The War Over the Family: Capturing the Middle Ground

Peter and Brigette Berger present in this work a defense of what they call the 'bourgeois family'. They sum up their argument as follows: "We believe that there is no viable alternative to the bourgeois family for the raising of children who will have a good chance of becoming responsible and autonomous individuals , nor do we see alternative arrangements by which adults , from youth to old age, will be given a stable context for the affiirmation of themselves and their values. The defense of the bourgeois family, therefore, is not an exercise in romantic nostalgia. It is something to be undertaken in defense of human happiness and human dignity in a difficult time." The Bergers maintain that the family enables the individual to 'develop love and security- and most important the capacity to trust others. ' They believe that these bonds of trust within the family enable the individual to be responsible in larger loyalties and communal connections later in life. This study does not take into account the further variations or alternatives to the 'nuclear bourgeois family' which have emerged through Artificial Reproduction Technology. But it clearly takes the view that while these new alternative family arranges should be tolerated , they are by no means first preference.