NEW FAMILY MODELS
Since legal equality was established between men and women, backed by recent social and political movements, the nuclear family made up of a man and a woman is not the obligatory standard to follow in our society. In fact, the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language defines the word family as “a group of inter-related people who live under the same roof”, without taking into account sex or marital status.
Likewise, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “no-one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation.” It also adds that “Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.” If we add to these points the fact that the Spanish Constitution establishes that “all citizens are equal before the law and may not in any way be discriminated against on account of birth, race, sex, religion, opinion or any other condition or personal or social circumstance.” then it appears clear that any union that people have freely established as a family is worthy of respect.
The loss of the dominance of the traditional model comes from the approval of the Divorce Law in Spain, which did not definitively take effect until 1981. 25 years ago, certain sectors predicted the end of the family institution, but this Law (30/1981 of 7 July), albeit insufficient, served to put an end to turbulent unions, so that people whose marriage had failed would be able to make a fresh start. In this way, different family structures arose, such as single parent families (mostly mothers with children), blended families - couples in which one or both spouses may bring children from a previous marriage, or even de facto unions.
Participation in the labour market, which enabled them to be financially independent, and the progresses made in assisted reproduction techniques also meant that some women decided to take on motherhood on their own.
As the possibilities to travel have risen, it is increasingly more commonplace to see couples of mixed race. It is no longer odd to see a couple formed by two people from different religions, races or social conditions. The prosperous relations with other countries have also made adoption processes easier.
Some laws have been adapted to meet social changes and this has meant that numerous collectives, such as feminist groups and homosexual associations, have raised their voice in defence of their civil rights and liberties. These demands have led to the announcement of anti-discrimination guidelines. One example is the recently-passed law that allows lesbians and gays to marry. And so families are born that are made up of people of the same sex, although still with certain limits for adopting children.
In short, the objective is to achieve the effective protection of everybody’s rights. Quite rightly, the tendency is to reach a standardisation of the different family models, to move away from the concept of what is “normal” and to adapt ourselves to the social circumstances we are living in.
In the end, our children already have classmates from different ethnic origins or religious creeds, or whose family is formed by two people of the same sex, for example. In the light of this circumstance, it is necessary to educate in the active respect for social diversity.