Émile Durkheim and the Modern Family

Abstract Emile Durkheim’s first specialized course in Bordeaux (in 1888) was on the sociology of the family. Although his work on the topic is not his best known, and is often rather misunderstood, it is still quite interesting. Durkheim was able to perceive the two leading characteristics of the European family under the first modernity (from the 1850s through the 1960s): the personalization of ties and the increasing intervention of the state in family affairs. Understanding this change did not lead Durkheim to approve of it, however, and he worried about the weakening of rules and discipline within the family.