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The Family, Where to. From the Solid Perspective to Liquid Perspective

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DOI: 10.18662/po/2017.0801.06

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e-ISSN: 2069–9387; ISSN–L: 2068–0236

Postmodern Openings
Volume 8, issue 1, June 2017, pp: 67-80

The Family, Where to? From

the „Solid” Perspective to
„Liquid” Perspective
Loredana VLAD

http://dx.doi.org/10.18662/po/2017.0801.06

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How to cite: Vlad, L. (2017). The Family, Where to? From the „Solid” Perspective to „Liquid” Perspective.
Postmodern Openings, 8(1), 67-80, http://dx.doi.org/10.18662/po/2017.0801.06
 DOI: 10.18662/po/2017.0801.06

The Family, Where to? From the „Solid”

Perspective to „Liquid” Perspective
Loredana VLAD1

Abstract: The development of techniques and technologies nowadays offers

multiple options on how we wish to live our lives, to improve the unwanted
aspects of our bodies, to edit our genes in order for our offspring to be more
resistant to diseases or to prolongue our lives by loading our consciousness into a
digital device. The new technologies and the emergence of the Internet changed
the way in which the individual relates with the others. The access to information
is much easier, and this aspect led to a change in the individual’s behaviour, the
family also suffering transformations. For example, the social networks and the
dating websites offer the individual the possibility to choose a partner based on
characteristics such as the zodiac sign, hair or eye color, preferences, etc. In our
paper we wish to analyse the transformations that might take place in the family
considering the new scientific discoveries in reproduction in the transhumanist
context. One of the scenarios who sparked controversies is the fact that due to
the new medical technologies, there might be possible to create individuals from
cells harvested from two persons of the same sex, but also to create embryos
from the cells of the same person (solo-reproduction) (Cutaș, Smajor, 2016).
Aside from the bioethics and moral implications this type of actions involves, we
wish to bring to the fore the principle of responsibility towards the human non-
presence or the non-human presence, while the creation of improved individuals
or the possibility of having children created from the cells of a single individual
are aspects that raise multiple questions referring to the way in which conception
has evolved. Besides the fact that the new technologies make it possible to
conceive children from one single person, the sexual relationships have reached a
whole new dimension too: futurologists support the idea according to which in
the next years, sex with robots will be possible and affordable, therefore there
will be no more need for a human partner in order to fulfil one’s sexual needs.
Thus, in order to procreate, an individual will no longer be necessary, and in
order to fulfil the sexual needs, the partner could be a robot imitating the sexual
partner’s behaviour. In our paper, we will analyse the way in which the family
has evolved, so we will bring into discussion the traditional perspective and the
current tendencies given by the new technologies.

Keywords: Solid and liquid perspective, family, sex, reproduction, human

species.

1„Ştefan cel Mare” University of Suceava, Faculty of Law and Public Administration,
Lumen Research Center in Social and Humanistic Sciences, Iaşi, Romania.

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1. Introduction
Although nowadays, in some parts of the world the family still keeps
it traditional features, transhumanism comes with a series of proposals
referring to the human improvement/ perfection with the help of new
technologies. In this regard, the reproduction through means of new
technologies of medically-assisted human reproduction is not just about new
strategies of fertilization using genetic material from both genders, but also a
type of self-reproduction called solo-reproduction. The premises of such a
hypothesis certainly involve a reconstruction of family relationships
regarding the functions of socializing and social integration. This is because
an individual born through such techniques isn‟t familiar with the structure
of the classic family, but the individualist one, of a “medical parent” who
decides, due to a personal ideal, to have a baby.
In our paper, we will analyse the concept of family starting from the
traditional and the postmodern acceptions, so that we further analyse the
transhumanist proposals in transmodern context, focusing on the values
specific for each society.
In the literature, the traditional family is characterized as being
conservatory, in which the main authority is the patriarch and the children‟s
dependence on the family‟s community, all values falling into relatively rigid
limits (Apostu, 2013). The traditional couple is formed of man and woman,
marriage being in the middle of the two realms – birth and death (Apostu,
2013); most of the times, the marital transactions aimed at the marriage
accredited by the families, but also different strategies of economic
redefinition and implicitly, of maximizing the profit (Apostu, 2013). In the
context of the traditional family, we can discuss about the involvement of
the parents/in-laws in the life of the young couple, about the fact that
children would acknowledge the authority of the father and the mother. Of
course, in the traditional family the divorce rate was relatively low, infidelity
not being enough of a reason for the dissolution of the marriage (Apostu,
2016a).
Postmodernity has entailed a series of changes in the social area, but
also in the private area of the individual, the values of the modern times
suffering from mutations, the categorical imperative turning into the
imperative of responsibility (Jonas, 1984). These changes were felt both at
the level of the society and the family. For Iulian Apostu, the modern couple
is characterized by individualism, the new mentalities inverting the order of
priorities regarding the set of benefits involved by conjugality (Apostu,
2016b). According to the sociologist, the priority is the individual, and

