Bravo Bill Muehlenberg on your correct snapshot of the defintion of family. I'm a 36-year-old Gen X. female and contrary to what some of the men on this post have said I would say that myself and my peer group of Gen Xers believe in marriage as between a man and a woman. I'm afraid the people who are sounding off the loudest about the structure of the family ARE a group of revisionary elite cultural theorists. If the nuclear family model which Bill subscribes to is so dead then WHY do 90 per cent of all families currently consists of a mother, father and children?!

Not only this but 88% of all ‘couples’ are married, only 12% are de facto and a miniscule 0.45% are same-sex. The nuclear family is far from coming to an end.

As a teacher and counsellor in both a primary and secondary school, I see first hand the results of divorce and same sex couples with children. In every case, the children struggle with either depression, identity issues, anger and generally far lower academic performance than standard nuclear families. I know that many will simply not want to believe this and actually ackowledge what the research and annecdotal evidence is saying, but the traditional family does a far better job than any other model. Those who deny this are in fact themselves in denial.

The selective citing of anthropologists in this article fails to acknowledge that the ‘family’, while always consisting of a relationship between men and women was in some cultures structured in a way that did not involve a nuclear family or a primary commitment between one man and one woman. Not all cultures rejected homosexual relationships either.

The crucial aspect of the Wilson quote is that marriage has always been required for childcare and economic responsibility. This is no longer the case. We live in very different world than any previous cultures and marriage is no longer required for these things.

You seem to be arguing that because marriage has always been the norm, it should remain the norm. Do you apply this to all other aspects of human activities?

mollydukes,

"The crucial aspect of the Wilson quote is that marriage has always been required for childcare and economic responsibility. This is no longer the case."

While that is true maybe we would be better served as a society not by asking in what alternative ways we can raise kids but rather what is the BEST way to raise them. With the childs welbeing uppermost that is.

I would like to comment on this issue from a young female’s point of view.

I am a 17-year-old student who has attended 9 schools in the last 13 years, both across Australia and overseas. In this time I have had the opportunity to both develop my own and observe the attitudes of my peers in relation to such topics as family and marriage.

Monogamy and marriage are very important to my age group. I have read that in a survey of sexuality amongst young people, intimacy and permanency in relationships were rated the primary concerns. This seems to be support what I have seen so far.

Currently I am attending a selective all-girls school. Despite the girls’ high career drives and ambitions, almost all of my friends hope to end up married with kids one day. The only person who has ever told me that marriage is “unnecessary for today’s generation” was a 40-year-old man I met (at a wedding) who seemed quite happy to be living in his quasi-commitment de-facto relationship with his pretty young girlfriend. My teenage female friends however want husbands, and they want kids.

Maybe the 20-21 year old males who have read this post so far don’t. Any bets they probably will in about 5-10 years- unless society keeps telling them they can have their cake and eat it too, settle down into a de-facto relationship with a girl until somebody better comes along, and thus never have to commit to one sexual partner for life. But regardless of how it serves men, tomorrow’s women do not desire it. We want husbands (not boyfriends), we want commitment.

As far as I have seen, the nuclear family (and the desire for it) seems to be alive and well. But then what would I know about where society is heading? I’m just a year 12 student after all.

I agree wholeheartedly with Bill. Science and history have shown conclusively that the family is the fundamental unit of society and that ideally the family is comprised of a married heterosexual couple and any children they may have.

Of course, it is recognised that single parent families exist too and need society's support. But a family is definitely not any group of people who happen to share a wheelie bin!