Abstract
This discussion leaves untouched the many dilemmas involved in distinguishing "kinships of responsibility" from "associations of choice." It also leaves untouched the dilemmas of how to deal with dependencies created within associations of choice. Can we regulate such supposedly autonomous arrangements without assimilating these arrangements to the status of legal families? How can we draw the lines of choice without diluting the meaning of family until it resembles a purely voluntary role, to be taken on and put off at will? All of these are issues for another day and another author. The more limited goal of this Article has been to focus attention on the policies we adopt in dealing with those nontraditional households and families that embrace responsibility and are constituted as kinships of responsibility. My purpose has been to explore ways in which we can reinforce and support these extralegal but essential strands of relationship and obligation. Kinships of responsibility provide a means of strengthening our sense of community and they spring from powerful, culturally embedded, social networks of care that operate without state coercion. We should reinforce such kinships, for the benefit of children and other dependent persons.
Recommended Citation
Woodhouse, Barbara Bennett
(1996)
""It All Depends on What You Mean by Home":
Toward a Communitarian Theory of the
'Nontraditional" Family,"
Utah Law Review: Vol. 1996:
No.
2, Article 7.
Available at:
https://dc.law.utah.edu/ulr/vol1996/iss2/7