The Temporally Extended Family & Self-Control: An Essay for Lee E. Teitelbaum

History could, he thought, help us move away from that version ofreality, and consider detailed questions. "Historical and sociological work may help us consider whether, if divorce was rare, marital breakdown was also rare, and whether acceptance ofthe 'family ideal' entailed the masking ofbehaviors that we now call domestic abuse.,,158 "History from any disciplinary source has a further important function," he said, "as a prophylaxis against nostalgia."159 This Essay on Painter v. Bannister, reading this case as a marker on the shape of the family, does not intend to describe a golden age, but rather to show the simplifications that nostalgia requires.