ABSTRACT
The family court concept contains its own dangers. It is easy to be swept along on a tide of euphoria. It is rather more difficult to stand back and take a cool look at what has happened to the family in the twentieth century and to place moves towards the family court ideal within these welfare-oriented policies. Debates about the appropriateness of adversary justice, about the value of integrating adjudicative and welfare roles in the family court, are discourses about the form of law. In precapitalist societies and in the early stages of capitalism, work and family life overlapped. The family became a private place to which people, but especially men, could withdraw. The emotional intensification of family life had, as one of its inevitable consequences, conflict. Women saw the advantage of professional intervention in family life. Moves away from adversary justice and towards a family court are in effect moves towards the delegalization of family dispute settlement.
