Changing face of society

The composition of British society has changed so fast in the past 35 years that the term "traditional family household" is increasingly meaningless. The neat symmetry of "maw, paw and the weans" has given way to a mosaic of different household structures. Today, barely one-third of us live in such households, compared with more than half in 1971, according to the latest edition of Social Trends from the Office for National Statistics.