Title: Fatherhood and Marriage Are Indispensable for Children and Society - The Hausvater Project
Headings: 
Book Reviews
Fatherhood and Marriage Are Indispensable for Children and Society
1. Fatherlessness
2. Fathers in History
3. Why Fathers Matter
4. Popenoe's Recommendations
Evaluation

Content: 2. Fathers in History
Part 2 of Life Without Father showcases the "modern nuclear family." This is the family form which most people would call "traditional": " A married couple with children, living apart from other relatives...the productive work of men shifted from the home to an outside workplace, and fatherhood became a part-time activity" (81). Popenoe explains that this family form was not always in existence, but arose in upper class Britain in the 1700s, coming to dominance in the Victorian era. It replaced what he calls the premodern family, typified by the Puritans in America. Marriage in the premodern family was primarily an economic venture, and fathers and mothers worked together to earn an income and raise their children. Popenoe calls the premodern family the "apogee of fatherhood" (89), in which fathers were the central authority figure in the household and were viewed as the primary parent of children. Popenoe considers World War II to have had an ambiguous impact on the status of fatherhood, for while it stressed the vital importance of the protector role, it also showed that millions of women and children were able to get along just fine while fathers were away for months or years at a time. Many factors came together to end the premodern family and establish the modern nuclear family.