THE INDIVIDUALIZATION OF EVERYDAY LIFE 319
the family took on a new plurality in West Germany, political discourse in
East Germany focused strictly on the “socialist family.”^123
East German sociologists at the time intensely investigated these shifts
with an eye to the signifi cant diff erences between East and West. They
saw the spread of new lifestyles as “‘variations’ of the traditional small
family,”^124 noting that in the West, this process of pluralization had also
expanded to nonfamilial ways of life.^125 As in the West, however, the idea
of the family also became more pluralized and individualized in East Ger-
many. This shift was fi nally acknowledged in 1970 and interpreted along
the lines of a modifi ed notion of society. Thus, at the end of the 1960s and
the beginning of the 1970s, a recognition of individuality accompanied
the idea of a “socialist way of life” that also aff ected family relationships
and living habits.^126 The signifi cance of this idea lies in its awareness of
social realities. Yet its limits were to be found in the fact that it did not
move away from the central paradigm of the convergence of personal and
social developments; pluralization was duly recognized, but it had to be
interpreted in terms of being functional vis-à-vis the socialist society as
a whole.
The signifi cance of the social and political consequences of this ap-
proach to marriage and the family should not be underestimated, for the
accepted defi nition of the family determines which lifestyles are favored.
In turn, this decides which kinds of lifestyles are protected and fostered
and which kind bear the brunt of discrimination.^127 Such changes in
thought also infl uenced political decision-making. In West Germany, the
social-liberal coalition (1969 to 1982) took up these shifts and adapted its
family policies accordingly, as demonstrated in the revision of the Fed-
eral Child Benefi t Act (Bundeskindergeldgesetz): as of 1 January 1975,
all parents regardless of income were to receive child benefi t payments
from the government. Furthermore, these changing notions of the family
were refl ected in the reform of the family and divorce laws in West Ger-
many. As of 1977, the law did away with determining guilt, introducing
the principle of the irretrievable breakdown of a marriage, which still ap-
plies today. At the same time, the reform of the law eliminated the model
of housewife marriages (Hausfrauenehe) by declaring the legal equality
of men and women in family law. Of course, the ideal of a family based
on an equal partnership is not the equivalent of equality in social life, but
the reform of the law did mark a turning point.^128
Other noteworthy legal shifts occurred with the reform of the law on
illegitimate children in 1969, the law on abortion in 1974, and the law
on custody in 1979. These amendments resulted from the changing so-
cial framework, fl anking the reform of family law as a whole. The new