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Brinig, Margaret --- "Family" [1999] ELECD 11; in Backhaus, G. Jürgen (ed), "The Elgar Companion to Law and Economics" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 1999)

Book Title: The Elgar Companion to Law and Economics

Editor(s): Backhaus, G. Jürgen

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781858985169

Section: Chapter 4

Section Title: Family

Author(s): Brinig, Margaret

Number of pages: 16

Extract:

4 Family
Ma rgaret B rinig


Introduction
The idea of thinking of families in economic terms is not new, but dates back at
least to the time of Aristotle, whose Econczmeia meant `management of the
household' (Spiegel, 1983, p. 25) and whose views on affection between the
generations are cited even today by law and economics scholars such as Rich-
ard Posner (Posner, 1996). The patriarchal family was used as a metaphor for
the monarchial by William Filmer in the 17th century (Filmer, 1653)' a theory
debunked by John Locke, who, in writing his Second Treatise on Government
(Locke, 1689, pp. 179-87), laid out much of the foundation for the later work
of William Blackstone, a lawyer, whose contractarian notion of the implicit
contract between parent and child appears in much of the law and economics
literature on family relationships (Blackstone, 1765). Similarly, Hume's writ-
ing about the need for marital exclusivity, particularly on the part of the wife,
sounds an economic chord, for he bases his suggestion on the requirement of
the husband to support the wife's offspring. Another contractual writing about
the family comes from Sir Matthew Hale, a British jurist whose statement
about the impossibility of spousal rape stemmed from the wife's having, by her
marriage, given an irrevocable consent to intercourse with her husband. The
19th-century economic writings of British and American authors Harriet
Martineau and Catharine Beecher relate women's participation in the home
economy to their political and social ...