ABSTRACT
The study of morality has an interesting and complex history in family studies. It has had a central role in some ways, and in other ways it has been ignored. It is a central concern in feminist theory where the emphasis is on emancipating women from the inequitable “one down” and immorally oppressed position they have had in most societies. The idea of morality also has a central role in psychoanalytic and neo-analytic theories, but in these theories it tends to be used in a negative way most of the time because the superego is viewed as a constraining and inhibiting part of the mind that uncomfortably binds rather than uplifts. In most of the general theories that are widely used in family studies, the idea of morality is virtually absent (Bengston et al., 2005; Christensen, 1964; Doherty, 1995; Sussman & Steinmetz, 1987; White & Klein, 2008).
