The political ideology of the neo-traditional family

A recent and popular family values literature seeks to justify and enforce a neo-traditional family model of nuclear heterosexual families with gender differentiated roles. Adherents of this neo-traditional family form contend that their primary concern is with children and with family arrangements that enhance child well-being. We demonstrate that the arguments for child wellbeing in family values ideology are weak and that implicit in family values ideology is a disclaimed political agenda of masculine private and public authority. Further, we conclude that questions of family arrangements and ordering inextricably raise issues of gender and power that are central to citizenship in liberal-democratic regimes.