Over the last few decades, several changes have transformed both the structures and the dynamics of conjugal life. The decline of marriage and of the birth-rate, the increase in the number of divorces and remarriages, and the emergence of alternative life-styles for couples, are all changes which have influenced the format of family trajectories and transformed the way individual and family lives mesh together. In this context of rapid social change, this project has a triple objective. Its main purpose is to analyze the pluralization of conjugal forms and trajectories. Secondly, it also intends to investigate the linkages between conjugal life courses and social networks, whether based on family or social ties (such as friendship or vicinity relations), whether centred on support or conviviality. As fundamental changes have also taken place in the social networks of which individuals are a part throughout their lives, it has become increasingly important to observe the connections between conjugal trajectories and networks. Furthermore, we will also be looking at the linkages between conjugality and the building up of gender identities, which are particularly affected by both social and biographical times. By taking the individual, and not the couple, as the main unit of analysis, we aim at reconstituting different patterns of conjugal trajectories as well as identifying several forms of interaction between individuals and their social networks and plural ways of constructing oneself as a man or as a woman. As a result, we compare men and women with different conjugal trajectories, from those who stay married (with our without children) to those who experience a post-rupture situation (either living alone or in lone parent families), expecting to observe the differential impact of those conjugal trajectories on both social networks and gender identities. These connections are observed in four key areas: the relations of support and conviviality; the norms and the practices of family interaction; the articulation between family life and professional life; gender identities and the key references used to build up gendered individualities in public and private lives. In sum, the project's chief objective is to investigate the impact of social changes which have occurred in Portuguese society on conjugal trajectories, social networks and gender identities. Firstly, we start by observing, extensively, the changes happening in conjugal life, in order to identify different patterns of conjugal trajectories and transitions. Individuals may have entered marital life and parental life differently; some of them may have divorced and remarried or not. At present, their family situation is the result of all these life events. Through this first analytical step, we are allowed to evaluate both the pluralisation of conjugal trajectories and the emergence of the so called new family forms. In the second stage of the research, we intend to analyse in-depth how men and women with different conjugal biographies are building up their social ties and their gender-oriented identities. It is expected that conjugal life courses will have a significant effect on both the dimensions. Our key hypothesis implies that different conjugal life courses and turning point events (such as divorce) have an important impact on individual's present condition, affecting their values and norms, their practices and personal relationships. From a methodological point of view the project approaches conjugal trajectories, social networks and gender identities within the framework of two other social cleavages: gender and class. We will accordingly select men and women from different social milieus and generations. These generations of men and women, who have entered adult life in different historical periods (before the seventies, right after the democratic revolution and in the eighties and nineties) will also be living in different family in various types of households (solo or as couples, with or without children). The methodological strategy involves the combination of different techniques: analysis of available family statistics (demographic statistics and census) and survey data is combined with qualitative data collected through in-depth interviews with men and women with different social, generational and conjugal profiles.