ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The family is one of the most important social and political institutions. In nearly all Western societies, the family, however defined, has been one of the primary contexts in which care and socialization of the young occur, giving it tremendous influence over the development of children's attitudes and capabilities. The chapter offers a brief summary of the views of key classical Western political philosophers on justice, politics, and the family. John Rawls, for example, whose A Theory of Justice is widely credited with reviving discussions about justice in contemporary English-and European-language political theory, sets aside detailed discussion of the family in this work. The most influential treatments of the family in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English political thought challenged the prevailing patriarchal assumptions.
