The American Family From Obligation to Freedom

This book traces the movement from mutualism to individualism in the context of American family life. Throughout American history, families survived or even flourished during colonization, the Revolution, slavery, the industrial revolution, immigration, and economic upheaval because reliance on others was patently necessary. But in the past century, unprecedented prosperity both freed Americans from mutual dependence and created a culture devoted to the pursuit of pleasure and individual fulfilment. This shift from obligation to freedom has turned the maintenance of durable, rewarding families into a countercultural act, one that requires a conscious decision to qualify the American commitment to freedom.

David Peterson del Mar is an assistant professor at Portland State University and an adjunct assistant professor at Oregon State University. His previous books include What Trouble I Have Seen: A History of Violence against Wives (1996) and Beaten Down: A History of Interpersonal Violence in the West (2001).

Societies of Obligation * The Search for Order in North America  * Revolution and Continuity * Containing the Bourgeois Family * Necessity and Tradition * The First Modern Family * The Family in Crisis and After * Freedom’s Florescence * Countercultures