ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the changing forms of family structure as attempted adaptations to changes in the marketplace over the past three centuries. It explains a felt increase in autonomy and a proliferation of choice resulting from integration into an expanding market. The chapter discusses the American family. The American family always have an evaluative tone. The growth of the marketplace-both for jobs and for goods and services-made it possible for large numbers of people to reduce their reliance on kin. Much of the social science literature takes the nuclear family form which has been dominant mainly in the middle class as normative. Parsons clearly saw a tension between the values of the traditional familial values. Persons in the lower classes have greatly circumscribed choice, at least compared to their upper-middle-class counterparts. Therein lies the particular recurrent urgency of the fears for the family: Americans have found no way, other than familial, to ensure that persons look out for one another.
