In the mid fourth century b.c. some Roman gentes drew on a Pythagorean tradition. In this tradition, Numa's role of Pythagoras’ disciple connected Rome with Greek elites and culture. The Marcii, between 304 and 300 b.c., used Numa's figure, recently reshaped by the Aemilii and the Pinarii for their propaganda, to promote the need for a plebeian pontificate. After the approval of the Ogulnium plebiscite, the needs for this kind of propaganda fell away. When Marcius Censorinus became censor, Numa's pontificate (...) was no longer relevant for promoting the gens. For this reason, the Marcii used another genealogy for similar propagandistic effect: the figure of Marsyas, a symbol of plebeian ideals. (shrink)

This article will briefly describe the features, methods, goals of family education in ancient China, as well as the relevant educational roles of the father and mother in the family. The article will also analyze one of the most unique characteristics of ancient Chinese family education: in each family fixed a tablet with the words 天地君亲 Tian Di Jun Qin Shi. In ancient China, people believed that teachers and relatives, and heaven, earth, and monarchs, were objects (...) that people should respect and worship. Obviously, this clearly differs from the traditions of most other countries. The idea of Tian Di Jun Qin Shi first appeared in Guo Yu, and in Xunzi you can see the initial form of this thought. Over the next 2000 years, these five words penetrate deeply into people's minds, and people often mention them in their daily lives. Their importance and value in Chinese culture and Chinese life are very important and indispensable. The role played by the idea of Tian Di Jun Qin Shi in ancient Chinese family education is more effective than any classical legal practice. (shrink)

In this paper we extend Wittgenstein’s notion of family resemblance to translation, interpretation, and comparison across traditions. There is no need for universals. This holds for everyday concepts such as green and qing 青, philosophical concepts such as emotion and qing 情, as well as philosophical categories such as form of life and dao 道. These notions as well as all other concepts from whatever tradition are family resemblance concepts. We introduce the notion of quasi-universal, which connects (...) family resemblance concepts from a limited number of traditions. The possibility and necessity of extending family resemblance concepts across traditions dissolves the false antinomy of universalism versus relativism. (shrink)

The purpose of the study is to determine the compliance of the legislative interpretation of the concept of "traditional family values" with the cultural codes of legal consciousness that have developed to the current moment. In connection with this goal, the article examines the types of modern Russian family, taking into account the peculiarities of the mentality, cultural and religious traditions of the peoples of our country, analyzes the content of the norms of the Basic Law, as (...) well as other legislative acts of the Russian Federation. The scientific novelty lies in the application of the methodological tools of legal hermeneutics to determine the content of the concept of "traditional family values" and substantiate the conclusion that the transfer of this concept from broad social contacts to the field of professional legal thinking occurs in accordance with the formed cultural code. As a result of the analysis, the duality of the corresponding cultural code of legal consciousness is revealed. (shrink)

The Christian Church was intimately involved in the life of an individual within a family. Between state and church there was a mutual cooperation, the church having the right to exercise its moral jurisdiction, while the state controlled the civil and military aspects of family life, as well as children’s and wives’ inheritance and welfare. With the institution of an absolutist government in Transylvania in the 18th–19th centuries, the rela-tion between state and church changed, as the secular power (...) began to claim rights over the church and to subordinate it, limiting the coercive power of the church as a moral instrument. As the processes of secularisation and modernization gained ground, the church gradually lost its prerogatives to state institutions, a process reaching completion with the series of laws passed between 1894 and 1895 by the Hungarian state, whereby all registry documents concerning marital status, matrimony, and divorce came under state jurisdiction. (shrink)

This book defends the fundamental place of the marital family in modern liberal societies. While applauding modern sexual freedoms, John Witte, Jr also defends the traditional Western teaching that the marital family is an essential cradle of conscience, chrysalis of care, and cornerstone of ordered liberty. He thus urges churches, states, and other social institutions to protect and promote the marital family. He encourages reticent churches to embrace the rights of women and children, as Christians have long (...) taught, and encourages modern states to promote responsible sexual freedom and family relations, as liberals have long said. He counsels modern churches and states to share in family law governance, and to resist recent efforts to privatize, abolish, or radically expand the marital family sphere. Witte also invites fellow citizens to end their bitter battles over same-sex marriage and tend to the vast family field that urgently needs concerted attention and action. (shrink)

