cover image In the Name of the Family: Rethinking Family Values in the Postmodern Age

In the Name of the Family: Rethinking Family Values in the Postmodern Age

Judith Stacey. Beacon Press (MA), $22 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-8070-0432-6

As the male-dominated, patriarchal, modern nuclear family fragments, American society, declares Stacey, has entered the age of the postmodern family--no single pattern is dominant, and only a minority of U.S. households contain married couples with children. In a forceful, scholarly critique, she argues that much family-values rhetoric serves as a sanitized decoy for class and race prejudices, and she attacks ""family-values warriors"" Dan Quayle, Pat Buchanan and Jerry Falwell as antifeminist, antigay and politically reactionary. Professor of sociology and women's studies at UC Davis, Stacey (Brave New Families) charges that a right-wing, pro-family campaign, joining forces with centrist think tanks and policy institutions, has shaped the family ideology and politics of the Clinton administration. Advocating legalized homosexual marriages, she considers gay and lesbian families instructional models for meeting the challenges to flexibility, self-help and creativity that the postmodern family demands. (Sept.)