From what we have seen, Japanese differ somewhat in their attitudes toward family as opposed to their Western counterparts. This can be understood on the basis of the degree in which the family imposes upon the individual in Japan. The charts and information from this page was taken from Sociology by Rodney Stark website created by Liz Burlein. According to Sociology by Rodney Stark, the most consistant efforts to define what the family is has drawn on the functionalist perspective. Anthropologists and Sociologists claim that the family is a universal social institution, and therefore, it must do something vital for human beings.
Functionalists attempt to define the family on the basis of the functions that the family performs.
Murdock's definition came under attack for a number of reasons. First of all, many people pointed out that there were many societies that were exceptions to Murdock's stated functions. Other people thought that Murdocks functions were too narrow. It can also be seen that in the present day, Murdock's definition does not cover the types of family that differ from the traditional family structure. Eventually most sociologists adopted a definition based on the idea of kinship and limited to the function of childcare.