Marriage and Parenting in the Contemporary Family

Abstract

In contemporary times attention has been dragged to the fact that marriage is no longer seen as the institutional and symbolic representative of what is a couple or a family and so, many marital and family arrangements gained ground, favoring the absence of a single model relationship, such as families composed of remarried, divorced, cohabitants, single parent, among others, considered unfit awhile ago. This article aims to encourage discussion about the need to find a place for the new family being formed, taking into account the marriage bond as a founding element of the family, whatever its configuration. From a literature review, in order to contextualize the dilemmas of the contemporary family living, situations leading to divorce, shared custody and the role of family mediation as a protective strategy of intergenerational ties, discusses marriage’s fundamental aspects. Therefore, it is believed that by submerging thoughts about building fields of interpretation of marital interaction, it becomes possible to discern, in the view of the couple, knowledge about how humans have been building their marital experiences and assigns meanings.

 

Keywords: Marriage, Parenting, Contemporary family.