Family privacy - Issues and concepts

Privacy is examined within the context of marriage and the family. The relative invisibility of significant intrafamilial transaction is used to explain part of our pluralistic ignorance concerning the psychosocial dimensions of this basic unit of society. Based on a framework of concepts derived from the social sciences, both the functional and dysfunctional aspects of familial autonomy are elaborated, with particular emphasis given to marital interaction. The general erosion of privacy in the United States is analyzed in terms of its potential for disrupting the traditional right of the family to control the amount and type of information it is willing to reveal to outsiders and when, as well as under what conditions and to whom it is disposed to make such disclosures. A systematic effort to specify the changing dimensions of family privacy is called for.