EN
The authoresses analyze social changes within the family in western countries during the transformation towards modern individualized society. They based their statement on the theory of Ulrich Beck and Elisabeth Beck Gernsheim and further on the theory of François de Singly. In accord with these theorists the authoresses define individualization as a process continuously proceeding for many centuries. Among the consequences they place growing of differences between individuals, preference of individual interests to collective ones but foremost the growing possibility for free choice and decision. They also discuss the growing of uncertainty as the negative aspect of individualism. The process of individualization is irreversible and because of the ambiguity between autonomy and the fact that we are living in community, voluntary love partnerships become of crucial importance as the main pattern of social relationship in contemporary societies. ( www.genderonline.cz/view.php?cisloclanku=2005112901)