David Cheal's text offers an up-to-date survey of modern sociological theories about family life. New critical approaches are contrasted with the major established approaches and their different modes of theorizing are compared, with the intention of encouraging the reader towards theoretical pluralism. Working from the basic approach of what Cheal calls standard sociological theory, the author then looks at other theories of the family which have challenged this concept, such as symbolic interactionism, exchange theory and the critical approaches associated with feminism and Marxism.