As the family is one of the few structures that survives from ancient times to the present and looks set to continue for quite some time to come, it attracts the attention of every new generation of sociologists, historians and economists alike. From Engels to Herlihy, Goody and Moxnes, the family has been held responsible for the development of private property, for forms of social organisation and the oppression of women. Those interested in the period of late antiquity (...) ask a key question: what happened to the family when polytheist views of the immortal gods were gradually replaced by a belief in Christianity? Was the family changed, and in what ways, by what is often perceived as a fundamental shift in religious understanding? Or did the development of Christian institutions merely confirm tendencies, which may be observed in the late Roman period? In his book Geoffrey S. Nathan brings theories of the family to bear on this complex problem. The introduction surveys the traditional understanding of what makes a family, as well as more recent models, setting the scene for two traditions, of which the more enduring one is not Christian. With a structure of well-planned chapters, on marriage and alternatives to marriage, children, slaves and extended family, each marked by sensible headings and conclusions, this should be a most informative presentation. But it fails to convince. (shrink)

Fustel de Coulanges' thesis that ancient society was founded upon the cult of ancestral tombs has had, for a thoroughly self-contradictory argument, a remarkably successful career. Neither Fustel himself nor the many subsequent scholars who have quoted his views with approval faced clearly the difficulty of deriving a social structure dominated by corporate descent groups from the veneration of tombs placed in individually owned landed property. On the whole, historians have tended to play down Fustel's insistence on the relation between (...) ancestor-cult and property and to exaggerate the role of the corporate kin group. This tendency, which assimilates Fustel to Sir Henry Maine and other lawyers interested in the reconstruction of Indo-European institutions has in my view considerably impeded understanding of the role of kinship in early Greek society; it also obscures one of the most individual aspects of Fustel's work which, thanks to the researches of Philippe Ariès on the development of the modern tomb-cult in the nineteenth century, can now be placed in its historical context. (shrink)

Caritas in Veritate, the first social encylical of Benedict XVI, tackles the problems of global development and progress towards the common good of all peoples. Taking its cue from the encyclical’s discussion on migration as an ‘aspect of integral human development’ this article examines the experience of contemporary migrant women and the transnational family vis-à-vis Caritas in Veritate. The paper begins with an overview of Caritas in Veritate followed by a look at the effects of the global economy on (...) women and a discussion on the effects of transnationalism to women and their families, especially with women-away transnational families. The paper then explores the points of convergence and divergence between Caritas in Veritate and the experience of migrant women and the transnational family and ends with a brief conclusion. (shrink)

This article examines L.T. Hobhouse's views on gender and the family, placing Hobhouse within a larger history of the relationship between liberalism and feminism. While Hobhouse accepts J.S. Mill's earlier advocacy of female suffrage and property rights, he abandons Mill's suspicion of gender and the family as sites of power and repression. Instead, Hobhouse's concept of social harmony leads him to idealize the nuclear family and the respective gender differences within the framework of the welfare apparatus. Hobhouse (...) is therefore one of the seams at which the critical, liberal feminist perspective espoused by Mill came apart and so precipitated the construction of a separate, feminist perspective. (shrink)

The One-Child Policy dramatically changed the Chinese family structure, and the literature indicates that only children may have an advantage in terms of family resource dilution. Moreover, as Chinese families traditionally prioritize investing in sons, only daughters are found to have been empowered by the policy because they did not need to compete with their brothers for parental investment. However, the literature is limited to only teenage children when they were still living in their parents' homes. It is (...) unclear whether—when the generation of only children grew up and married—their family structure differed from that of children with siblings and whether married only daughters retained more family resources from their parents. Based on the data analysis of a 2016 survey, “Study of Youths in 12 Cities of Mainland China,” including a sample of 1,007 fathers and 2,168 mothers born between 1975 and 1985, this study explores the empowerment of married only daughters, employing the theory of family resource dilution in expanded Chinese families. Using educational investment in children as an example, and with random intercept models, this study presents empirical evidence that the dilution of family resources in Chinese expanded families still benefits males and patrilineal practices. Thus, this study demonstrates that Chinese families still tend to sacrifice the interests of married daughters to ensure support for their adult sons. However, it also illustrates that married only daughters could still connect to their parents' resources, giving them a relatively dominant position for decision-making regarding the family's educational expenditure on her own children. Thus, this study extends our understanding of the family resource dilution theory to Chinese expanded families, underscoring the need for further research on Chinese only children after they marry and form families of their own. (shrink)

