The value of the family
The family is very important institution for any human being. It is understandable, because people are closely connected with their families in different phases of their lives. Family is a natural part of human life. In advanced societies in the end of the twentieth century some signs of family values' transformation appeared. These transformations consist in reduction marriages' number, the increase in the number of unregistered marriages, prevalence of small families, birth-rate falling, the increase in the number of natural children and spread of voluntary childlessness.
The reasons of these changes are being discussed by scientists and ordinary people and there is no single point of view on this problem. There are many factors, which influence them and in order to understand these processes, one should look at this situation integrally. For example, birth-rate falling is impossible to explain by economical reasons only. The root of this problem lies not in the financial sphere, but in changes of value orientation.
Modern people, especially young persons, who are the main group, which determines the rate of marriages, are reluctant to create families. They consider institute of marriage to be obsolete and old-fashioned. Marriage is not an end in itself any longer. The main value for young people is relationship and they are not ready to sacrifice their intimate welfare for the sake of marriage. Fortunately, children who are born out-of-wedlock are no longer treated negatively by the modern society, but this fact makes parents even more reluctant to create families.
De facto marriage is always an opportunity for a young person to have several possible variants for their future ahead. Our life doesn't give us confidence in the future. It refers to all aspects of our life and relationships are not an exception. People easily come together with each other and break up easily as well. They are very pragmatic towards intimate relationships and don't idealize marriage. They tend to consider advantages of wedlock only as additional values and try to accrue benefits from it. These benefits are based on economical issues.
Modern youth thinks that if one loves his/her beloved person, marriage is not needed and is considered as an unnecessary ritual, which doesn't affect their relationship anyhow. As you see, relationships are the main value and all other values are secondary and are appreciated only in case they are able to influence positively the main value from their list of priorities. That is why if family relations are unsatisfactory and love is gone, there seems nothing to preserve a family; because family itself loses its meaning if it doesn't favour love and happiness any more.