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Although many historians (notably Ferdinand Mount) see in these reforms the machinations of an overintrusive state, Behlmer's six linked essays provide insight into the reformers' varied goals and reveal that this policing of the Victorian family was in fact "not a social discipline designed to penetrate private life and subvert parental authority." Nor does Behlmer believe, à la Gertrude Himmelfarb, that Victorians both rich and poor embraced and practiced "Victorian values" such as respectability, cleanliness, obedience, and self-sufficiency. Indeed, Behlmer argues that the reformers were "trying to make people more responsible, and not principally by shaming them." Behlmer stands out as a voice of reason amidst the recent moral panic about decaying family values, arguing that this golden age of domestic bliss never happened, and that the family "has never been able to meet the expectations placed upon it." Refreshingly low on jargon, exhaustively researched, and filled with illustrative examples, Friends of the Family is a well-written contribution to the ongoing debate on domestic morality. --C.B. Delaney
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