Language technology – starting from the handwriting in early ages of humanity and perfectionated in the age of social media and micro-targeting - is used to gain and maintain power, and to rebel against it. Social media such as Telegram provide a safe space for freedom fighters in authoritarian regimes but also offer a stage for extremist, aggressive and manipulative content. This work uses romantic relationships as an example topic. The article discusses how the language used shapes the interpretation of (...) political reports based on literature. Further, this work analyses metaphorical frames around the concepts related to romantic relationships and family in influential news outlets from three countries in three languages. The analysis shows that conservative political actors use similar metaphorical frames for relationship-related concepts such as LGBT and ‘traditional family’, and with similar, manipulative purposes. The results suggest that anti-democratic discourses build on exploitation of social categories rendered subordinate to men in a similar way across conservative movements. However, changes in political leadership can facilitate societal changes towards more open and more democratic societies, but they can also change cultures and traditions to suit power interests. (shrink)

Cet article examine comment, par leur discours, les femmes se construisent comme mère, dans leurs interactions avec leurs enfants adolescent-e-s, occasionnellement avec leurs maris, contribuant ainsi à la reproduction sociale des stéréotypes de masculinité et de féminité ou, au contraire, de quelle façon elles rompent avec la tradition et proposent des modèles alternatifs. Acceptent-elles ou non leur héritage symbolique en matière de genre? En voulant la reproduire, comment réinvestissent-elles la dimension genrée dans un contexte d’interactions verbales avec leurs adolescent-e-s, les (...) renvoyant ou pas à leurs « origines » culturelles? Les mères dépassent-elles le modèle de binarité des sexes traditionnel pour parvenir à un modèle agentif? À travers le continuum de normativité et d’agentivité, l’entre-deux prend tout son sens : en quoi l’imaginaire linguistique constitue-t-il un espace à construire, un « à travers »? This research paper examines the way women discursively construct themselves as mothers, in their interactions with their teenage children, and occasionally with their husbands, and the way they thus contribute to the social reproduction of manhood and womanhood stereotypes or on the contrary break with the tradition to propose alternative models. Do they or don’t they accept their symbolic heritage as regards sex and gender? While intending to reproduce this heritage, how do they reinvest the gendered dimension in the context of verbal interaction with their teen-agers, sending them back or not to their cultural “origins”? Do the mothers go beyond the traditional binary model of sex and gender to reach an agentive model? Through the continuum that goes from normativity to agentivity, the idea of an in-between stage makes sense: in what way does the linguistic imaginary constitute an area to be forged, a crossing space? (shrink)

Virtue ethics has been criticized for having little or nothing to say about contemporary moral issues. However, virtue ethics can address contemporary moral issues by evaluating social practices and institutions. Nor is virtue ethics limited to the politically conservative uses to which some theorists have put it. Indeed, virtue ethics can be a powerful engine for social progress. To illustrate, this paper will develop an Aristotelian critique of the white, middle-class, heterosexual American traditional family. The paper's critique will have (...) the fringe benefit of providing a basis for criticizing the choice of those who voluntarily opt for such families. (shrink)

Beyond reasonable doubt, the influence of Western culture and civilizations has enervated traditional African family systems, and their functions as providers of social welfare. Hitherto, traditional African family and clan by extension served as the plausible medium by which Africans proffered solutions to those social, economic and other existential problems found within their communities. However, measuring and evaluating the successes of the various social welfare programs organized by the family and clan was a difficult task to achieve. (...) It seems the services rendered merely controlled the social problems but did not improve the standard of living of the victims. This paper seeks to critically analyse the traditional African family system and its role as a provider of social welfare and argues that it can complement the Western models towards holistic social integration. Thus this work adopts the theory of change as a tool for understanding how Western models of social welfare should be integrated with traditional African approaches to care for the ‘weak’ in the society. Advocating for a paradigm shift from the modern models of providing social welfare to the traditional African family and clan model is consequent upon the claim that the latter is more embracing in approach. (shrink)

