ABSTRACT
A surprising contradiction between public opinion and the views of many prominent sociologists has arisen in recent years. While in the public mind family decline seems to have become an established fact, many sociologists have sought to cast serious doubt on the idea. Moreover, within sociology the views on family decline have changed markedly over the years. Most of the sociology also tended to have a conservative cast, being preoccupied with the maintenance of social order in the face of the emerging urbanism and industrialism and the cultural trends of individualism, secularism, and egalitarianism. The persons most widely regarded as the principal founders of sociology in the early nineteenth century were French. They saw the family as being both a fundamental social institution and in a state of serious decline, notably a decline of paternal authority hastened by the French Revolution.
