Families, Politics and the Law Perspectives for East and West Europe

The family has become a political battleground in eastern and western Europe. In both areas, the State seems to have moved away from interventionist policies to a fresh quest for individual freedom from interference. This process of rolling back the influence of the State has been dubbed "privatization" of the family, and its consequences are examined here in considerable detail by a group of experts. In the West, inequality of economic power is now determining decisions such as whether or if at all to seek divorce or abortion in situations where previously the State regulated these decisions by offering economic support. In the East, State withdrawal from the family seems to be accompanied by a new emphasis on fundamental religious roles, which tend to stress differences between gender roles and to limit access to divorce or abortion in order to strengthen the traditional family. The authors of this book examine this evolutionary process of the privatization of the family sphere and the role of law in the family to question the value of the exaggerated collectivism of the former communist regimes.