The family is hotly contested ideological terrain. Some defend the traditional two-parent heterosexual family while others welcome its demise. Opinions vary about how much control parents should have over their children's upbringing. Family Values provides a major new theoretical account of the morality and politics of the family, telling us why the family is valuable, who has the right to parent, and what rights parents should—and should not—have over their children. Harry Brighouse and Adam Swift (...) argue that parent-child relationships produce the "familial relationship goods" that people need to flourish. Children's healthy development depends on intimate relationships with authoritative adults, while the distinctive joys and challenges of parenting are part of a fulfilling life for adults. Yet the relationships that make these goods possible have little to do with biology, and do not require the extensive rights that parents currently enjoy. Challenging some of our most commonly held beliefs about the family, Brighouse and Swift explain why a child's interest in autonomy severely limits parents' right to shape their children's values, and why parents have no fundamental right to confer wealth or advantage on their children. Family Values reaffirms the vital importance of the family as a social institution while challenging its role in the reproduction of social inequality and carefully balancing the interests of parents and children. (shrink)

The government of Bangladesh approved the human organ transplantation law in 1999 and updated it in 2018. This legislation approved both living‐related donor and posthumous organ transplantation. The law only allows family members to legally donate organs to their relatives. The main focus of this study was to explore how Bangladeshis make donation decisions on familial organs for transplantation. My ethnographic fieldwork with forty participants (physicians and nurses, a healthcare administrator, organ donors, recipients, and their relatives) disclosed that the (...) organ donation decision was family‐based. An assessment of the relationship between religion, culture, and biomedicine leads to the conclusion that deciding on donating organs to relatives is primarily family‐based and is perceived to be steeped in Islamic ethical principles and religious cultural tradition. The family‐based consent and motivation for donor‐recipient pair organ transplantation strengthen an altruistic environment for the family and act as the moral and legal authority that ensures ethical healthcare outcomes for Bangladeshis. (shrink)

Family Values shows how the various contradictions at the heart of Western conceptions of maternity and paternity problematize our relationships with ourselves and with others. Using philosophical texts, psychoanalytic theory, studies in biology and popular culture, Kelly Oliver challenges our traditional concepts of maternity which are associated with nature, and our conceptions of paternity which are embedded in culture. Oliver's intervention calls into question the traditional image of the oppositional relationship between nature and culture, maternal and paternal. Family (...) Values also undercuts recent returns to the rhetoric of a "battle between the sexes" by analyzing the conceptual basis of these descriptions in biological research and the presuppositions of such suggestions in philosophy and psychoanalysis. By developing a reconception of maternity and paternity, Family Values offers hope for peace in the battle of the sexes. (shrink)

(2007). The Act of Lawyering and the Art of Communication: An Essay on Families-in-Crisis, the Adversarial Tradition, and the Social Work Model. Legal Ethics: Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 176-192.

Experiences of substitute decision-makers with requests for consent to non-therapeutic research participation during the dying process, including to what degree such requests are perceived as burdensome, have not been well described. In this study, we explored the lived experiences of family members who consented to non-therapeutic research participation on behalf of an imminently dying patient. We interviewed 33 family members involved in surrogate research consent decisions for dying patients in intensive care. Non-therapeutic research involved continuous physiological monitoring of (...) dying patients prior to and for 30 min following cessation of circulation. At some study centres participation involved installation of bedside computers. At one centre electroencephalogram monitoring was used with a subset of participants. Aside from additional monitoring, the research protocol did not involve deviations from usual end-of-life care. Thematic analysis of interviews suggests most family members did not perceive this minimal-risk, non-therapeutic study to affect their time with patients during the dying process, nor did they perceive research consent as an additional burden. In our analysis, consenting for participation in perimortem research offered families of the dying an opportunity to affirm the intrinsic value of patients’ lives and contributions. This opportunity may be particularly important for families of patients who consented to organ donation but did not proceed to organ retrieval. Our work supports concerns that traditional models of informed consent fail to account for possible benefits and harms of perimortem research to surviving families. Further research into consent models which integrate patient and family perspectives is needed. All data relevant to the study are included in the article. (shrink)

So-called family values and their part in education are considered. ‘Traditional’‘modern’ and ‘deviant’ patterns of family relationships are discussed and the moral superiority of the first is questioned. The single life without family involvement is also proposed as a possibly fulfilling mode of existence in its own right.

