Psychological Problems of the First Years of Married Life

Abstract

The family has existed as a stable social unit for many centuries. It is a necessary element in the social structure of human society, fulfilling the extremely important function of reproducing the population. Until recently the family was studied almost exclusively by sociology; theoretical concepts of the family were created from the viewpoint of the family's social functions and relations with other social institutions. In recent decades, however, considerable interest in how the family functions has been shown by various other disciplines—psychiatry, psychology, ethnography, pedagogy, and others. This may be explained by the fact that, as sociological studies have indicated, the traditional institution of the family is now undergoing a crisis of sorts, a crisis stemming from changes in the concepts of marriage and family relations. On the one hand, there is a quest for some new forms of the family that might better correspond to the present concept of family relations. For example, the American scient...