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Loredana VLAD

afterwards, the other person; the postmodern couple isn‟t eager for large
families, some couples considering that a child would diminish the family‟s
budget. On the other hand, woman‟s refusal to have children is given by the
fact that pregnancy and lactation deforms the body; under these conditions,
from a structural point of view, the biological function of the postmodern
couple is rather build on eroticism, and less on reproduction (Apostu,
2016b).
Switching from traditionalism to postmodernity, we observe that
together with women‟s emancipation and change of values, the roles inside
the family have reversed: the woman contributes to the family‟s budget,
build a career, etc., and the man shares the housework and helps raise the
babies, etc. The modern couple and their relationship with the other can be
analysed also from the perspective of liquid modernity (Bauman, 2000).
Bauman considers that nowdays society is not much more different from the
one at the beginning of the XXth century, the difference between the two is
that the first one was solid, and the current one is fluid, light, liquid.
Therefore, according to Bauman, we evolve towards a society of
communication characterized by fluidity in social relationships (Bauman,
2000). The values of the society radically change in the context of God‟s
death (Nietzsche, 2005). The end of modernity and the decline of
metaphysics determined the twilight of duty (Lipovetsky, 1996). God‟s
death, the end of Christianity and implicitly of Christian values involved the
dissolution of old values. Translated into the social sphere, the moment of
“God‟s death” is considered to be the beginning of the moment when
Christianity starts to no longer influence the social moral, the individualism
dictating the tonus and motivation for each ones of us. Man and his actions
are only based on ones‟ self, and the metaphysical God is nothing but a dead
figment of the mind (Cantemir, 2013). The death of Christian values
involves the birth of a different type of values, based on responsibility and
not duty, since the concept of duty – specific for modernity, is transformed
into responsibility towards the Other (Levinas, 2000). The period of God‟s
post-mortem is a mutation of values, including in the sphere of family.
According to Gianni Vattimo, God‟s death brought upon itself a crisis of
humanism, connected to the increase of technical world and rationalized
society (Vattimo, 1993). If we consider the two characteristics of
postmodernism: on one side, the diversity and fragmentation, and on the
other, the quick social change, then we are entitled to consider that at the
level of a social group, current family has already suffered these mutations.
From Lipovetsky‟s point of view, the family‟s rehabilitation in
postmodernity doesn‟t reintroduce the traditional duties, but excludes the

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unconditional obligations. The new models of families (free unions, birth

outside the marriage) are no longer condemned/blamed by the society, the
cult of the family setting itself free from the old compulsory prescriptions in
the benefit of the free individual‟s rights (Lipovetsky, 1996). On the other
hand, in postmodernity, the roles of each member of the family are
transformed, the individual‟s duty to get married and have children
translating in the area of the responsibility towards the family, which is no
longer that well defined. Therefore, the issue of following a set of
“traditions” is no longer in question, but of the individualist right to have a
child and, implicitly, to be responsible for him.
Up until recently, sociology used to consider the family to be a basic
cell that underlie the structure of the society. Postmodernity, however, offers
a different image of what family means – an individual fulfilment through
the other. This mutation lead Martine Segalen to the conclusion that today,
the basic cell of the society is the individual, not the family (Segalen, 2011).
A new orientation in conjugality tends to become more and more obvious.
The tendencies of conjugal individualism that underlies the valuing of self
gradually enters into a competition with the classic values of conjugal
solidarity. Solidarity becomes the other one‟s duty, and the conjugal fusion is
directly influenced by the way in which the individual manages to incorporate
the other into himself (Apostu, 2016c).
This perspective on family can also be analysed from Zygmund
Bauman‟s perspective. Bauman discusses the way in which the connection in
nowdays‟ society are built. New reproduction technologies favour such such
connections, and through it – we consider – also the definition of the family.
Solidarity – according to the sociologist – is the first victim of consumerism
(Bauman, 2003). In our paper we will highlight the fact that the development
of new technologies, and implicitly of the technologies of medically assisted
reproduction have determined a series of changes both individually, and
within the couple.
Also, the postmodern family suffers from transformations along
with the emergence of transmodernity. The connection between
postmodernity and transmodernity is made by transhumanism, considering
that postmodernity has a centrifugal tendency of deconstruction, and
transmodernity has a centripetal tendency of reconstructing values (Sandu,
2011), including in the area of the family. If postmodernity brings into
discussion the woman‟s autonomy, the individualism – with all its adjacent
theories on feminism, human rights, equality of genders, etc. -, the
transmodernity through its tendency of reunification tries to reconstruct
what postmodernity deconstructed, contributing with new values based on

