ABSTRACT
The previous chapters have already shown that notions of childhood are inextricably linked to those of the family. The family is the primary site where the child’s body is shaped and disciplined and where, following the precepts of educational theorists, the child ought, ideally, to be educated. Conceiving of man as an essentially social being, John locke, in his Second Treatise on Government, consequently perceives in the married couple and, consecutively, the family, the prototype of a society: ‘The first society was between man and wife, which gave beginning to that between parents and children’ (44).1 The family thus acquires a crucial role as the origin and the goal of the subject (cf. Zomchik, 12-13), mediating as it does between the individual self and society. Virginia Tufte and Barbara Myerhoff, however, rightfully contend that although the social consciousness of a human being is shaped in the family, the ‘distance between family and the rest of society’ also complicates the actual implementation of the social ideas acquired in the family. Insisting on a distinction between private and public sphere, they claim that,
If the family can be compared to a ‘“crucible” for human development and growth’ it is also a ‘cauldron, overheated by its seclusiveness, specialization, and uniqueness’.2 The segregated sphere of the family is always a space that contains the child protectively and that is problematic precisely because of its seclusive character. Within the family, the child becomes the object through which the family manifests itself and by which it asserts its function. This manifestation rests on particular relational bonds between the family members.
