Susanna and the Elders: A Note on the Regulation of Families

The title of Robert Dahl's book, Who Governs, seems to capture the approach of many conversations on family governance. In an approach which parallels our dominant political theory, we focus on the question who, as an individual, governs, and ask how that power to govern can be better shared with others. Often the goal is equality in the family, at least as between adults, and when we consider this, we use a model of democratic political decision making. The focus is on individuals in a nuclear family.

The approach is not new. It is the stance that John Stuart Mill took when he said that it was not obvious that husband or wife should necessarily be dominant, and still less obvious that law should decide the issue. The same focus on the couple informs James Fitzjames Stephen's response to Mill, stressing the desirability of deference by the wife to the husband.