BOOKS
167
Though some victims may be better off now that divorce is easy to
come by, recent studies by social analysts and economists, such as
Lenore Weitzman and Sylvia Ann Hewlett, show that in general
women and children are seriously threatened by easy divorce. The
disintegration of the family appears to have had the effect of expos–
ing children to greater risks outside the natural family.
It
is now well
known that a child's chances of being abused increase if she (girls are
at greatest risk) resides with a stepfather, foster father, or a mother's
live-in boyfriend. The natural father in the traditional family would
appear to be the female child's best bet.
None of these uncomfortable considerations has a place in
Pleck's argument or in her version of the social history of domestic
violence. Her analysis of the history of reform suffers grievously
from her systematic failure to consider possible objections to her
critique of the Family Ideal. I confess I find it not a little astonishing
that after just a few short years of feminist social theorizing, a pur–
portedly serious book on social policy that blandly assumes the fam–
ily is essentially tyrannical and that those who support its integrity
were benighted or in the thrall of false consciousness could be
published . A history of public policy on family violence that simply
takes this for granted does not persuade .
CHRISTINA HOFF SOMMERS
