ABSTRACT
The chapter examines the concept of state intervention in the private family. The private family is an incoherent ideal and that the rhetoric of non intervention is more harmful than helpful. Although most people accept in general the assertion that the state should not intervene in the family, they qualify the assertion with the caveat that the state should sometimes intervene in order to correct inequality or prevent abuse. This widely accepted caveat as the "protective intervention argument" against non-intervention in the family. The protective intervention argument applies in a similar manner to both laissez faire and non-intervention in the family: whenever either the market or the family misfunctions, the state should intervene to correct inequality and protect the defenseless. The incoherence argument against non-intervention in the family parallels the legal realist's argument against laissez faire. Both laissez faire and non-intervention in the family are false ideals.
