THE CHANGING CONTEXT

For the first time in Britain the number of households with two parents and their children, what used to be regarded as the standard family, has been overtaken by other forms of household composition. Technological advances in domestic equipment, have revolutionized the domestic work chiefly undertaken by women. Since the 1960s and the increasing availability of the contraceptive pill, women have achieved greater autonomy over child-bearing. The feminist revolution has begun to reverse the systematic subordination of women to male domination. Levels of divorce in the UK are the highest in Europe and it is now estimated that nearly one half of all marriages will end in divorce. The growing awareness of high levels of marital breakdown has led many to avoid formal marriage. Marriage rates have fallen and levels of cohabitation have increased. The long-standing bias against the education of women has begun to be redressed. In Britain, since the Abortion Act of 1967, it is estimated that there have been over five million legal abortions. Homosexuality was decriminalized in Britain in 1967 and attempts have been made to allow single sex couples to adopt children and have the same legal rights as those in traditional families. The ‘family’ is clearly a more complex phenomenon than a few decades ago.

The family within which children grow up provides the first and most basic form of socialization for their subsequent life as adults.