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responsibility and care. Transhumanism – as a bridge between

postmodernity and transmodernity – brings into attention the need for
human improvement/perfection (Savulescu, 2014). Considering a new type
of family, we could say that within the transmodern family, the emphasis is
on responsibility and freedom. The responsibility (Frunză, 2016) towards the
non-presence (Terec-Vlad, 2016) in the context of new technologies of
medically-assisted human reproduction is based on care, as care towards the
other. Care/taking care of the other doesn‟t mean compassion and mercy,
but making actions that wouldn‟t prejudice future generations. In this
context, we could say that the new techniques of genetic editing, of
modifying the DNA with the purpose of having children with a higher
resistance to diseases, etc., are issues brought into discussion by the
imperative of responsibility.
In a transmodern context, the new values are rebuilt after the
deconstruction specific for postmodernity. In our paper, we brought into
discussion a few aspects of the traditional and the postmodern families, so
that we would further discuss the transformations that take place in
transmodernity.
The development of techniques and technologies, the new
discoveries in terms of genetic engineering, biology, etc., brought multiple
benefits the society, and implicitly to the human: nowadays, the life
expectancy of the individual is superior from the life expectancy of people
who lived 100 years ago. The majority of the diseases that used to cause
death are now eradicated, with the help of vaccines, etc. However, not all
scientific discoveries are also beneficial, since a series of discoveries such as
mass-destruction weapons cause the death of thousands of people, and we
are currently talking about a series of weapons, called weapons of the future
(informational war, e-bombs, great power lasers, space weapons, etc.). The
discoveries were also in the medical field, since nowadays parents can
conceive children being able to choose a series of characteristics, among
which even the baby‟s gender. As compared to the dangers of new
technologies, we must state that in 2017, an individual was created in
therapeutic purposes – a chimera, half human, half pig. As we mentioned,
the half human-half pig individual was created in therapeutic purposes,
therefore for organ transplants. However, prospectively speaking, we must
not exclude the idea according to which, in a future not very far away, such
an individual could be born.
The new technologies can be analysed from the perspective of the
impact they have on the human individual (Matei, 2015) on establishing
relationships with others. If we consider Bauman‟s theory on liquid love, we

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can state that using new technologies with the purpose of creating
“genetically improved” individuals is a proof of the unsafety and instability
at the level of the individual‟s affection. Searching for a partner, developing a
strong relationships and marrying involves a lot of time and a series of
sacrifices that nowdays‟ individual is no longer willing to make. Therefore,
through means of new technologies, the individual can create his own
offspring with a series of desirable features.

2. The homosexual family: responsibility towards the other?

The new technologies have lately invaded the private area of the
individual. With the help of new technologies, we can store information in
the virtual space, we can socialize with other individuals from the other side
of the world or we can have virtual friendship relationships. In this part of
our paper, we wish to debate the (bio)ethical dilemmas that come from the
implications of the new medical technologies through means of which the
homosexual families could have their own natural babies. The dilemmas that
emerge here are connected to the legal framework on one side, and on the
other side, to the fact that old ethics are no longer capable of giving answers
to the current problems of the society (Terec-Vlad, 2016).
Since 2010, the scientist managed to create mice with two dads from
gametes obtained from skin (Deng, Satoh, Chang, Zhang, David Stewart,
Wang, Cooney, Behringer, 2011). It is probable that in a future not very far
away, we would create human gametes from other types of cells as well. This
aspect raises a series of questions both from a moral and an ethical
perspective, since on one side, it raises the issue of scientists playing God –
creating life, and from a (bio)ethical perspective, the issue of the
responsibility towards the life newly created, since an unborn child from two
parents of same sex (men) doesn‟t fit the current legal framework. Morally
speaking, children which could be born inside homosexual families could
face the society‟s opprobrium, the simple fact of being different being seen
rather as taboo, than from the perspective of rights and freedom to choose.
Moreover, the dilemma of homo-parenting is a solved subject for countries
such as Belgium, France, Holland, Sweden, etc. The quality of homosexual
dad was accredited for over a decade in the Western Europe. A category of
homosexuals, in their process of defining their sexuality, first tried
heterosexual relationships that have resulted in births. For them, homo-
parenting is not a strategy, but a natural-accidental condition, them later
discovering that the opposite sex is not a functional option for erotic
socializing. In other situations, by singular adoption (a homosexual