Cases of non-traditional family-making offer a rich seam for thinking about normative parenthood. Gamete donors are genetically related to the resulting offspring but are not thought to be normative parents. Gestational surrogates are also typically not thought to be normative parents, despite having gestated a child. Adoptive parents are typically thought to be normative parents even though they are neither genetically nor gestationally related to their child. Philosophers have paid attention to these kinds of cases. But they have not (...) paid attention to what the people who have engaged in these forms of family-making have to say about what they’re doing and, more specifically, how they answer the questions: “Who is the normative parent? And why?” Paying attention to their answers reveals two things. First, accounts of parenthood from people involved in two forms of non-traditional family-making – reproduction with gestational surrogacy and reproduction with donated eggs – are mutually inconsistent. This is not surprising. What is surprising is that the contradictory aspects of the views evince a common commitment to, as I shall put it, naturalizing parenthood. The central goal of this paper is to explain what that means, but rough idea is that in naturalizing parenthood, prospective parents aim to put the features that make someone a normative parent beyond the reach of human agency. I conclude by briefly suggesting that we should think of the grounds of normative parenthood – and the very task of theorizing about the grounds of normative parenthood – in a way that avoids the need to naturalize altogether. (shrink)

Family laws concern relationships, belief, and values, and reflect the social diversities as well as a dynamic nature. This article analyses the relationship between family and the state that emerges at the juncture of the conformation of family dynamics to the social benchmark of codes. It opens up with the discussion of three central concerns of empirical work: the first two arise from demographic change reflected in marriage breakdown and its consequences for finance and parenting. The third (...) strand deals with criminal law and is concerned with the protection of children from abuse and neglect. This article emphasizes the contribution of research to policy development and evaluation. It reviews the gaps in current empirical work with particular attention to the delivery of family justice through both traditional mechanisms and alternative methods of dispute resolution. Finally, it offers implications of the body of empirical work for the development of a theoretical framework for family justice. (shrink)

Family laws concern relationships, belief, and values, and reflect the social diversities as well as a dynamic nature. This article analyses the relationship between family and the state that emerges at the juncture of the conformation of family dynamics to the social benchmark of codes. It opens up with the discussion of three central concerns of empirical work: the first two arise from demographic change reflected in marriage breakdown and its consequences for finance and parenting. The third (...) strand deals with criminal law and is concerned with the protection of children from abuse and neglect. This article emphasizes the contribution of research to policy development and evaluation. It reviews the gaps in current empirical work with particular attention to the delivery of family justice through both traditional mechanisms and alternative methods of dispute resolution. Finally, it offers implications of the body of empirical work for the development of a theoretical framework for family justice. (shrink)

The modern concept of ‘family’ in the United States recognizes many types of social groups as families, a conceptual shift which was largely helped along by advancements in assisted reproductive technologies enabling those formerly unable to biologically reproduce to have children, as well as by social movements aimed at garnering recognition for these emergent nonbiologically related social groups spearheaded by LGBTQ+ and adoption activists. That these social groups are now recognized as types of families is unquestionably an improvement to (...) the concept, though there are still defects in the concept that preclude these nonnuclear families from achieving the same social–ontological status as nuclear families. Drawing from the nascent philosophical field of conceptual engineering, I analyze our current conception of ‘family’ and argue that it is tacitly exclusionary of nonnuclear families, which can be attributed to a combination of widespread genetic essentialism and linguistic practices that unduly cast the nuclear family as a more desirable type of family by emphasizing genetic relatedness as a valuable quality. I then offer proposals to ameliorate these defects, such as educational interventions to reduce genetic essentialism and the introduction of new terminology that does not connote one type of family as being superior to another. In doing so, my hope is to reveal and begin to resolve an overlooked defect in the concept of ‘family’ in order to bolster the movement to view all families as equal. (shrink)

