Stephanie Coontz analyzes the role of family over time, tracking the events in history that caused family to develop into the sentimental term it means today. Coontz delineates the gradual evolution of the family unit from its original form of the members of the household (including extended family, servants, as well as the parents and children) to what is now known as the “nuclear family,” or the parent and their children. The author uses the example of the industrialization of America to depict the impact the increased need for cheap labor in factories had on the family. While lower-income families resorted to working (both the husband and wife), in middle-class families the role of the wife became that of the caretaker and “emotional center”