“The family unit is one of the most important institutions, found in one form or another in almost every known society” (Ken Browne, “ An introduction to sociology” 2011, p. 85). In this essay, few topics are discussed. They include the perception of family, different types of family and various sociological concepts of family in relation to the significant changes in the structure of this part of society that have occurred in the United Kingdom since the 1950s. Firstly, it is necessary to explain the difference between household and family and give the definition of family from a sociological point of view. According to Braun (2011), a household is either a person or a group of people who live at the same address and share living arrangements. Without the family (or a unit replacing the family), children would not know how to behave in society. The family is a fundamental substructure of the economy. Adult family members will produce and share goods and services. Their children will take their place in the future. The family is not only a source or labor force but also provides a massive number of buyers for the market.  Physical and psychological safety of family members. Family members support each other in many ways (http://pages.towson.edu/). A single-parent family consists of one parent and one or more children. In this type of family, a single parent may be divorced, never married, or widowed. Reconstructed family made up of the couple and their children from previous relationships. The extended family includes more than two generations of the same family living in the same household. An example of a vertically extended family would be the couple, their children and grandchildren. Brother and sister with their spouses and children living as one family would constitute a case of a vertically blended family. The 2001 census identified stepfamilies in Britain for the first time and showed that more than one in ten dependent children lived in a stepfamily. Attitudes toward marriage, divorce, and childbearing are partly related to changes in legalization. The Divorce Reform Act of 1969 in England and Wales made the divorce process easier than in the past. Other provocative factors for these changes are cultural shifts towards a less conservative lifestyle, the expansion and legalization of feminism and the considerable development of contraceptive methods. In contrast to the functionalist approach, feminist sociologists criticize the traditional nuclear family, as described by Lloyd, Few and Allen. (2009). Feminists view modern society as patriarchal and need additional changes to equalize rights and opportunities between the sexes. According to them, the socialization of children in nuclear families is too gender oriented. From the perspective of Marxist sociologists, the nuclear family is a unit of society that reproduces the labor force that sustains capitalism. This type of family also supports an unequal class system as proposed by Marx.