States of Union ― Family and Change in the American Constitutional Order

"In two canonical decisions in 1920s, the Supreme Court announced that family was an institution possessing a constitutional status and that certain relations within family were constitutionally protected. Since then, "family values" has become a staple of American civic life as the polity roils over issues like the regulation of procreation, the roles of women, the education of children, divorce, domestic economy, sex, sexuality, and the meanings of marriage. Brandon is the first to explain how family came to be "in" the Constitution, what it has meant for family to be constitutionally significant, and what the implications of that significance have been (and continue to be) for the constitutional order and for families"--