St. John's Law Review Volume 70 Number 3 Volume 70, Summer 1996, Number 3 Article 1 Patriarchy or Equality: Family Values or Individuality William E. Nelson Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/lawreview This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at St. John's Law Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in St. John's Law Review by an authorized editor of St. John's Law Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. ST. JOHN'S LAW REVIEW VOLUME 70 SUMMER 1996 NumBER3 PATRIARCHY OR EQUALITY: FAMILY VALUES OR INDIVIDUALITY WILLIAM E. NELSoN' A familiar, received wisdom commonly surfaces when to- day's authors portray the history of twentieth-century family law. According to the received account, family law through most of the century displayed an overtly sexist, patriarchal orientation which emphasized the superiority of male family heads and the dependency of women and children.' As the story continues, a new feminism born in the 1960's brought forth demands for gen- der equality, and the polity's acceptance of those demands wrought revolutionary transformations in formal legal doctrines regulating husband and wife, and parent and child.2 The re- ceived wisdom recognizes, however, that the changes induced by the feminists paradoxically produced few tangible benefits for women. Even today, men have retained their economic domi- nance, especially in the aftermath of family breakups, and single * Joel and Anne Ehrenkranz Professor of Law, New York University. A.B., Hamilton College, 1962; LL.B., New York University, 1965; Ph.D., Harvard Univer- sity, 1971.