How should families be constructed? Does it matter if we choose to ignore ‘blood ties’ and raise children without their genetic parents? The debate over a recent court ruling allowing single and lesbian women access to assisted reproductive technologies (ART’s) illustrates two possible answers to this question. Many of those opposed to the ruling argue that the traditional biological family is the natural family unit and the ideal family form, which should be preserved. Amongst those in favour (...) it is argued that families are not defined by nature but culturally constructed, that the traditional biological family is just one possible family form and that the way families are arranged is a matter of personal preference. This paper argues that questions about the importance of preserving the biological family rest largely on the value we attribute to genetic relatedness and not on whether the family is a natural or cultural construct. I argue against the claim that genetic relatedness and biological families are so important to children’s welfare that lesbian and single women should be denied access to ARTs. (shrink)

This article focuses on the book collection whose history began in the mid-eighteenth century and despite certain losses continues nowadays 1. This is a sole known book gathering that belonged to the Ukrainian ruling dynasty and still finds itself in the possession of the family. The Counts Razumovsky, who trace their ancestry from the hetman Kyrylo Rozumovsky (1728– 1803), held first-class libraries in their Ukrainian, Russian, Austrian, and Czech estates during almost three centuries. However, it is only the Viennese (...) collection that survived the tough twentieth century and sheds light on the bookish tastes of its aristocratic proprietors. At the same time, the catalogues of 1907 and 1914 reveal the repertoire of the lost assemblages, offering a broader exploration of the family book tradition possible. The theoretical frame of the lecture refers to the contemporary memory studies with a special attention to family memory. (shrink)

The Confucian family, not only in its historical manifestations but also in the imagination of the Confucian founders, was the locus of misogynist norms and practices that have subjugated women in varying degrees. Therefore, advancing women’s well-being and equality in East Asia may seem to require radically transforming the Confucian family to approximate alternative ideal conceptions of the family in the West. This article opposes such a stance by arguing that (1) Western conceptions of the family (...) may be neither plausible nor feasible in traditionally Confucian societies and (2) the Confucian family, once reconstructed in line with Confucianism’s core ideas and values, can be conducive to a feminist future in East Asia that is uniquely Confucian. In order to support my position, not only influential contemporary Western ideal conceptions of the family from the justice perspective and care ethics, but also different interpretations of the Confucian family will be carefully examined. (shrink)

Character and culture describe man both as an active and a passive agent in life. It is by being fashioned by culture that man cultivates character and by the use of this character so acquired that he develops and upgrades his culture; for culture is dynamic, that is elastic; as such there is need for eternal vigilance on the part of man to see his culture evolve and become better at every point in time. This can come about either spontaneously (...) or through an agency; it is the duty of an agency to act upon what is given, required to produce a good result, in our instance to act on Igbo-African family values. This entails a dialogue of man and his milieu, for character grows form a healthy and salutary agent, so knowledge of, belief in and application of values is indeed a precondition. (shrink)

In the traditions of narrative ethics and casuistry, stories have a well-established role. Specifically, illness narratives provide insight into patients’ perspectives and histories. However, because they tend to see fiction as an aesthetic endeavour, practitioners in these traditions often do not realize that fictional stories are valuable moral sources of their own. In this paper I employ two arguments to show the mutual relationship between bioethics and fiction, specifically, science fiction. First, both discourses use imagination to set a (...) scene and determine a perspective. Second, bioethics and science fiction share the family resemblance of expressing moral beliefs. I then consider how understanding bioethics and science fiction as interrelated discourses can be the basis of a methodology for inquiry into relational autonomy in the context of biotechnologies and medicine. As an example of this methodology, I analyse Fay Weldon’s novel The Cloning of Joanna May (1989). (shrink)

Modern times are an arena for two opposing trends: the liberalization of mores and laws, and the distancing of changes and adoption of a conservative position against those that occur. Polish family law clearly fails to keep pace with the changes taking place and does not perceive new phenomena. Is this an intentional act of the legislator leading to the preservation of traditional values, or the expression of disapproval and belief in the transitoriness of new phenomena? It comes together (...) with the introduction of new terminology or new interpretations of already existing concepts. Hence the meaning of some of the current concepts in everyday language differs significantly from their meaning arising from legal instruments. The article is an attempt to deal with this problem. (shrink)

