A GREAT SHIFT IN HUMAN SOCIETY THROUGH FAMILY RELATIONS

International Multidisciplinary Scientific Conference on the Dialogue between Sciences & Arts, Religion & Education, 2018

A major issue in contemporary society, one that engenders debates and disputes among philosophers, sociologists, psychologists, jurists and other specialists refers to the drastic change of the structure and functions of the traditional family. Due to the great number of people who prefer to live alone, divorce, in single-parent families or consensual unions, the values of the traditional family are questioned and often seem totally outdated. In this article we aim to analyze the changes produced into the content of the notion of family in the contemporary society in contrast to the traditional family ideas and values. We believe that, as society and the state evolved becoming increasingly complex, the role of the state in the individual's life grew and the family's influence diminished. From our point of view, one of the reasons why the contemporary family is so different from the traditional family is due to the increased influence of the state in the individual's life through its institutions and the legal order: social protection, ensuring a decent living standard, education etc. In order to support this idea, we will present a series of philosophical and legal arguments through which we will try to demonstrate that the major influence of the state and the law in the individual's life constitutes an essential element that has led to a decrease in the influence of the traditional family.

Economic History of Developing Regions, 2016

2019

The present paper surveys significant research dealing with some neglected roles of the family and its dynamics in the presence of changes in the economic environment. Attention is thus directed to the response of family systems to changes in resource endowments, outside economic opportunities, the development of markets, and surrounding institutions. Two other original features of our investigation deserve to be emphasized. First, unlike what is generally done in economics, we extensively draw from scholarly works of social scientists, family historians in particular. Second, in order to shed light on family dynamics in present-day developing countries, we assess the state of knowledge about the transformation of family patterns in Europe during a long period stretching back to the early Middle Ages and even earlier.

Studies, 2005

In the first place, this paper intends to analyze the kind of relationships existing inside the family. In order to do that, the author makes an effort to reconsider its historical forming process applying the classical anthropological texts. At this stage, the analysis proposes two different types of relationships between human beings, the primal, which arose from the most elementary feelings of love, protection, accompaniment, and the strictly social, risen from the needs of cooperation and collective work. The family is the expression of both kinds of relationships. In the second place, this work analyzes the nuclear family as a result of a historical process associated to the development of capital and the social conditions that make possible its consolidation. And in the third place, the author proposes the discussion on the crisis of the nuclear family under the perspective of the contemporary global transformation of the accumulation of capital. As a conclusion: some reflections on the perspectives that these transformations offer to the role of the family.

BARROSO, L. A. O direito das famílias e a crise da autonomia do direito no horizonte humano e cultural da pós-modernidade. Revista Crítica do Direito, v. 49, 2013.

We are living days of a profound crisis of law. Such crisis affects its autonomy and its significance as a result of the human problem. An inescapable rupture of law in postmodernity causes the transition from positivistic normativism to critical thinking - or from the support of an abstract system of rules to the affirmation of the human being as a person, reaffirming the West as a civilization of law. In this context there is an urgent need for an investigation of the philosophical and theoretical foundations that guide the law of families in its never-ending search for material intentionality in a post-positivist normativity that revalues the legal experience to the limit. The backdrop is the parallel family, exposing the drama of concrete situations awaiting recognition by a traditional legal rationality.

PRÁVNĚHISTORICKÉ STUDIE, 2020

The article reflects on the changes of family after World War II and its codification in 1949. The particularization of private law and the forming of an independent branch of law were the main features of this development. The Family Act was adopted in 1949 and it regulated relationships between spouses, parents, and children. It was based on the equality between man and woman, which corresponds not only with the political postulates of the time but also reflects the needs of the society. It also demonstrated the incorporation of new ideology into this branch of law.

Forum Teologiczne, 2021

At the beginning of the twenty first century, Chantal Delsol wrote that the man of late modernity is characterized by his attempt to regress to a period in history before his attainment of autonomy and subjectivity, both of which Delsol associates, among other things, with the essential and formative role of the family. Turning to a society or a group with which he could identify, man – in her opinion – takes a step back towards a tribal form of existence, which deprives him of the right to self-government. Demographic data seem to confirm the tendencies which Delsol has described: the rising number of divorces, the dropping number of marriages, and the increasing presence of the welfare state in the life of an individual. We might tend to think that reality bears out the pessimistic vision of the man of late modernity Delsol puts forth. Yet it is the role of philosophy to call into doubt all that seems obvious and to ask questions where to all appearances there is no room for doubt...

Journal of Comparative Family Studies

This paper takes as its starting point recent claims by Beck-Gernsheim that we are living in an era of "post-familial families." Beck-Gernsheim argues that our lives are no longer structured as they once were by tradition, class, religion and kin. Instead the family has become a transitional phase as individuals strive for fulfillment of personal goals and personal life projects. The demographic evidence to support these claims is clearly evident in relation to changing patterns of family formation and dissolution, as well as the movement of married women into paid employment. But what is less evident is a decline in traditional patterns of gender stratification within families. This paper uses recent national data from Australia to examine the relationship between post-familial status, as indicated by marital status and employment, and time spent on housework. The results show that gender is still a clear predictor of time spent on housework, but that within gender there is evidence that gender inequality may be declining in non-traditional households. Recent commentators have argued that the family, as we have known it, has disappeared. For example, Giddens (2001) has referred to a "global revolution" in how we think of ourselves and how we form ties with others. Similarly Beck-Gernsheim has written of the "postfamilial family" (Beck-Gernsheim 2002). The defining hallmark of the post-familial family according to Beck-Gernsheim is that it has become a transitional phase in people's lives. The family has not disappeared but has become a part-time commitment. The social significance of families has also changed. In place of durable sociostructural barriers and constraints traditionally set by family relationships is a new individualism in which life is a "planning project" with many new options and individual choices for lifestyle preferences and patterns. Our lives are no longer set by class, religion, tradition, family and kin relations, according to Beck-Gernsheim, but rather by new institutions such as the labor market, the welfare state, and the educational system (Beck-Gernsheim 2002: 44) which foster individual choice and variable life trajectories. Individuals are no longer born into a socially given situation, but must now produce their own lives in relation to the constraints and opportunities offered by these new institutions (Beck-Gernsheim 2002: 44). On the face of it, the idea that life as a planning project has overtaken routinised movement through traditional lifecourse stages appears highly plausible. Patterns of household formation and dissolution have changed dramatically in recent decades in ways that call established institutions into question. For example, examination of demographic trends for age at first marriage, percent ever marrying, fertility patterns and divorce rates suggests that the ways in which individuals move through lifecourse transitions, as well as the nature and timing of these transitions, has undergone significant changes over the last 30 to 50 years. One of the most significant changes has been the increase in numbers of individuals choosing to cohabit in a de facto relationship at some stage in their lives. In

Forum Teologiczne

This article affirms the importance of family relationships for the economic development of society. The first part shows that, in many aspects, the global economic system is devoid of relational goods. Assuming that the human family “is the first and most important school of mercy”, it is underlined, in the second part, that, also in the economic field, we need to put into practice that kind of merciful relationships that privilege being over having and do not appeal to an invisible hand to justify the indifference towards humans and nature. The third part presents some current initiatives that show the importance of family relationships for an integral development.