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individual adopts a baby in his name, and then places the child in his
homosexual environment) the same conditions of homo-parenting were
created.
Referring to the (bio)ethical implications of new technologies, the
bioethicist Julian Savulescu from the University of Oxford published a study
in which he raises a few questions regarding the way in which we use the
new technologies: the Romanian-Australian philosopher offers the example
of a couple of deaf lesbians who wants to use artificial insemination to bring
into this world a baby with the same disabilities (Savulescu, 2002). Of
course, at the level of the bioethical dilemmas (Sandu, 2012), the issues are
very complex, but what we want to highlight is the fact that new scientific
and medical discoveries determine the emergence of mutations at the level
of the society and the group. If we initially find it reprehensible that a deaf
lesbian couple wants to bring into the world a child with the same
disabilities, we consider that the socio-cultural dimension was not taken into
account; it is possible that the deaf lesbians couple would be part of a
community of deaf lesbians, and deaf wouldn‟t be considered a disability,
but on the contrary, a particularity of that community group.
In our country, the influence of Orthodoxy on the family
environment determines a certain behaviour oriented towards traditionalism,
the human individual being influenced by the social-cultural environment he
belongs to, the freedom of choice and implicitly the responsibility towards
the life-partner being replaced by the duty to start a family and have
children. The potential children born with deficiencies are hidden from the
world, just like the sexual tendencies (for example, homosexuality).
Homosexual families are, however, a reality in nowadays‟ society.
Although in our country, this type of union is not legally regulated, in other
states such as South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Holland,
Island, Ireland, France, Spain, Germany, etc. the marriage between two
people of the same sex is regulated, the acknowledgment of such type of
marriage increasing with the level of education. The dilemmas that emerge
for this type of couples is connected to the roles they fulfil in the family and
giving birth or adopting children. However, the studies highlighted the fact
that the persons born in gay couples are prone to a certain pressure from the
society, a series of studies showing that a child coming from a gay couple
could be exposed to prejudices (Patterson, 2006). The risk of the society
treating the children born in gay families differently is big, especially when
the level of education is low. This aspect involves, on one side, the
violation/failure to comply to certain fundamental rights of the individual,
since the child of such a family ends up being a victim, given the fact that it

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wasn‟t his choice to be part of a homosexual family. We will not analyse the
psychological effects of children in such situations, but what we wish to
highlight is the fact that the child might have his fundamental rights violated,
ending up being marginalized, etc., this being a consequence of current
society and the development of new technologies, the freedom of choice
being easily identified with selfishness.
Another dilemma that arises inside the homosexual families that
wish to have children is the issue of gay couples‟ freedom (it is not only
about couples, but the individual‟s freedom to choose who will he spend his
life with) to start a family, and on the other side, the unborn or adopted
child‟s right to have a chance to be treated equally to the children in
heterosexual families.

3. Challenges of science and technologies?

The progress in the field of new medical technologies however,
opened Pandora‟s box, allowing the possibility of the individual to create
children with certain physical or psychological characteristics, with an
increased tolerance to diseases, pain, etc (Sandu, 2016b, Terec-Vlad, 2015,
Terec-Vlad & Terec-Vlad, 2013). The intervention of new medical
technologies currently allows to procreate without having sexual
relationships, by in vitro fertilization or a sperm bank, etc. Also, there are a
series of controversies regarding the medical technologies, since the
scientists have made a series of experiments on the possibility of same-sex
couples to have children. In the paper Generations of viable male and female mice
from two fathers, Deng et all exposes the fact that there was created a mouse
with epithelial cells coming from two males (Deng, Satoh, Chang, Zhang,
David Stewart, Wang, Cooney & Behringer, 2011). If these studies were
conducted on mice, there is the possibility of also being performed on bigger
mammals. Another set of bioethical dilemmas arises in the case of solo-
reproduction – namely creating an embryo from the cells of a single person
(Cutas & Smajdor, 2016; Sandu, 2016a). Of course, the intervention of new
technologies with the purpose of procreation raises a series of questions
from a moral, Christian, bioethical or societal point of view.
Currently, there are people who wish to have a child without having
a partner, but by using a sperm bank. Also, in a future not very far away,
there might be possible to create children with certain physical and moral
features. Children could be seen in a instrumental manner, so that those
thought not to fall under certain standards could be considered “faulty”. As
for the reproductive function of the family, this changed with the emergence

