蜜芽传媒

Journalist and commentator Zoe Strimpel is asking thought provoking questions about the family in contemporary British life. Today, she looks at what happens when societal expectations of married life aren't met, and the fall out for unhappy couples and their children.

In her specially commissioned series for Radio 4, Zoe Strimpel grapples with the role of the family in contemporary British society. Across the five episodes she considers a number of thorny themes. First of all Strimpel looks at the enduring appeal of marriage for those couples who have decided to tie the knot, she then turns her attention to what happens after the wedding presents have been opened and family life begins. The gendered case for the family is under the spot light as she assesses the seismic social changes that have taken place in the wake of Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex and Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique. Later in the series she'll ask about the outcomes for children caught in the crossfire of warring parents who live apart, or under the same roof, and lastly she'll consider alternatives to the conventional nuclear family.

Zoe Strimpel is an author, newspaper columnist and broadcaster. She has a PhD in modern British history and the history of feminism, gender and intimacy.

The producer is Elizabeth Allard