Patricia Morgan's core assumption is that the family is an extremely effective vehicle for raising the welfare of its members. If this is correct it is quite possible that the state can best support the family by doing very little--by not taxing the family heavily and by minimizing the subsidization of those who choose alternatives to financially self-sustaining family life.

At one level, Morgan argues, the family can be seen as a unit within which there occurs enormous transfer of economic resources between husband and wife, parents and children, and, on a wider scale, within...