As far back as our knowledge takes us, humans beings have lived in families.  We know of no period when this was not so.  We know of no people who have succeeded for long in dissolving the family or displacing it.  Instead, men have exercised their imagination in the elaboration of different styles of family living and different ways of relating the family to the larger community.  A family may consist only of parents and children, and its fragile stability may rest on the simple personal choice of a man and a woman to stay together.