Harry Benson (2006)
Found that over the first three years of a baby's life, the rate of family breakdown was much higher among cohabiting couples than married couples.
Ann Oakley (1997)
The New Right wrongly assume that husbands and wives' roles are fixed by biology.
Robert Chester (1985)
The only important change in family diversity is the neo-conventional family- a dual earner family in which both spouses go out to work and not just the family.
The Rapoports (1982)
Five types of family diversity- organisational diversity, cultural diversity, social class diversity, life stage diversity and generational diversity.
Stacey (1998)
Greater freedom and choice has benefited women as it has enabled them to free themselves from patriarchal oppression and to shape their family arrangements to suit their needs.
David Morgan
It is pointless trying to make large-scale generalisations about the family. A family is simply whatever arrangements those involved choose to call their family.
Beck (1992)
The life course that people followed in the past has been replaced by the 'do-it-yourself biography' that individuals today must construct for themselves.
Anthony Giddens (1992)
In recent decades, the family and marriage have been transformed by greater choice and a more equal relationship between men and women.
Giddens
The pure relationship exists solely to satisfy each partner's needs. The relationship is likely to survive only so long as both partners think it is in their own interest to do so.