Many theorists and researchers have studied families and I have concluded that there is no comprehensive definition of the family that applies to everyone. The Vanier Institute of the Family (1994) however stated that "Family is defined as any combination of two or more persons who are bound together over time by ties of mutual consent, birth, and/or adoption/placement"(p. 6). This definition specifically talks about the current family and not of families in the past. Families of the past were very different from the types of families that we live in now. The word family and what was included in the family has changed significantly over time. Throughout the centuries some examples of the different family types were; the hunter-gathers, the agricultural family, the pre-industrial family, and the urban industrial family. Although these families were very different from one another they were all still called families. As one can see the family institution has not disappeared from past families, although the definition of the family has changed, the fact the people raise and support each other as a family will not.