Abstract The objective of the work reported was to show the transformations the research shows about the family and to identify if couples without children are considered as an emerging typology of family configuration. The importance of the relationship between the categories of family and a couple without children is that this is a time when a significant reduction in the birth rate can be seen worldwide. Furthermore, households made up of couples who state that they do not want to have children also represent a striking increase. On the other hand, this phenomenon has led to the emergence of research categories such as DINK, Childfree and NoMo families, which converge in the increase of couples without children and of women who do not wish to have children. From a documentary research under the modality of the state of the art, 35 articles were collected for this study between 1992 and 2017, which were analyzed from a hermeneutic perspective from the thematic nuclei “definition and transformation of the concept of ‘family’” and “Research perspectives on the relationship between childless couples and family”. The search required the following categories in Spanish and English: “significado de familia/meaning of family”, “definición de familia/definition of family”, “concepto de familia/family concept”, “parejas sin hijos/couple without children/childfree/NoMo”, “nuevas tipologías familiares/new family typologies”, “familia DINK/DINK family” y “familia moderna/modern family”. The databases taken into account for the study were Scopus, SciELO, Dialnet Plus, Psicodoc, EBSCO, DOAJ, Redalyc and Google Academic. Most research agrees that consanguinity and procreation are no longer essential criteria for forming a family, and thus, couples without children are constituted as a new family typology characterized by more equitable, consensual and democratic ways of making decisions. The main reason for this change is the new place that women have conquered in society after decades of struggle for their rights, favoring a questioning of the patriarchal system and the hegemonic model of the family called the nuclear family. The discussions about gender imaginaries that began with greater force in the 20th century, give a place to women in working life that, over time, has favored a questioning about the relationship between motherhood and being a woman. Research presents different criteria to define the family, which shows that this is a time when there is not one model but several family models. For its part, this diversity has been expressed not only in the dimension of social representations but also in the legal sphere; This is expressed this way, since several investigations in the field of law show transformations in Latin American constitutions by ways of understanding the family in a more plural way and based on fundamental rights. Finally, the collection of research shows that the study on the category of couples without children is incipient, that is, it corresponds to a phenomenon that, despite enjoying statistical evidence, can be considered emergent in culture insofar as its relevance corresponds to the last decades. Most studies that deal directly or indirectly with the category of childless couple, consider this form of bond as a form of family and explain how at this time this definition is mainly determined by affective criteria, values built between the members, and relational dynamics; leaving in the background the criteria of consanguinity or kinship from the nuclear model.

Resumen El objetivo del trabajo que se informa fue mostrar cuáles son las transformaciones que las investigaciones manifiestan sobre la familia e identificar si las parejas sin hijos son consideradas como una tipología emergente de configuración familiar. A partir de una investigación documental al modo de estado del arte, se recolectaron 35 artículos entre 1992 y 2017, que se analizaron desde una perspectiva hermenéutica a partir de los núcleos temáticos “definición y transformación del concepto de ‘familia’” y “perspectivas investigativas en torno a la relación entre parejas sin hijos y familia”. La mayoría concuerda con que la consanguinidad y la procreación ya no son criterios indispensables para conformar una familia, y así, las parejas sin hijos se constituyen como una nueva tipología familiar que se caracteriza por modos más equitativos, consensuales y democráticos de tomar decisiones; todo esto, bajo el contexto social de una profunda transformación de los roles de género desde el siglo XX.

Abstract The article presents a strategy for interventions on family violence, starting from a conceptual resignification of the notion of violence and a proposition regarding its function and meaning. Violence is conceived as a force of symbolic nature that is inherent to the family system and has the function of maintaining, modifying or substituting the bonds, thus resulting in their reorganization. Its sense is approached under the connotations of meaning, purpose, and orientation, that constitute the discursive nature which violence entails given its symbolic quality. The intervention is supported in an analytical model that privileges the subjects’ words. Through the analysis, subjects will understand how their family history, the places and functions of its members, the way these are carried out, and their expectations about them, favor the expression of violence as a means of facing the failure of every familiar system.

