This paper examines the advantages and disadvantages of the way the core family unit has changed over the years. It looks
at how
families in times past were strongly patriarchal, the result of an arranged marriage rather than a love match, how parents were often indifferent to their children, and how childhood was not viewed as any special part of life. In comparison, it explores how it is only in modern times that the nuclear family has developed into a nurturing and child-centered family unit, even though today's families
include remarkable changes. Today's families include single women who choose to be artificially inseminated, gay couples who adopt or use approaches such as artificial insemination or surrogate mothers to have children, and couples who marry later in life and have children despite being well into their forties.