Drawing on relevant statistical data and the data of the European Value and the World Value surveys, the article analyses interrelations between the actual situation and the assessment of family life and child rearing. Contemporary world is characterised by the variety of and fairly rapid changes in the forms of family creation and cohabitation. It is evident that marriage, as a traditional formalisation of living together, is increasingly ignored and devalued. The view that marriage is an outdated custom is realised in practice on a growing scale, as indicated by the increasing number of unregistered marriages or cohabitation outside the marriage. In countries of the Western civilisation which are dominated by the liberal economy and the consumer culture, the greatest enemy of strong families is the wild individualism, which tolerates a diversity of lifestyles. In Islamic countries which would initially appear to have the strongest families, women’s inequality and widespread arranged marriages increasingly lead to the dissolution of marriages. Divorce is the least frequent in Latin American, Balkan, European Catholic and Islamic countries. The Scandinavian countries and the post-socialist Central and Eastern European countries lead the European countries’ group, characterised by the highest frequency of divorce and the greatest tolerance towards it. Generally, the Scandinavian countries distinguish themselves by the most liberal interpretation of the family life, while some post-socialist countries retain the previous high level of divorces and tolerance towards them