Resumen El artículo presenta una estrategia de intervención sobre la violencia intrafamiliar a partir de una resignificación conceptual de la noción de violencia y el planteamiento de su función y sentido. La violencia se entiende como una fuerza de carácter simbólico inherente al sistema familiar, que cumple la función de mantener, modificar o sustituir los vínculos, teniendo como efecto su reorganización. El sentido es abordado bajo las acepciones de significación, propósito y orientación que constituyen el carácter discursivo bajo el cual se manifiesta la violencia. La intervención tiene como base un modelo analítico que privilegia la palabra de los sujetos. Mediante el análisis, ellos comprenderán de qué manera su historia familiar, los lugares y funciones de sus integrantes, el modo de desempeñarlos y sus expectativas sobre aquellos, favorecen la expresión de la violencia como un modo de hacer frente a la falla propia de todo sistema familiar.

Abstract The goal of this paper is to analyze the Colombian public policies (laws) related to the intervention on the interdomestic violence (IDV), starting for the conceptions of function and the meaning of domestic violence. The first section contains a critical review on legislation (public policies) about the IDV, more importantly in the national ambit of Colombia: law 294 of 1996 of the IDV law (reformed for the law 575 of 2000), and law 1257 of 2008, from which several laws have developed, regarding sensitization, prevention and sanction of different ways of violence and discrimination against women. Also, the penal code and the penal procedure were also reformed, and law 294 of 1996 and other dispositions were dictated. This public policies are reviewed critically, with the final purpose of identifying the common features that prevent or make the approach of the violent phenomenon more difficult. In this sense, the weaknesses of the public policies that exist in Colombia for the intervention on the IDV are found to be: 1.- state actions (public policies) imply the traditional conception that violence equals aggression; 2.- it is necessary and possible to eradicate the violence from the family ties. 3.- derived from the above, a sanction and penal emphasis are made as the best way to eradicate IDV; 4.- it is considered that the principal victim f this phenomenon it is the women, whence, in the public politics it is predominant the conception of a single gender, both in its conception and in its intervention; 5.- the conciliation processes are used as the best mechanism for supervision of the IDV, and finally, 6.- in public politics it is first the informative perspective, characterized for show a traditional conception of violence through psychosocial interventions, trainings and educational material; it concludes, in this section, that the understanding, explanation and intervention of the violent phenomenon has been dominated for a traditional conception of violence that, matching it with aggression or pretending its eradication, sustains the public politics strategies in the intervention of IDV of Colombia. In the second part f this paper work, and with the finality of showing the implication of the way that is conceived the violence present in the characteristics of the public politics here addressed is conceived the family as a composite system for elements of symbolic character that are articulated each from certain structure principles; said principles are: incompleteness of the system, lack of identity of the elements, covariance of the elements and dynamism of the system. The above, offers the basis for pointing the possible consequences of the law, that, as a public policies promote a particular way of contextualize and intervene IDV and allow to analyze the implications of the public policies from a renewed way of understanding the function and the sense of the violent phenomenon inside the family. This implications allow to consider: the consequences about public policies and its impact on IDV the compare violence and aggression, the impossibility of eradicate the IDV, it is consider that the penal sanction is insufficient in the IDV intervention, the consequences of the primacy of the perspective of a single gender in public policies on IDV, it is reflected that the conciliation processes do not allow to understand the complex role played by the IDV, and finally, it is considered necessary to overcome the merely informative perspective on the IDV; At the same time, alternatives are outlined that could overcome these weaknesses. It is concluded that the way in which IDV has been conceived and the intervention that has derived from it, has made it difficult to understand the function and meaning of violence within family ties and has prevented more efficient interventions within the family.

Resumen El objetivo del presente trabajo es analizar en Colombia las políticas públicas (leyes) relacionadas con la intervención de la violencia intrafamiliar (VIF) a partir de las concepciones de función y sentido de la violencia en la familia. Se hace una revisión crítica de las leyes (políticas públicas) sobre la VIF más importantes en el ámbito nacional colombiano, con el fin de identificar las características más comunes que impiden o dificultan un mejor abordaje del fenómeno violento y se esbozan alternativas que podrían superarlas. Se concluye que la forma en que se ha concebido la violencia intrafamiliar y la intervención que se ha derivado de ella ha dificultado comprender la función y el sentido que tiene la violencia dentro de los vínculos familiares y ha impedido intervenciones más eficientes en el interior de las familias.