As we know, we all are living in the modern society in today's world. People are choosing different types of education degrees, getting different kinds of jobs, taking a variety of transportation, tasting food from other countries, learning the news from the world through the internet media every day. We already get used to the way we live now but maybe some people will have such doubts: what kind of society that is before the modern society and how did the ancient people live? The following essay will compare the difference between traditional and modern society, specifically focusing on the change of family pattern, the role of women in society, child labour, mass consumption and other relevant aspects. By analyzing those characteristics of the two kinds of societies, it will become obvious that modern society has been more advanced than traditional society.
In the first place, family pattern has huge difference between traditional and modern society. In traditional society, family is the basic strength to maintain the condensation of the whole society, the family is actually a community including every aspect of people's life, is not just a reproductive unit, but also a social, religious, political and even entertainment unit. In traditional society, there are always three or more generations in the family and it provides the strong binding between each member. According to Campbell, the family was regard as a corporate group, the property of the family is owned corporately. (Campbell,1996, p189), each family member is work for the family and the need of family always overrides the need of the individual, life is not about happiness, enjoy but about fulfill obligation and duty. Everyone made great self-sacrifices for the family. As Campbell mentioned that "the solidarity of the family group restricts the expression of purely individual feelings, opinions, and personality.