Chapter 1: End of century, end of family?

This chapter explores the eschatological ideas of family crisis in Great Britain in the 1990s in the light of the invocation of family crisis and degeneration in the 1890s. The first section begins by pursuing the dominant intellectual and political concerns with the family in the late 19th century. It then moves to the late 20th century and the lobby for traditional family values, with its echoing idealization of the family and lament of family degeneration and social decline. In the second section, the authors seek to make sense of the privileging of the family in social commentary, exploring the political spaces that it opens up at the close of both centuries and the place of the family in political narratives about the role of the state. The final section focuses on the gender politics of family values. The prescriptive visions of motherhood that characterized late 19th century angst about the family are set against the moral panic about single mothers in the late 20th century and the absence of debate about fatherhood as the 20th century dawned is contrasted with today's obsessive anxiety with fatherhood and with men's role in society more broadly. It is argued here that in both periods it is through a focus on the family that struggles over gender roles and relations have in part been played out, ensuring that the family looms large in government rhetoric and policies.