Marriage and the Family The changing nature of family life

Main Facts Family life has changed in the UK as attitudes to sex before marriage, cohabitation and divorce have changed. In the 1960s: Husbands, wife and children living together (the nuclear family) was the norm Today: There are many single-parent families in which the mother is the only parent (often because of divorce)

In many families the mother and the father are not married As more people divorce and remarry there are more reconstituted families (twenty per cent of men over 30 are stepfathers) As more women go out to work, more grandparents are involved in looking after the family.

Key Facts Family life has changed so that, although most children are still brought up by a mother and a father, the parents may not be married or they may have been married more than once. Family life is the basis of society, but modern society has different types of families, any of which can bring up children

Key Words Nuclear Family: mother, father and children living as a unit. Extended family: children, parents and grandparents/aunts/uncles living as a unit or very near to each other. Re-constituted family: where two sets of children (stepbrothers and sisters) become one family when their divorced parents marry each other.