ABSTRACT
Feminists who wish to stress how embodied and socially embedded human beings are, and who wish to change society, must not make the mistake of discounting new biological evidence. This chapter focuses on mating, biological reproduction, and nurturing offspring, while caring for old parents, distinguishes the family from other intentional institutions and groups. Families reproduce and conserve the culture, but as a mediating institution, families affect the larger society as well. Families adapt to new social and economic conditions and can produce innovations by challenging the status quo and exerting pressure on existing institutions. In modern American society we find many adoptive families, many blended and reconstituted families, and many single-parent families, with both heterosexual and homosexual members who are admirably meeting the needs of children. Emerging gender and sexual orientation programs appear in the course of a child's development and produce virtually irreversible outcomes which then shape and are shaped by psychosocial environments.
