A Look at the Contemporary Family’s Life

This introductory chapter approaches two basic categories of the whole monography which is a family and a lifestyle. The first subchapter deals with the complexity around the definition of the term family nowadays and difficulties with its definition. Furthermore, there is a description of post-war family development in Europe up to now, changes of the functions and further changes in the families’ lives differentiated in Western and Eastern part. It turns out that changes in society have caused significant changes in family lives (democratization, individualism, pluralism of family forms, dynamization, adaptability). The term lifestyle, as different concepts, is depicted in the next part of this chapter. It is perceived as a concept of multidimensional and multidisciplinary. The second subchapter contains several researches related to lives of the families. The project of our research and its goals, methods, selected sample (in total of 2437 respondents) and research process is described in the conclusion of the whole chapter.