Conservatives extol the mom, pop, and kids family model and describe it as traditional.
But Americans throughout history were not particularly child-friendly or chaste. Serial marriages and illicit sex were common, as were births to unmarried women. Not if you view the family through the long lens of history. The Census Bureau announced that nuclear families have dropped below 25 percent of all households and that multiple family forms are now the rule in American society, not the exception. The big difference is that in the past, death was the prime architect of family structure, followed closely by economics.