclear family is biologically natural and the only correct family form.
Murdock sees the nuclear family as being a man and woman, living together with their children, co-operating economically and maintaining a sexual relationship. If we accept this definition of the nuclear family, there is evidence to show that it does not exist everywhere, there are exceptions to Murdock's claims of a universal family. One example is the Matrifocal family, here the family is governed by a female head, helped by other female relatives but with no male partner living in the family home.
The Nayor......
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