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of the postmodern family. Under the circumstances where the family has no
longer the purpose to create offspring, the sexual relationships have changed
as well. New technologies offer the possibility of having sexual relationships
virtually, and soon, the new technologies will allow us to have sexual
relationships with robots that will almost perfectly imitate the human body.
If now the costs of such a robot are pretty high, in a few years, they will be
affordable for almost anyone.

4. Prospective issues relate to family and sex

Exploring the concept of family, we consider that in
transhumanism/transmodernity it will lose its essence, the old values
suffering transformations. Martine Segalen considers that nowadays, the
family no longer becomes the basic cell of the society, but the individual
(Segalen, 2011). If the traditional family focuses on marriage, the
postmodern family emphasizes on individualism, etc., in the future – we
consider- the concept of family will have no common elements with the two
types of families previously mentioned. We state that because the existence
of new technologies of medically-assisted reproduction, of moral and
humans enhancement, we could create new individuals that would lack
feelings such as love, compassion, understanding, help, etc., essential aspects
in constituting a primary group such as the family.
On the other hand, given the possibility of creating human embryos
in artificial uterus, the newborns could either have more parents, or they
could be replicas of individuals that already exist or have existed (human
cloning). Some recent studies showed the fact that through means of new
technologies, a child might have many parents from the point of view of
genetics, the masculine and feminine sexual cells being modified, the future
offspring being able to bare the genes of many persons. If at the level of
bioethical dilemmas there are a series of controversies on this aspect, we
should stress that considering the sexual relationships, things will also
change radically.
The futurologist Ian Pearson considers that by 2030, the individuals
will have a form of virtual sex, that by 2035, the individuals will sexually
interact through means of virtual reality, and by 2050, the sexual
relationships between humans and robots will exceed the current sexual
relationships (Pearson, 2015). Another aspect emphasized by the futurologist
is the fact that now, over a quarter of the internet users make searches
related to sex and pornography, so from this point of view, the ethics of
pornography in the virtual reality is no different from having sexual

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relationships. If we consider the idea according to which the virtual

proximity disintegrates the pressure the non-virtual closeness tends to exert
(Bauman, 2003), then we can agree with Ian Pearson. In modernity, the
liquid relationships are no longer characterized by duability or responsibility
towards the other. The individual is rather oriented towards living the
moment, rather than building stable relationships. The relationships
therefore become a reflection of the carpe diem strategy. Bauman consider
that love is crossed by the anthropophagic impulse, the separation from the
loved one being the lovers‟ deepest fear, which is why most lovers would do
anything to forever remove the fantasy of breaking up (Bauman, 2003).
Given the fact that establishing an affectionate relationship with the Other
involves time and is pretty hard to achieve, the individual tends to establish
superficial relationships based on that fear. The uncertainty determines a
certain type of behaviour oriented towards momentary satisfaction.
The purpose of this paper is to highlight the way in which the family
has evolved. In this approach, we went from the traditional perspective in
order to highlight the fact that the new technologies have not only
influenced the way in which we communicate or relate to one another, but
also the personal relationships and the family in general. Given the evolution
of new technologies, in the future the sexual partner will no longer be a
human individual, but could as well be a robot that would imitate the sexual
behaviour of the human individual.
In the following years, sex with robots will be possible and
affordable, which is why satisfying the sexual needs will no longer require a
human partner. As for procreation, there will only be necessary to have one
individual. In this paper, we will analyse the way in which the family has
evolved, so we bring into discussion both the traditional perspective and the
current tendencies given by the new technologies.

