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Functionalism

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In the study of sociology there are three major concepts that most socialists study. These three include Functionalism, the Conflict Theory, and Symbolic Interaction. The concept that this paper will be exploring is Functionalism and how it relates to the change in marriage from the 1950s through today. The concept of Functionalism steams from the work of Emile Durkheim who worked in establishing sociology as an independent and recognized academic discipline (Calhoun, 2002). Functionalism is defined as "a framework for building theory that sees society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability" (Macionis and Gerber, 2010). The concept of Functionalism emphasizes order within society, and focuses stability and shared public values. When these are disrupted society changes in order reach that state of stability once again (Andersen and Taylor, 2015).
From the dawn of time marriage has been about the same. Marriage has included a both a man and woman. In that marriage the man would be the bread winner and the head of the household, while the woman would stay at home and have and take care of the children. Before the 1960s, "A successful, marriage required clear differences between male and female roles."(Dorr, 2008) The reason that men and woman needed to have such different roles within a marriage was for a marriage to be successful was because many men felt trapped in their marriages when there was not a clear difference in the roles

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