Ahrens, Gary A.2011-09-142011-09-1419805 Okla. City U.L. Rev. 619http://hdl.handle.net/10601/1544In this 1980 article, Professor Ahrens begins with the proposition that family law is complex and fragmented. As an explanation for this proposition, Ahrens posits that family law reflects the social reality of the family, and that the family in American society is in a state of metamorphosis. The article analyzes why the structure of the family in American society is changing. Ahrens identifies the productive classic household as the form that society is abandoning, and the self-interest ethics of modern liberalism that society is accepting as the new form of the household. Ahrens contends that because of the conflict between classic household ethics and the ethics of liberalism, American society currently presents two contradictory family forms. Ahrens speculates that the transition process will never be complete because the new household does not and cannot perform all of the functions of the traditional household. The article concludes by offering the reader reason to believe that the traditional household will resurface in American society.en-USFamily lawFamily structureEconomicsLiberalismFreedom of choiceSocietyArticle