Category Archives: Family Law
Sharon Thompson, ‘Feminist Relational Contract Theory: A New Model for Family Property Agreements’
Abstract In this article, a new model named Feminist Relational Contract Theory (FRCT) is explained, justified, and applied to the context of family property agreements and specifically nuptial agreements. Most nuptial agreements are created amidst a complex web of power relationships and the dynamic of these relationships often evolves over time. However, the courts in […]
‘Need, Dependency, and Choice’
Emily J Stolzenberg, The New Family Freedom, 59 Boston College Law Review 1983 (2018), available at SSRN. Emily Stolzenberg’s excellent article, ‘The New Family Freedom’, outlines the tension within American society in general, and American family law in particular, between protecting individual choice (autonomy), on one hand, and having private (rather than collective) responsibility for […]
John Eekelaar, ‘Family Law and Identity’
Abstract This article considers the role that ‘identity’ plays in family law, particularly in recent years. It develops two versions of that concept, one related to an individual’s personal characteristics (called here ‘individual identity’), the other to the individual’s identification with other individuals (‘communal identity’). The former is exemplified in the decision of the European […]
Gregg Strauss, ‘What’s Wrong with Obergefell’
Abstract Although Obergefell v Hodges was a historic victory for progressive constitutional law, the Supreme Court’s glorification of marriage created widespread anxiety among progressive family law scholars. Yet, the critics have still not explained why this marriage rhetoric arouses such moral indignation. Some critics predict Obergefell’s rhetoric will shape family and constitutional law in ways […]
Laura Oren, ‘No-Fault Divorce Reform in the 1950s: The Lost History of the “Greatest Project” of the National Association of Women Lawyers’
“This Article is about the lost history of a campaign by the National Association of Women Lawyers (NAWL) to achieve uniform no-fault divorce law reform in the United States. In one form or another, NAWL has existed continuously since before 1911, when it began to publish the Women Lawyers Journal. From its Progressive era origins […]
Margaret Ryznar, ‘Robot Love’
Abstract Researchers have been developing a sophisticated humanoid robot that people in the future may want to marry. A human-robot marriage would pose all kinds of challenges for lawmakers – from the question of whether robots could be granted custody of children or access family bank accounts, to the basic question of free will. Any […]
Kate Galloway, ‘The Influence of the Sexual Contract on the Law’s Distribution of Property in Intimate Relationships’
Abstract This is a video of a paper given at the Sexual Contract: 30 Years On conference held in the Law School, Cardiff University on 10-11 May 2018. This paper was part of Panel 1: The Marriage Contract, chaired by Kathryn McNeilly. The PowerPoint slides accompanying the paper are available as a separate file. Despite […]
Michael Higdon, ‘The Quasi-Parent Conundrum’
Abstract Although family law is very much concerned with legal parentage and its attendant rights, children are much more concerned with maintaining relationships with those who care for them, regardless of whether that person is a legal parent or merely someone functioning as one. What happens though if the child’s legal parent attempts to banish […]
Emily Stolzenberg, ‘The New Family Freedom’
Abstract In family law, ‘autonomy’ has traditionally meant freedom from state interference in one’s intimate life. This Article describes an emergent, libertarian vision of autonomy as property rights that also demands freedom from other family members. This conception, ‘choice about obligations’, holds redistribution of resources between intimates to be illegitimate unless the richer party ‘chose’ […]
‘The Story of Parenthood’
Douglas NeJaime, The Nature of Parenthood, 126 Yale Law Journal 2260 (2017). Professor Douglas NeJaime’s article, The Nature of Parenthood, unites concepts, ideas, bodies of law, and legal subjects that have largely been viewed in isolation – until now. The ‘first comprehensive account of contemporary regulation of parental recognition in the context of ART [alternative […]