ABSTRACT
The chapters in this book suggest that family research has come a long way in the 20th century. And yet, with many unresolved issues and much that we do not yet know about how families function, there is still a long way to go. In the process of writing some of the chapters and reading all of the others, the editors have begun to see that new agendas grow organically out of old ones, rather like the development of families themselves. The big questions about families in the past remain the big questions today. What is needed now is a reconsideration of the traditional answers. This reconsideration must be accompanied by a special effort to avoid static, a-contextual, method-bound depictions of the family in which a small detail in the corner of the mural is presented as the complete picture of family functions and dysfunction.
