We live in an age where the importance of family values is declining in society. Divorce rates are at an all time

high, couples are marrying on average at older ages and the number of single parent families has increased. Overall the proportion of people in happy marriages has declined rapidly. Along with the overall decline of the family, there have been changes in accepted norms with regard to women’s dress code and the participation of women in the work place. Similarly the last century has also seen a dramatic change in sexual attitudes with respect to homosexuality, sex outside of marriage and pornography.

One only has to look back a 100 years and the situation, even in the United States, was very different and the society was a lot more conservative. The material in this section discusses the Islamic position on these issues.