Families - Beyond the Nuclear Ideal [Hardcover]

This book examines, through a multi-disciplinary lens, the possibilities offered by relationships and family forms that challenge the nuclear family ideal, and some of the arguments that recommend or disqualify these as legitimate units in our societies.

That children should be conceived naturally, born to and raised by their two young, heterosexual, married to each other, genetic parents; that this relationship between parents is also the ideal relationship between romantic or sexual partners; and that romance and sexual intimacy ought to be at the core of our closest personal relationships - all these elements converge towards the ideal of the nuclear family.

The authors consider a range of relationship and family structures that depart from this ideal: polyamory and polygamy, single and polyparenting, parenting by gay and lesbian couples, as well as families created through current and prospective modes of assisted human reproduction such as surrogate motherhood, donor insemination, and reproductive cloning.

This book discusses the theory that alternative relationship and family structures challenge the privileged status of the nuclear family as the preferable mode of family life for all, and the one to be endorsed and encouraged by society.

Chapter 1: Daniela Cutas and Sarah Chan, Introduction: Perspectives on Private and Family LifeChapter 2: Julie McCandless, The Role of Sexual Partnership in UK Family Law: the Case of Legal ParenthoodChapter 3: Mianna Lotz, The Two-Parent Limitation in ART Parentage Law: Old Fashioned Law for New-Fashioned FamiliesChapter 4: Christian Munthe and Thomas Hartvigsson, The Best Interest of Children and the Basis of Family Policy: The Issue of Reproductive Caring UnitsChapter 5: Joanna Scheib and Paul Hastings, Donor-conceived Children Raised by Lesbian Couples: Socialization and Development in a New Form of Planned FamilyChapter 6: David Gurnham, Donor-conception as a 'Dangerous Supplement' to the NulC(