When we use the term ‘family’ we often think of it in terms of blood relatives or kinship — everyone we are linked to via blood or marriage, or the living members of your family tree. But here we are more concerned with family in the sense of a household — those sharing a common domestic economy. In the twentyfirst century, such families can take the form of cohabiting parents, stepfamilies, singleparent families, civil partnerships, couples with no children or same-sex couples with or without children, as well as the traditional ‘nuclear family’.
Regardless of the structure of the modern family, the family concept does still seem to be important. Not only do politicians refer constantly to ‘family values’, but four out of five people agree with the statement that ‘my family are more important to me than my friends’.
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