As far as the history of the family in Europe is concerned, it can be told in a number of different ways and there are considerable variations in family patterns across the continent. One dimension concerns the family's size, another dimension what sorts of people and how many generations the family has included. Both dimensions are quantifiable and the changes taking place over time are easily summarized. Over the last 500 years the size of the family has constantly gone down, and there is a particularly sharp dip in the twentieth century. In England, for example, the average family size was 4.75 members between the sixteenth and the nineteenth centuries, but it was 4.49 members in 1901 and only 2.4 in 1996. As far as the kinds of people the family has included, the nuclear family – the parent-and-children group – seems to have been firmly established at least since the twelfth century, and few important changes have taken place since then.

However, an understanding of the family as a protective arrangement requires more than an analysis of numerical data. What matters is not the size and composition of the family as much as its nature. The question is how it is regarded by its members and what relationships obtain between the family and the rest of society. What is important above all is the way in which the family provides individuals with a place they can call ‘home’.