In the first course on the sociology of the family in Europe in 1888, Emile Durkheim asserted that the modern family is characterised by a particular “attachment to persons” that leads to a shift in the balance between the family We and the Is analysed by...
plete sociology of the family would have been part of the Durkheim legacy today. Yet Durk- have been incomplete. Mauss, who was one of his sociology of the family. He was aware of the great gaps in available knowledge on the
In ad- dition, there exists almost no comparative analy- sis of family types, even though Durkheim pro- posed to approach the study of the family from this viewpoint. plete sociology of the family would have been part of the Durkheim legacy today. Yet Durk- have been incomplete. Mauss, who was one of his sociology of the family.
Durkheim was able to perceive the two leading characteristics of the European family under the first modernity (from the 1850s through the 1960s): the personalization of ties and the increasing intervention of the state in family affairs.