This book contains a compilation of selected papers and lectures, published and unpublished, which the author accumulated during the fifty-five years of her career in the academe. The first part consists of essays on such topics as structure and functions of the family, family values and norms, gender roles, marital stability, child-rearing and socialization, welfare of the elderly, intermarriage, and role of the family in internal and international migration, all of which give a picture of the issues and problems the Filipino family has faced in the light of rapid social change. The second part contains the author’s reminiscences of her experiences as a young girl during the war, as a student and dormer at the University of the Philippines (UP), as a faculty member of the UP Department of Sociology, as a founding member and officer of the Philippine Sociological Society, and as a UP Diliman campus resident with her large family of eight children, all of which somehow gave her deep insights in her observations of the family. This collection of essays is a valuable book of readings on the sociology of the family and a useful reference for courses in home economics, social work, education, and other social sciences.

1. Families ? Philippines ? History. 2. Philippine essay (English) 3. Marriage ? Philippines. 4. Medina, Belen Tan-Gatue ? Biography.