Category Archives: Family Law
Yasin Alperen Karaşahin, ‘Wedding gifts in Turkish law’
ABSTRACT In Turkish weddings, the gifts usually consist of golden items that are liquid assets and can have a substantial value. Until recently, it was the constant case law of the Turkish Court of Cassation that they were owned by the woman regardless of who gave it to whom. This case law, which could be […]
‘Leveraging Trust Law to Protect Child Influencers’
Naomi Cahn, ‘Trusting Remedies for the Child Influencer Space: Blocked Trust Accounts and Child Beneficiaries’, 17 Drexel Law Review 971 (2025). Professor Naomi Cahn’s recent article, ‘Trusting Remedies for the Child Influencer Space: Blocked Trust Accounts and Child Beneficiaries’, exists at the intersection of centuries-old legal doctrine and the technology-based influencer economy. The family influencer, […]
John Rimmer, ‘“Who then is my child?”’
ABSTRACT It is easy to make assumptions about who is, and who is not, the ‘child’ of an individual. In the past, the main question was whether someone was the legitimate child of another. As society and technology have changed, the meaning of ‘child’ has changed to accommodate such matters as adoption, IVF, surrogacy, and […]
‘What We Can Learn from Family Abolition’
Susan Frelich Appleton and Albertina Antognini, ‘Abolishing the Family’, 61 Harvard Civil Rights – Civil Liberties Law Review (forthcoming, 2026), available at SSRN (1 August 2025). There are benefits to thinking about extreme proposals – suggested utopias and radical restructurings of institutions. However unlikely it might be that such proposals are ever put into effect, […]
Jobling and Dolphin, ‘Are pets truly members of the family? New provisions relating to “companion animals” in the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth)’
ABSTRACT This article considers the new provisions to the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) (‘FLA’) that came into effect in June 2025, which recognise ‘companion animals’ as a category of property to be dealt with upon a relationship breakdown. Animals have not been included in the FLA previously; the new provisions are significant as they […]
Erez Aloni, ‘Marital rules for unmarried couples: Feminist objections to a feminist proposal’
INTRODUCTION Flying a feminist banner, certain scholars and practitioners of family law have long argued that unwed cohabitants should be treated like married couples when their relationships end. In recent years, a particularly bold version of that argument is finding favour in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the UK, and the USA. Increasingly, legislators, judges, and […]
Brian Bix, ‘Relational Justice and Family Agreements’
ABSTRACT Premarital agreements have always been controversial, and the change to much greater enforceability has not much changed their reception. Many of the criticisms premarital agreements evoke seem connected to the concerns Hanoch Dagan and Avihay Dorfman raise in their book, Relational Justice. That book’s emphasis on our obligation of relational justice to those with […]
Call for Papers: ‘Broken Bonds – New Perspectives on Marital Breakdown in the English Common Law World 1801-1969′: Northumbria University, 20 April 2026’
This conference invites paper proposals from scholars in history, legal studies, human geography, anthropology, English, film studies, sociology, politics, and related disciplines. We welcome research on marital breakdown between 1801, when the first wife obtained a full divorce in England, and 1969, when the Divorce Reform Act introduced ‘irretrievable breakdown’ as grounds for divorce. Possible […]
Lan Nguyen, ‘Ethical, but Economical, Non-Monogamy’
ABSTRACT Ethical non-monogamy (ENM) relationships, such as polyamorous relationships, challenge the structures that support intimate relationships between two people. Polyamorous relationships are increasingly visible in modern society but remain unrecognised in Australian law. This lack of recognition imposes legal, emotional, and economic costs on those involved. This essay explores the lack of law around polyamorous […]
Chris Bevan, ‘Extending the Reach of the “Etridge Protocol” to So-called “Hybrid” Scenarios: Waller-Edwards v One Savings Bank Plc’
ABSTRACT In Waller-Edwards v One Savings Bank Plc, the Supreme Court addressed, for the first time, the significant question of whether banks were put on constructive notice of potential undue influence in so-called ‘hybrid’ scenarios. ‘Hybrid’ scenarios are those in which loan monies are advanced to a couple partly for their joint benefit and partly […]