From Family Structure to Families in Disconcert

Broadly speaking, it is understood that the factors that have made the formation and consolidation of the traditional or nuclear family possible are: prolonged family cohabitation or the domestic unit, that is, the dimension of the home; the valuing of the self as an autonomous space that generates a sense of responsibility, the contractual reconfiguration of the alliance bond and the bond of affiliation; and, finally, the notion of the couple as an equality of affective exchanges (Donzelot 1998).