ABSTRACT
Historians of Western family law have debated whether it reflects a move from “status to contract,” i.e., whether the family has been re-imagined in the modern period from an institution in which everyone had a distinct, static role to one in which roles, responsibilities and rights are negotiated among family members. Some have argued that family life would be healthier if Western societies returned to more of a status-based model, while others have argued that marriage and family should be almost entirely contractual. Drawing on Lutheran Reformation understandings of the family rather than the Enlightenment’s sentimentalization and privatization of family life, we conclude that Luther’s views are strong “reality therapy” that seeks a third imaginary in Luther’s explanation in the Commandments about what it means to fear, love and trust in God. This imaginary can protect the affirmative role of the family in contributing to a healthy future for the human community that realistically accounts for the role of sin in the family, and the responsibility of the state to protect family members against the self-serving desires of others. It reflects on how this imaginary might help citizens critique and reform the law of the family on issues such as divorce and family support obligations.
