Volume 29, Number 4 · March 18, 1982
Farewell to the Family?
By Andrew Hacker
Marriage Divorce Remarriage
by Andrew J. Cherlin
Harvard University Press, 142 pp., $14.50
What's Happening to the American Family
by Sar A. Levitan, by Richard S. Belous
Johns Hopkins University Press, 224 pp., $16.50; $5.95 (paper)
Singled Out: A Civilized Guide to Sex and Sensibility for the Suddenly Single Man or Woman
by Richard Schickel
Viking, 128 pp., $8.95
America Now: The Anthropology of a Changing Culture
by Marvin Harris
Simon & Schuster, 208 pp., $12.95
The Inner American: A Self-Portrait from 1957 to 1976
by Joseph Veroff, by Elizabeth Douvan, by Richard Kulka
Basic Books, 637 pp., $36.00
The Futility of Family Policy
by Gilbert Y. Steiner
Brookings Institution, 221 pp., $15.95; $5.95 (paper)
Friends as Family
by Karen Lindsey
Beacon, 282 pp., $14.50
Marital Status and Living Arrangements
Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports Series P-20, No. 365
US Government Printing Office, 63 pp., $4.25
Household and Family Characteristics
Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports Series P-20, No. 366
US Government Printing Office, 235 pp., $6.50
Money Income and Poverty Status of Families and Persons
Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports Series P-60, No. 127
US Government Printing Office, 42 pp., $3.00
It is hardly news that families are not what they used to be. In fact, as Christopher Lasch put it, 'the family has been slowly coming apart for more than a hundred years.'[1] If that is so, its fragmentation is nothing sudden or new. Scholars can always find some century-old statement deploring the demise of hearth and home. At the same time others argue, as Mary Jo Bane did through her title, that the family is 'Here to Stay.'[2] For one thing, no one has come up with a serious substitute, whether Scandinavian communes or Chinese shared kitchens. It is also asserted that the forms families take have gone through many changes, so we should not be surprised—or upset—by current adaptations. Bane pointed out, for example, that in the past, death caused as many single-parent households as divorce does today.
Review, 7937 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |