What are the future prospects of the modern family? For a long time the common image in the West has been to see the nuclear family, consisting of two economically independent spouses and their children, as the natural outcome of the modernization process. As the hierarchies of patriarchal society vanish, a social order based on equal and autonomous individuals all set for self-realization has been assumed. However, high rates of divorce, often-reported domestic violence, teenagers left on their own at an early age, do not harmonize very well with this idealized image. So, which are the...