The Husband and Father as Society’s Ideal Role for Men In September 1995, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issued its Proclamation on the Family. Just a few months earlier, in his book, Fatherless America, David Blankenhorn examined society’s traditional prescription to men to be husbands and fathers. Husband/father as a universal role for men is woven into the fabric of the Proclamation on the Family. Drawing on Blankenhorn’s research, I will explore this role. As set forth in the Proclamation on the Family, the husband/father role informs tradition, practice, and policy, including male-only priesthood ordination, the “forever family,” the Church’s recent defense of the Boy Scouts of America in the lawsuit concerning gay scout leaders, and opposition to same-sex unions.

Brad Hess, Michael J. Stevens