Abstract: With the development of economy and globalization, cross-cultural communication has become an important part of people’s daily life, but there are some invisible cultural barriers between Chinese and the Western people. This may cause many problems in people’s life. It is important for us to know the cultural differences between China and the West. Family, as the basic social institution and the cell of the society, reflects the cultural characteristics, morality, and religious belief. Therefore, from the perspective of family, we could know the cultural differences deeply. This paper attempts to make a constructive study of Chinese and American family values, including the attitude to marriage, relationships between family members, and family education; it makes an analysis of the reasons for these differences from three aspects comprising history, religion and world outlook, and helps people get a better understanding of Chinese and the Western cultures.
Key words: family values; marriage; family member’s relationship; education; reasons

摘要：随着经济和全球化的发展，跨文化交际成为人们日常生活中的重要部分，但是在中西方人际交往中任然存在着一些隐形的障碍，这可能会导致人们在生活交往中存在误会。因此，了解中西方文化差异对我们来说是非常重要的。家庭是社会的基本组成单位，是社会的细胞，反映了它所处社会的文化特征、道德信仰，所以从家庭价值观的角度，我们可以更加深入地了解文化差异。本文尝试从中西方婚姻观念、家庭成员关系，以及教育观念差异三个方面进行研究，并且从历史因素、宗教因素、世界观价值观因素三个方面分析造成差异的原因，帮助人们对中西方文化有更好的了解。
关键词：家庭价值观；婚姻；家庭成员关系；教育；原因