The Family and the Market: A Study of Ideology and Legal Reform
Frances E. Olsen
Reform strategies aimed at improving the lives of women in American society have ranged from efforts to ensure equal treatment for women in the marketplace to the establishment of family courts to promote fair treatment and harmony within the household. In this Article, Professor Olsen argues that most reform efforts have been conceived and carried out from within the confines of a particular world view, a world view that perceives social life to be divided between separate though interdependent spheres of market and family. She concludes that this structure of consciousness – the dichotomy between market and family – not only has limited the effectiveness of reforms actually undertaken, but also has sharply curtailed the range of possible strategies conceived by reformers. Professor Olsen draws upon Feuerbach’s model of historical progress, as well as upon our understanding of relations between the state and civil society and between male and female, to speculate upon the possibilities for radically improving the lives of all individuals, men and women, by transcending the market/family dichotomy.
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About the Author/s and Reviewer/s
Author: international
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