Great strides have been made in family theory and methods in the past 30 years. The works of W. J. Goode, Bernard Farber, Reuben Hill and recent feminist scholars have advanced theories concerning many aspects of the family. This chapter is intended to remind us that theorizing about the family has a long and rich history. The sociocultural milieu surveyed here is primarily that of the great thinkers of Western civilization such as Plato, Aristotle, and Rousseau, who described, defined, and commented on family life. While we would like to avoid continuing a Euro-Caucasian focus in the study of human thought, our own education and experiences have this bias. Non-Western thinkers are incorporated whenever possible, but we must acknowledge that the classical theories discussed here were promulgated by theorists who were primarily male, white, and Western, for the consumption of an audience that was primarily male, white, and Western.