Patriarchy in America Is Different: Grossberg's Governing the Hearth

Abstract

conception of the state's interposing itself the family by means of direct address to the individual keeps him from exploring the possibility that inter-group conflicts (on ethnic, racial, gender, class grounds) may have been at the very heart of change family law policy. His own find6. Christine Stansell, City of Women: Sex and Class New York, 1789-1860 (New York: Knopf, 1986), 214-216; cf. Linda Gordon, Single Mothers and Child Neglect, 1880-1920, 37 American Quarterly 173-192 (Summer 1985). This content downloaded from 157.55.39.254 on Mon, 05 Sep 2016 04:48:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 816 AMERICAN BAR FOUNDATION RESEARCH JOURNAL 1987:809 ings, such as that anti-miscegenation laws refuted the republican promotion of matrimony, or that persistence of involuntary indenturing of children (especially black children) could only tortuously be justified in the best interests of the child, might have suggested an interpretation of family law's development terms of the contest for cultural control being waged an increasingly heterogeneous and stratified American society. Where this bold and venturesome book fails to persuade, it nonetheless will spark strong and, one hopes, constructive responses from legal and social historians alike. Grossberg's work will be of interest to other scholars exploring how far back, what humble beginnings, and how deeply committed to the ideology of gender difference and gender hierarchy the welfare state began its rise. With his significant research Grossberg has established that judges were policy-makers who bowed not entirely (although they did bow) to either of their two acknowledged masters, the common law and social mores. He has made an emphatic case for embedding legal history its social matrix. Governing the Hearth renders insight and engenders spirit into both the history of domestic relations law and family history, beckoning others to follow erasing the boundaries between the two. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.254 on Mon, 05 Sep 2016 04:48:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms