ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces a French structuralist approach to social and demographic change that emphasizes the potential role of purely conceptual universale in the creation of such change. By explicitly delineating a finite number of world family systems, as well as explicitly stating which systems are most likely to engender positive valuations of individual liberty and spousal equality, Emmanual Todd offers a potentially powerful tool for predicting trends in divorce. The anomic family is characterized by the theoretical rejection of cohabitation of married children with their parents, a rejection that is frequently ignored in practice, the possibility of consanguine marriages and, most importantly, by free spouse selection. The egalitarian nuclear family is characterized by a lack of cohabitation of married children with their parents, a lack of marriage between the children of brothers, and by an equality of brothers laid down by inheritance rules as well as free selection of spouses.
