Prospects of Family Development in Modern Conditions
Industrialization, the complexity of production processes, urbanization led to increased mobility of the population, the growth of personal freedom, the emancipation that complicates the ways of socialization, etc.
In the modern world, there are several types of families. Modern Family has a tendency to minimization. The nuclear family – is a family in which adults live with their parents or adopted children. Extended families – family type in which a married couple and children live together or nearby, continuing contact with each other. In these families, sometimes two or three generations live in the same place or nearby.
Uncertainty about the present and the future, an increase of crime rate, alcoholism, drug addiction, spiritual and moral degradation of huge masses of people, propaganda of cruelty and violence, the disintegration of the social and cultural environment lead to the disintegration of families, increasing divorce. Among the major causes of divorce, sociologists distinguish the change of historical family types.
The most archaic type – patriarchal. Here, the leading relationship is kinship, fixed on wife dependent from husband and children dependent from parents. These relationships entrenched as a result of the down flow of mother right. Nowadays, the most popular is matriarchal type, where woman makes the main decision, or another type, which assumes gender equality in family.
Major changes in the family institute: decrease and termination the impact of related groups, a free choice of life partner, the changing role of women, the later birth of first child, a high level of sexual freedom of men and women, the expansion of children’s rights, the increased number of divorces, and the increased age of marriage, loneliness, i.e. deliberate refusal of marriage and preference of independent living, cohabitation, when there is no formal relations, the growing number of homosexual marriages.
It is believed that there are two main variants of situation development. The first favorable change will become a reverse. This will happen if children who have grown up in modern families, will affect the negative example of their parents. The high level of understanding and awareness of children will prevent the repetition of mistakes. The second adverse situation will be moving in the same direction, increasing the pace. There is an opinion confirmed by sociological studies that children tend to model the family behavior, as following the example of their parents happens unconsciously. In this case, there is a risk that current situation will repeat in several decades.