5. Sexual robots
Love is difficult to describe because we don‟t have the same feelings
towards the life partner, the children, grandchildren, friends, etc., but
regarding the way we relate to the other/others and especially to the life
partners, there are a series of controversies on sexuality. If the traditional
couple emphasizes on satisfying the material/spiritual needs, the relationship
between the two partners being strictly outlined around the family, in the
present, the relationship with the members of the family is changing
radically. The roles of women and men suffer mutations, the post-material
values being more and more obvious in relation to the others. The

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Loredana VLAD

emergence of gay marriages, the possibility of solo reproduction, genes

editing, renting uterus, etc. are issues that raise questions on our
responsibility towards the future generations, in the context where we could
talk about the individuals that lack the feeling of belonging to a certain social
group such as the family. If we previously brought into discussion the gay
family, in this section of the paper we will analyse one of the latest
discoveries on the scientists: the robot with warm sexual organs who imitate
the sexual organs of the human individual.
On October 31st, 2016 The Sun published an article entitled “Sex
robots with terrifyingly realistic genitalia to hit the market NEXT YEAR and
cost £12,000”. The founder of the company who created this robot, Matt
McMullen declared that „I want to have people actually develop an emotional
attachment to not only the robot but the actual character behind it – to develop some kind
of love for this being”. Of course, once the product will be produced on a large
scale, the price for these sexual dolls will decrease, offering the possibility for
more individuals to purchase them. If by now, we managed to create sexual
dolls, it is for sure that in a future not very far away, we will be able to have
self-aware sexual robots. As we have stated in the beginning of this paper,
the relationships will considerably change over years, and nothing will even
be the same again. If nowadays, the gay couples are prone to criticism from
the society, the relationships with the self-aware non-human individuals will
also be the subject of opprobrium, since a male self-aware non-human
individual might form a couple with a feminine human individual?
The ethical considerations that derive from the previously
mentioned issues involve the following aspects: on one side, the production
of such dolls on an industrial scale might reduce prostitution, the sex
industry turning to a different direction in which the human rights would be
respected and less violated. As far as issues are concerned, we bring into
attention the possibility of creating self-aware sexual dolls that would be
used with the purpose of satisfying the human individual‟s sexual needs. On
the other hand, we can also talk about the digitalization of consciousness as
long as this type of consciousness could be programmed.
Relative to the evolution of the family from traditionalism to
transmodernity, we can state that the values differ from one society to the
other, as having kids is no longer a duty, but a responsibility. The virtual sex
not only could reduce sexual slavery, but could also radically transform the
relationships with the other human individuals. The virtual sexual
relationships could considerably reduce the sexually transmitted diseases too.

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6. Conclusions
In our paper, we conducted a brief analysis on the way in which the
family has evolved from the traditional perspective, up until postmodernity.
If within the traditional family, the values emphasized were different from
the postmodern (individualist) ones, transmodernity reshapes the concept of
family.
Our paper brings forward a series of changes that take place within
the family, the gay couples who want to have children, but also the medically
assisted reproduction which offers the possibility of creating individuals with
certain characteristics wanted by the parents, and solo-reproduction. We also
highlighted a series of ethical dilemmas that emerge along with the new
technologies of medically-assisted human reproduction, the future of the
relationships and sex; we also stressed the importance of responsibility
towards the future generations as we don‟t know what is the legal status of
individuals born from the cells of the same person (solo-reproduction), or
from the epithelial cells of two individuals of the same sex.
Transmodernity does not modify the individualist structure of the
couples, but offers a greater stability. Postmodernity shows that each
individual sees in his life-partner, a resource through which he can fulfil
personally. Transmodernity also talks about personal fulfilment, but it offers
it a different level of autonomy. The Other, as a resource, disappears. The
individual finds alternatives in technology for his own fulfilment. The
relationship with the other is related to an external social environment; the
individual prefers to no longer fusion, because that‟s how he loses his
autonomy. The personal fulfilment is conditioned by the other, his will to
participate. The technology of the future aims to fill the need for the other,
therefore the future of conjugality will substantially reform any aspect related
to the classic functionality. If modernity is criticised for separating sexuality
from reproduction, the partners investing more time into eroticism than in
the reproductive component of sexuality, transmodernity rebuilts it in a
“transindividualist” form, the birth through independence and autonomy
towards the other (solo-reproduction). Also, cultivating excessive
independence cancels the classic function of conjugal solidarity. In their
transmodern orientation, the young people no longer find a reason for
dedicating to the other person and his needs. The individuals are no longer
constructed by family, and for this reason, they no longer reproduce
culturally, morally or physically through families. Or, this aspect cancels the
classic function of solidarity. In the image of such transmodern hypotheses
that the relational future anticipates, the couple of the future will recondition

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 The Family, Where to? From the „Solid” Perspective to „Liquid” Perspective
Loredana VLAD

his intimacy rapports, funding partnerships rather than conjugal or marital

unions.

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