The recent rulings on gay marriage and debates on family-related issues have placed marriage and family at the forefront of the public eye. More so than at any point in history, we are now confronted with the need to carefully define the meaning of marriage and family. Professor Andreas Köstenberger and ethics expert David W. Jones speak to the issues at hand and guide us through the fray. Presenting a Christian theology of marriage and parenting, they offer insight on issues such as: abortion contraception infertility adoption homosexuality divorce Marriage and Family: Biblical Essentials points the way to the spiritual solution to our culture's confusion: a return to, and rebuilding of, the biblical foundation of marriage and the family.

Family life has been radically transformed over the past three decades. Half of all households are unmarried, while only a quarter of all married households have kids. A third of the nation's births are to unwed mothers, and a third of America's married men earn less than their wives. With half of all women cohabitating before they turn thirty and gay and lesbian couples settling down with increasing visibility, there couldn't be a better time for a book that tracks new conceptions of marriage and family as they are being formed. The editors of this volume explore the motivation to marry and the role of matrimony in a diverse group of men and women. They compare empirical data from several emerging family types (single, co-parent, gay and lesbian, among others) to studies of traditional nuclear families, and they consider the effect of public policy and recent economic developments on the practice of marriage and the stabilization or destabilization of family. Approaching this topic from a variety of perspectives, including historical, cross-cultural, gendered, demographic, socio-biological, and social-psychological viewpoints, the editors highlight the complexity of the modern American family and the growing indeterminacy of its boundaries. Refusing to adhere to any one position, the editors provide an unbiased account of contemporary marriage and family.

The lucid, straightforward Preface of this Handbook by the two editors and the comprehenSIve perspec tives offered in the Introduction by one ofthem leave little for a Foreword to add. It is therefore limIted to two relevant but not intrinsically related points vis-a-vis research on marriage and the family in the interval since the fIrst Handbook (Christensen, 1964) appeared, namely: the impact on this research ofthe politicization of the New RIght! and of the Feminist Enlightenment beginning in the mid-sixties, about the time of the fIrst Handbook. In the late 1930s Willard Waller noted: "Fifty years or more ago about 1890, most people had the greatest respect for the institution called the family and wished to learn nothing whatever about it. . . . Everything that concerned the life of men and women and their children was shrouded from the light. Today much of that has been changed. Gone is the concealment of the way in which life begins, gone the irrational sanctity of the home. The aura of sentiment which once protected the family from discussion clings to it no more .... We wantto learn as much about it as we can and to understand it as thoroughly as possible, for there is a rising recognition in America that vast numbers of its families are sick-from internal frustrations and from external buffeting. We are engaged in the process of reconstructing our family institutions through criticism and discussion" (1938, pp. 3-4).

Marriage is an important transition in the life of any adult who marries. But often when a son or daughter gets married, their relationships with their natal families changes. It is often said that a 'daughter is a daughter all of her life, but a son is a son 'til he takes him a wife.' This book examines how marriage changes relationships between adult children and their parents and how this differs for sons versus daughters. Merrill considers the process by which men 'get pulled into' their wives' families and the ways in which men are sometimes more connected to their wives' families following marriage than to their own families. But what is it about a relationship with a son that changes when he marries? And why do daughters tend to stay closer? Why do mothers experience greater difficulty in negotiating relationships with married sons than with married daughters? Why do daughters tend to stay closer and maintain stronger ties to their natal families than sons do? This book answers these questions and offers advice for mothers on how to maintain strong ties with their children when they marry, negotiate relationships that may be fraught with new challenges, and accept changes when they happen. Sharing firsthand accounts from mothers, sons, and daughters, the author sheds new light on this neglected topic.

In this book Fr. Sebastian Walshe, O.Praem., explains and defends the traditional understandings of marriage and family so that the goodness and beauty of marriage and family can once again shine forth.

The third edition of Handbook of Marriage and the Family describes, analyzes, synthesizes, and critiques the current research and theory about family relationships, family structural variations, and the role of families in society. This updated Handbook provides the most comprehensive state-of-the art assessment of the existing knowledge of family life, with particular attention to variations due to gender, socioeconomic, race, ethnic, cultural, and life-style diversity. The Handbook also aims to provide the best synthesis of our existing scholarship on families that will be a primary source for scholars and professionals but also serve as the primary graduate text for graduate courses on family relationships and the roles of families in society. In addition, the involvement of chapter authors from a variety of fields including family psychology, family sociology, child development, family studies, public health, and family therapy, gives the Handbook a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary framework.