ABSTRACT
The social and political contradictions inevitably affected the family. As the revolutionary agenda unfolded, Cuban families were strained by the trauma of radical social transformation. Pre-revolutionary Cuban family law was derived from the strongly patriarchal Spanish Civil Code that governed domestic relations in Cuba from 1868 until 1950, and it bore little relation to the complex reality of sexual relations and filiation. The legal institution of marriage was really a small enterprise run by men to serve their everyday needs and to produce heirs. The revolution inherited deeply entrenched patterns of patriarchy in family relations. The Family Code, adopted in 1975, was far-reaching in its purpose to redefine the Cuban family and transform it into the "elementary cell" of society that would contribute to the development of new generations of socialists. The adoption provisions are one innovation of the Cuban Family Code, and they have contributed to the incorporation of orphaned and abandoned children into stable family situations.
