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'The Family Is Universal'. Evaluate this clam This claim means that the nuclear family is the basic unit found within all societies. Functionalists, such as Murdock, agree with this claim, suggesting that the nuclear unit is ideal and biologically inevitable. However, there is an opposing argument which suggests that it is possible to live in alternative living arrangements which do not fit Murdock's definition of the family. In 1949 the American anthropologist George Peter Murdock published the results of a major survey of kinship and the organization of families based on a worldwide sample of 250 societies. Murdock's starting point was the family, and on the basis of his survey he argued that the nuclear family is universal. He claimed that every society had some kind of family. Murdock suggested that each contained an arrangement consisting of a husband, a wife and one or more children. He also stated that an...

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