Introduction

Abstract

Most cited sociological works on the family in the last two decades insist that dramatic changes in structures and relationships have occurred since the late 1960s. Some authors interpret those changes in very pessimistic ways, stressing that families have diversified so much that the family as an institution—the one basic cell of society with constant structures and universal functions—has disappeared, and with it, the very meaning of the concept of family (Beck 1986; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 1995; Popenoe 1993). Others express strong beliefs that the changes experienced by families in Europe during the last decade have enabled individuals to experience positive individualism within the family realm, with an emphasis on gender equality and individual autonomy. Pure relationships and confluent love (Giddens 1992) are said to have fully transformed the ways in which individuals shape their family life. Interestingly, those general views about the faith of the family came for the most part from scholars positioned outside the field of family sociology. For a number of years, sociologists doing empirical work on the family have been critical of those general interpretations of the consequences of individualization for family life.