ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews feminist analyses particularly lesbian-feminist ones of lesbians relation to the family, marriage, and mothering. It develops a historical account of the construction of lesbians as outlaws to the family. The ideology of the loving family often masks gender injustice within the family, including battery, rape, and child abuse. Lesbian-feminist interpretation of lesbian's relation to the family as non-participation in heterosexual, male-dominated, private families is then translated into nonparticipation in any form of family, including lesbian families. Both Lillian Faderman and George Chauncey for instance, have argued that given both the influence of feminist ideas and the burgeoning of economic opportunities for women, there was a cultural fear that women would replace marriages to men with Boston marriages or romantic friendships. Finally, the equation of heterosexuality with family values and homosexuality and lesbianism with hostility to the family serves to compel loyalty to the sexual norm prescribing heterosexuality.
