In The Abolitionists (a companion volume to The Shaking of the Foundations) Ronald Fletcher turns his attention to those critics who have advocated the abolition of the family. Blaming the strength of the family for all discontents, they see the family as the deeply entrenched last bastion of an exploitative capitalist society - an obstacle to social progress and a prop for patriarchy. These new critics have exerted a growing influence throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and this is the first book to subject them to a systematic critical appraisal. The Abolitionists is a controversial and impressive defence of the modern family shaped by a century and a half of humane reform.