This article provides an overview of the family relations theory in the framework of relational sociology, constructed at the end of the last century by an Italian philosopher and sociologist Pierpaolo Donati (born 1946). Family relations are considered as the foundation necessary for personality development. According to Donati’s theory, the basis of the family, in turn, is the so-called «couple genome» – a set of a kind of «genes» needed to construct full value family relations. It is a kind of ideal that does not have any universal embodiment; it cannot be associated with a particular historical family form. This also applies to the so-called traditional family, idealization of which Donati and his adherents deny. At the same time, Donati proposes to distinguish between the literal and figurative use of the word depending on which the genome elements are represented in a particular family. The purpose of relational sociology of the family is to bring the family in the true sense of the word to the conscious, reflective creation of relations based on its primary task – the personality formation.