59 From Mother-Care to Father-Care: The Split-Up of The Traditional Heterosexual Family Relationship and Destruction of Patriarchal Man’s Image and Identity in Nick Hornby’s About A Boy Ali Gunes This paper explores shifted views about traditional family values, its make-up, gender relations, roles and identities, together with the disintegration of the patriarchal man’s image and identity in Nick Hornby’s About A Boy. In doing so, it first looks at the contemporary family structure as well as the roles of both husband and wife in comparison with the traditional view of family. The paper also examines the ways in which Hornby represents in the novel far-reaching shifts in the position, roles, and perception of patriarchal man’s image, identity and roles in the contemporary period. Key Words: Family, single parents, gender identity and new man 1. Introduction The family, its role and function in society as well as gender relation and identity have drawn a great deal of attention from a variety of disciplines such as politic, history, sociology, religion, and arts. The people from these areas have approached the issue from various points of view as for their interest and expectations (Elliot 1986; Blake 1989; Giles 1993; Waite 1995; Collier 1995; Patterson 2002; Chambers 2006 and Collier and Sheldon 2008). For example, Norman W. Bell and Ezra F. Vogel “regard the family as a structural unit composed, as an ideal type, of a man and woman joined in a socially recognized union and their children. Normally, the children are the biological offspring of the spouses” (1960:1). Moreover, Noval D. Glenn makes a similar comment and sees it as the centre of reproduction, whose function has been of vital importance for traditional societies throughout history: The most important functions of the family in any society pertain largely to children, to the biological reproduction of the population and the cultural reproduction of the society. Families bear children, take care of their physical needs during the early helpless years, nurture them, and impart to them the most basic of the values, norms, understandings, and skills that enable them to become functioning members of society. Families also perform crucial functions for adults [...] but what they do for children is more important, if only because today's children are tomorrow’s adults. (1997: 200) As pointed out in the quotations above, the family, with its well-constructed structure, functions and roles, has a vital importance in a traditional society as being a corner stone and basis for its continuity, since it is not only a place where children are produced and brought up in a stable and secure environment, but it is also a place where moral codes, values and culture are vigilantly, carefully developed and are continually passed on from one generation to another without cessation. Hence a proper heterosexual marriage, in which husband, wife and children perform socially and culturally assigned relationships and roles, was of crucial significance for the link of stability and order from the past to the future in a traditional society.