The family in the past and present

A hundred years ago there was only one acceptable model of a family: the father,
mother and children. A man was the head of the family and the most important
person in the home. He was the master and ruler who treated his wife and children
as his private property. A woman was financially dependent on her husband and
had little to say. Her only role was to bear and rear children. The children, in turn,
were brought up in discipline and obedience. Still, their situation was much better
than that of those who were born out of wedlock. In the past single unmarried
mothers with illegitimate children were stigmatized and barely tolerated in society.

The situation improved a lot with the Liberation Movement which started at the
end of the 19th century. Women were given more rights and their role in society
was strengthened but at the same time the traditional family pattern began to
change.

Nowadays we can forget the stereotype of the bread-winning father and the child-
raising mother. The term "traditional" or "typical" applies to fewer and fewer
families. Although still the most common type of household is the couple with one
or two children, more and more people decide not to get married claiming that
legislation is unnecessary to prove their love. This more "informal" family pattern
is particularly popular in Sweden СВІДЕН which in 1997 had the highest
percentage of children born out of wedlock in Europe - fifty four per cent. Another
common family structure today is the single mother, either unwed or divorced,
who raises one or two children. There has also been an increase in the number of
men who are being granted custody after divorce, especially in the United
Kingdom.

Over the last twenty years the percentage of European children living in single
parent households has nearly tripled, and in 2000 amounted to nearly ten per cent.
A recent hot issue was giving homosexual couples the same legal rights as
heterosexuals in the Nether- lands. Now lesbian or gay couples can adopt children
and raise them together - something unthinkable even a generation ago.

To sum up, the structure of the European family is changing drastically. A married
couple with children, once the model, is being replaced by all kinds of different
relationships, not necessarily based on marriage. Although governments hope to
encourage the traditional nuclear family made up of two parents and their children,
there isn't much they can do. They have to adapt to the new realities by legally
recognizing and giving certain rights to non-traditional families instead of telling
people how they should live together.