_In _Diverse Families, Desirable Schools_, Mira Debs offers a richly detailed study of public Montessori schools, which make up the largest group of progressive schools in the public sector._ As public Montessori schools expand rapidly as alternatives to traditional public schools, the story of these schools, Debs points out, is a microcosm of the broader conflicts around public school choice. Drawing on historical research, interviews with public Montessori educators, and ethnographic case studies, Debs explores the forces that pull intentionally diverse, (...) progressive schools toward elitism. At the heart of Debs’s book is a thoughtful analysis of the notion of “fit” between parents and schools—an idea that is central to school choice, which is often marketed as an opportunity for parents to find the perfect fit for their kids. By exploring parents’ varied motivations in choosing these schools and observing how families experience—or fail to experience—a “good fit” _after_ having chosen a particular school, Debs makes an original contribution to the literature on school choice and sheds light on the dilemmas entailed in maintaining diversity in progressive charter and magnet schools. (shrink)

Gamete donation from third parties is controversial in China as it severs blood ties, which are considered of utmost importance in Confucian tradition. In recent years, infertile couples are increasingly demonstrating a preference for the use of gametes donated by family members to conceive children—known as “intra-family gamete donation.” The main advantage of intra-family gamete donation is that it maintains blood ties between children and both parents. To date there is no practice of intra-family gamete donation (...) in China. In this paper, we investigate intra-family adoption in China in order to illustrate that intra-family gamete donation is consistent with Confucian tradition regarding the importance of maintaining blood ties within the family. There are several specific ethical issues raised by intra-family gamete donation. It may, for example, result in consanguinity and the semblance of incest, lead to confused family relationships, and raise concerns about possible coercion of familial donors. Confucian tradition provides a new approach to understand and deal with these ethical issues in a way that Western tradition does not. As a result, we suggest intra-family gamete donation could be an acceptable solution to the problem of infertility in China. However, further discussion and open debates on the ethical issues raised by intra-family gamete donation are needed in China. (shrink)

A defense of the modern family, in historical perspective, this book reconstructs political theory with the family in an important and honorable place. By reviewing critically both traditional and contemporary thought on the most special relationships—as well as current public policy issues relating to them—the author addresses concerns shared by professional and lay constituencies. Noting Tocqueville's observation of the American obsession with reevaluating and remodeling the family, Professor Abbott pleads for a balanced view. The development of liberal (...) ambivalence toward the family, along with radical hostility toward it, is clearly traced. For the most part the family was safely incorporated into political theory from Aristotle to Cicero and onward to Augustine and Aquinas until modern times. Then came the challenges of the rational individualists and the romantic individualists, followed by the attacks of social and psychological radicals. Some traditional criticisms of the family are shown to be soundly based, albeit less devastating than the critics supposed. As expanded in contemporary life, however, the great critics' revisionist models take on a fantastic quality. Here we are introduced to pleas for the "eroticization of children" and for freedom from "tyranny of reproductive biology." Proposals for new bureaucratic support structures appear with great frequency: professional guardians, children's camps, cloning hospitals. And people try to act out the roles prescribed for them by theorists who attempted "to set the solitary in new and different units." Liberals and radicals, the author argues, are infatuated with a "rights model," which "takes as its basis self-sufficient rational human beings"—at the expense of "solidarity among human beings." A tradition exists, Professor Abbott holds, that facilitates reconciliation between the modern family and the political order: pluralism. Pluralism is an attempt to balance individual autonomy and mutuality, decentralization and stratification, reform and tradition, reason and sentiment. Public policy in respect to schools, housing, health care, working conditions, and recreation should be designed to foster a pluralistic family-centered society. In line with this thesis the author offers a fresh perspective on such burning issues as abortion, sexual preference, alternative lifestyles, child abuse, and children's rights. _The Family on Trial _therefore is relevant to the concerns of social and behavioral scientists, the helping professions and the clergy, teachers and parents. (shrink)