Families, politics and the law

The family has become a political battleground in both the East and the West. In the West, interventionist policies designed to encourage equality of opportunity and to eliminate the problems encountered by disadvantaged members of the traditional family - usually women, children, and the elderly - have been replaced by a fresh quest for individual freedom from interference by the State. In the East, concern to retain welfare provisions, to reject the past, and to reflect national values without reducing individual liberties now requires a delicate balancing act. This book examines the relationship between the State, the family, and the individual in Poland and in the United Kingdom in the early 1990s. The underlying conflict between equality and liberty is sharply pointed during the early period of transformation in Poland, and the later stages of Conservative rule in the United Kingdom. As Polish family life become desecularised, and British family law becomes an expensive luxury to be replaced where possible with administrative procedures or alternative methods of dispute resolution, we need to confront once more the question of what we need and want from law for the family: do we seek protection for the individual within the family, or protection for the State from the demands of individuals which the family is unable to meet?