Stalking the Bourgeois Family

Abstract

Since the time of the two Fredericks—Engels and Le Play—the history of the family has served as a vehicle for social criticism. That is as it should be: The way we relate our current family lives to our understanding of the past defines who we are and who we ought to be. The analysis may unfold as Art: as an effort to recreate the experiences of living in different sorts of families. It may proceed as Science: as an attempt to trace reliably what changed and why. Or it may take the form of Politics: the drive to establish who was responsible for changes in the family and whose interests those changes served. For Lasch, the history of the family is mainly Politics, with a dab of Art. Science—or, as he thinks of it, pseudoscience—is the enemy. Stone writes history chiefly as Art, although he is not adverse to the trappings of Science when they serve his purpose.