The American family is changing. Divorce, single parents, and stepfamilies are redefining the way we live together and raise our children. Is this a change for the worse? David Popenoe sets out the case for fatherhood and the two-parent family as the best arrangement for ensuring the well-being and future development of children.

His argument has two critical assumptions, which he supports with evidence from a variety of disciplines, including anthropology, biology, and history. The first is that children flourish best when raised by a father and a mother with their differing psychological and behavioral traits. The second is that marriage, which serves to hold fathers to the mother-child bond, is an institution we must strengthen if the decline of fatherhood is to be reversed.