ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the concept of 'privacy' an important legal corollary to the concept of the natural or sexual family. There are two legal sources for the concept of privacy that are relevant to delineating the concept of family as a protected space. The first is found in the common-law doctrines that establish 'family privacy', doctrines that have been criticized and largely abandoned by liberals and feminists within contemporary legal academia. The second branch of privacy analysis has been developed as a constitutional concept a protection guaranteed to individuals as part of a constellation of rights to which they are inherently entitled. An 'entity' approach to the issue of privacy is found in the common law, recognized in Supreme Court cases, and has theoretical potential for protecting women, particularly poor single mothers, from state supervision and regulation of their mothering. Law and legal institutions thus become exemplars of the public institutionalization of social coercion.
