Traditional Family

American Family


In the 1960s, the American family consisted of four or five members, called the nuclear family: father, mother, and two or three children. Where the father worked full-time the mother usually stayed home as a housewife. The traditional family has been changing rapidly enduring many changes in the recent decades. Changes such as structural and values regarding marriage and divorce, gender roles and same sex or homosexual families are noticeable changes that today’s families have in the past generation.
Marriage is the main structure of the American family. Due to structural changes happening over the decades, Americans have become more accepting to the changes (Irvine 14A). During a survey in 1998, 56 percent of adults were married, compared with nearly 75 percent in 1972. While adding with the divorced, only slightly more than one in four marriages end in divorce during the 1950s (Coontz 61). Today, about 50 percent of marriages result in divorc...