ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes a philosophic argument in support of the family in civic life. Plato constructs a rationalist meritocracy that strips away all considerations of sex, race, age, class, family ties, tradition, and history. Democrats are suspicious of traditional authority, from kings and chiefs to popes and lords. This incongruence between democracy and the family continued to vex post-Lockean thinkers. The democracy requires self-governing citizens rather than obedient subjects. In a democracy, holding authority is a temporary gift, granted only through the consent of the governed. Parental authority both constrains and makes possible; it locates mothers and fathers in the world in a way that must be different from that of non-parenting adults. Parental authority is essential to democratic political morality, because parents are the primary providers of the moral education required for democratic citizenship. A revamped defense of family authority takes account of challenges to its normalizing features. It also opens it to ambiguities and paradox.
