Its widely accepted that at some point the state has to intervene in private family affairs. Some societal doctrines that justify an abused wife or beaten wife no longer hold. However, some families use individual family policy to carry out maltreatment and other cases, such as foster care (Kenneth et al., 2016). It is therefore vital to explore into how the state can intervene in private family. In this discussion, I would like to argue that the doctrines of the private family are hard to follow, and the idea of non-involvement of the state is misguided and has more harm than good to the society.
It is hilarious how people to a great extent advocate that the government should refrain from intervening in the private family matter while having the perception that the state should at times chip in to prevent abuse or rectify inequality. I, therefore, declare policies of state “intervention” and “nonintervention” incoherent. I will use the idea of a free market as a comparison to support this claim. In this domain (free market), the laws are clear as to when the state should intervene when a market misfunctions. For instance, in any case where a market misfunctions the state intervenes in defence of the oppressed party, in this case, the weaker economic players. This useful contrast, therefore, serves as a yardstick to justify the need for state intervention in private family.
There exist certain instances where a family instead of being an organization that nurtures and protects members against oppression and other forms of abuse, it ends up being a haven that harbours such injustices (Parr, 2017). In such an occurrence, the government should intervene to protect the interests of oppressed. This argument, therefore, propounds that the state should remain neutral at all time and only intervene when it is justifiable to do so.