Duvall’s Theory
According to Duvall’s theory, families move through stages in a specified order after members of a family master each stage’s task (Hareven, 2019). The theory is centered on traditional intact families and concentrates on the sequential changes experienced by families in their life course. The family cycle helps to emphasize the effects of marriage, divorce, and deaths in families. The life cycle can be divided into three family formation, family expansion, and family contraction in the following stages. A family cycle can be defined as the stages of the family, including Unattached adult, marriage, childbearing and parenting, the launch of adult children, middle-aged adults, and retirement.
