Includes bibliographical references and index.

The family and the republican social contract -- Kinship and the structuralist social contract -- The circulation of structuralism in the French public sphere -- The "quiet revolution" in family policy and family law -- Fatherless societies and anti-oedipal philosophies -- Alternative kinships and republican structuralism -- Epilogue : kinship, ethics, and the nation.

"Examines how French policy makers have called upon structuralist anthropology and psychoanalysis (specifically, the works of Claude L�evi-Strauss and Jacques Lacan) to reassert the centrality of sexual difference as the foundation for all social and psychic organization"--Author's Web site.

Electronic reproduction. Palo Alto, Calif. : ebrary, 2013. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ebrary affiliated libraries.