Changing Family Patterns

Abstract

Abstract All societies have families, but their form varies greatly across time and space. The history of the family is thus one of changing family forms, which result from the interplay of shifting social and economic conditions, diverse and contested ideals, and the attempts of ordinary people to build their lives amid the constraints of their particular time and place. Because the family is a site of our most intimate experiences, the study of families tends to prompt heated theoretical and empirical debate. From the early anthropological charting of kinship systems to current analyses of proliferating family forms, studying the family has been a contested terrain. If the 1950s produced a short‐lived consensus on the “ideal nuclear family,” the current context of rapid family change poses a series of puzzles and paradoxes. What is a family, and why has its definition become so controversial? What are the emerging contours of adult commitment, and what is the future of marriage? How is family life linked to institutions outside the home, and how are the boundaries between public and private spheres blurring? What role does family life play in the structuring of social inequality? In addition, what are the prospects for creating social policies that meet the needs of diverse family forms? These questions draw our attention to the dislocations and contradictions of family change, but they also point to new opportunities to build more just and humane family forms. The challenge will be to find common ground for addressing the needs of diverse families and realigning both public and private institutions to better fit the circumstances of family life in the twenty‐first century.

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