The Family: Change or Continuity?

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xi

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Faith Robertson Elliot

   Pages 1-14

3. Family Structures: Biological or Social?

   • Faith Robertson Elliot

   Pages 15-33

4. The Development of the Modern Family

   • Faith Robertson Elliot

   Pages 34-72

5. Marriage, Parenthood and Gender Divisions

   • Faith Robertson Elliot

   Pages 73-114

6. The Conjugal Family: Haven or Prison?

   • Faith Robertson Elliot

   Pages 115-133

7. Remodelling the Conjugal Family

   • Faith Robertson Elliot

   Pages 134-176

8. The Search for Alternatives to the Family

   • Faith Robertson Elliot

   Pages 177-206

9. Epilogue

   • Faith Robertson Elliot

   Pages 207-210

10. Back Matter

    Pages 211-235

    PDF

Faith Elliot's book has a coherence unusual in a textbook. As its title suggests, it directs our attention to change and continuity in the family. It reviews debates about the biological origins of the nuclear family and gender roles, accounts of the development of the conjugal family as the dominant family form in modern Western societies and of change in the roles of men and women within and without the family, the remodelling of the conjugal family consequent on the legitimation of divorce and the emergence of one-parent families and remarriage families, and the development of alternative lifestyles as exemplified in unmarried cohabitation, same-sex pairings and group living. The book considers Marxist and feminist approaches alongside the functional approaches which have been more traditional in the sociological study of the family.

• biological
• continuity
• family
• gender
• gender roles
• Inuit
• nuclear
• review

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