American Families Over The Past Fifty Years

Introduction

The last decades of the twentieth century were marked by unprecedented growth of interest in study of the institutions of marriage and family. In the U.S., the family is considered one of the highest national values ??that underlie the American way of life; so For example, most Americans are trying to maintain a good reputation citizen and family man, subjecting this purpose, all his life behaviour. This judgment is to some extent politicized: Some sociologists point out emerging trends, even the decline of the Institute families in general. Over the past two centuries it has undergone significant changes functions of the family (economic cooperation), marital roles, the structure family, social influence on other social institutions. However, over the past fifty years, American families have changed drastically as a result of having to adapt to technological advances, economic fluctuations, and social trends (Wetzel, 1-2).

Discussion and Analysis

Undoubtedly, the future family historians obeserves the last decades of twentieth century as an era of disorders in which there was a radical change in the form and the role of the Western family. In the last third of the twentieth century, the nuclear family formed around conjugal bonds and a strict division of tasks based on gender, has given way to a multiplicity of types of relationships kinship. This new (or as some argue, renewed) diversity of family forms has subject of considerable comment and controversy about the consequences of these changes in the production of basic civic values ??necessary for social order (Ken, pp 23).

Historical Overview

Starting in the 80s we can talk about the strong politicization of issues marriage and family in the United States. It was at this time talking about the first time officially the need to "protect the family." According to the American researchers Pankrasten and Hauskneht, the Pro-family direction of movement for the "new right” is generalization of the "regulatory response to the lack of rules".

Decline of the American family as an institution began in the years 1830-1840. The reasons for this have been the rise of the industrial economy and the state, with their focus on individual salaries and individualism, as well as undermining the economic system of the family, rooted in farms and small commercial businesses and shops, where the joint work and home life with their family and the traditional division of labor roles complemented economic functions of children (Clio, pp 56-90).

What has changed

The changes in the family in recent decades have been truly impressive, whatever the historical criterion being considered. It can be said with some basis that no comparable time, except in wartime, has seen rapid changes in the composition of households and the behavior of families. These changes protrude undoubtedly due to the fact that several decades predominated, as in any other time, a type of family: the vast majority of Americans lived or aspired to live in nuclear families, a form of family ironically now the family is considered "traditional" American. In certain ...