Families

Unlike other family books that emphasize conflicts and problems, this book also features the joys and pleasures of family living and its mutually nourishing qualities. Its perspective reflects polls and surveys indicating that most people value their families. Families everywhere provide love, support, and sustenance to their members, but they do so in many different arrangements. Understanding the wide variety of families historically and across cultures gives the student a better basis for understanding how families change-and a better grasp of more controversial changes such as the gradual acceptance by Westerners of single-sex marriage and child-rearing.