Over the last several decades a consensus on the family's worth has emerged, even though there is no consensus about its reality. The family, or perhaps an idealized version of it, persists in the collective imagination, even though people live alone at increasing rates, at least in Western societies, and despite the fact that we increasingly hear of domestic violence cases that challenge and undermine that ideal.

In their classic book, The Struggle for Emotional Control in America's History, Peter and Carol Stearns refer to the ideal of the family generated within the framework of the Industrial Revolution, which still weighs heavily on our collective mind, according to which the family should be a safe "refuge" in a hostile (work) world.

That fierce division between family and work, unknown until then, turned the world of work into the realm of efficient rationality, while the family became a community of love and solidarity. It was not always so, especially when it comes to love. However, the description of the family as a caring community among people united by kinship applies both to the nuclear family- predominant in industrialized societies— and to extended families- typical of primitive, traditional societies— with which social anthropology is concerned.

Certainly, our social reality has changed since then and, as sociologist Arlie R. Hochschild has shown in several studies, the relationship between work and family has also changed. However, despite all the changes that the twentieth century brought with it, or perhaps because of them, the fact persists that the modern individual- who is more individual than ever- cannot and will not give up the family. We have the task of clarifying the nature of that which he does not want to give up. Perhaps our positive assessment of the family is most influenced by recognizing in it a safe place for forging durable bonds that sustain our identity throughout life.

However, this intuition - objectivity affirmed by ties of blood- is threatened by the fragility of bonds that no longer depend on ties of blood, but rather on freedom and that are found in the family's very origins. The fact that what Anthony Giddens calls "pure relationship" has prospered over marital commitment explains this fragility since a pure relationship has no institutional support, resting purely on a mutual agreement between the parties involved that lasts as long love, understood as mere sentiment, lasts. Left to itself this relationship form is not sufficient for ensuring a strong sort of solidarity that is capable of accompanying us throughout life.

But Richard David Precht is not entirely wrong when he suggests that the current idealization of the family is more an exercise of "will and representation" than a sociologically powerful reality. It is as if, when thinking about the family, we were imprisoned in an idealization according to which we insist on retaining only the favorable aspects of relationships. Zygmunt Bauman speaks to this point when discussing the multitude of contemporary men and women who are "desesperados al sentirse fácilmente descartables y abandonados a sus propios recursos, siempre ávidos de la seguridad de la unión y de una mano servicial con la que contar en los malos momentos, es decir, desesperados por relacionarse», pero que, «sin embargo, desconfían todo el tiempo de estar relacionados y particularmente de estarlo para siempre, porque temen que pueda convertirse en una carga y limitar severamente la libertad que necesitan para relacionarse».

Look before you leap. Autonomy and security. Freedom and recognition: these are the polar opposites that make up the spontaneous experience of love and that, nevertheless, become enemies when trying to reconcile them through negotiations alone. For the experience of love to forge bonds, we must find that emotion's meaning and turn it up a notch. For this, trust is necessary, which, in turn, is a relational good that is especially scarce today.