The Family, Civil Society, and the State

The exact place of the family in a healthy political community, and the appropriate way to sustain it, are profoundly complicated and difficult questions. The distinguished contributors to this book endeavor to provide some answers. The first part of the book explores what is distinctive in the current situation of the family, and offers both optimistic and pessimistic assessments of the family in our time, as well as a historical overview. In the second part, authors look at the family today; demographics, economics, and social pathologies are all discussed. Part three offers analysis of the family and American law, especially the law of divorce, and the fourth part deals with the relationship between the family and two profoundly important facets of the structural framework of American life: our capitalist economic system and the cultural power of the media. Finally, the fifth part surveys the various areas of public policy, and concludes by asking whether, and what, public policy can do for the family. This is an important book for sociologists, legal scholars, political scientists, educators, and anyone concerned about the state of the family in America today.