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Based on a genealogical study of the Mexican institutions archives, this article analyses two specific discourses of family planning policies taking place between 1974 and 1994 in Mexico. The biologisation of family structures and the romanticisation of the married couple will thus be examined. Over the period under study, the Mexican state’s intervention in family life is characterised by a specific rationality, that of governmentality, by which institutions advocate respect for the separation between private and public spaces while aiming for the transformation of family and conjugal life. The naturalisation of social structures, the injunction to internalise hierarchical functionalism and the legitimation of sexual difference are discursive consequences of these policies. The documents studied here show the interest of state institutions for the preservation and strengthening of social relations within the private space – such as heteronormativity and parental hierarchy – using indirect interventions designed by public authorities.