Nothing can be compromised with safety, especially when it comes... your love ones. If you can get a 4x4, please do so as you will appreciate it more later. Is it a must to have, probably not.
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In that case you should just drive a military tank, just in case you hit a patch of ice or drive through an unexpected war zone on your daily commute. The reality is, everyone compromises on safety somewhat, otherwise they would have an all wheel drive Volvo with studded snow tires driven by a professional driver in their own private motorcade.
But seriously, 4WD is a false sense of security. It makes it harder to slide on acceleration, when not being able to accelerate is generally not dangerous*. It does not make it any harder to slide when braking or turning, when not being able to turn or brake is very bad!
There are benefits to 4WD, but the safety benefit of it is overstated. 4WD is good to be able to go farther in worse conditions with less chance of getting stuck. If I really cared about safety, I would stay at home rather than go out in bad conditions. It generally doesn't protect you from sliding off the road or sliding into another car, and it doesn't keep you from getting hit by some other person who doesn't know how to drive in snow or has a poorly maintained car with bald tires or whatever.
*I'm sure someone will disagree with this, and there may be rare cases where being to accelerate quicker improves safety, but generally it's not necessary. Big 18 wheelers might take up to a minute to reach 60mph, yet they rarely get in accidents even in the city. You can almost always wait for a bigger space instead of pulling out in front of someone. And if you are trying to avoid an accident, the brakes will change your velocity much faster than the accelerator, and with no electronic lag from the engine and transmission.
