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(Mis)Recognizing Polygamy, Kerry Abrams Jan 2016

(Mis)Recognizing Polygamy, Kerry Abrams

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Toward A Political Sociology Of Conjugal-Recognition Regimes: Gendered Multiculturalism In South African Marriage Law, Michael W. Yarbrough Jan 2015

Toward A Political Sociology Of Conjugal-Recognition Regimes: Gendered Multiculturalism In South African Marriage Law, Michael W. Yarbrough

Publications and Research

While conjugal-recognition policies are often a subject of political debate, scholarly attempts to explain such policies are relatively rare and typically focused on discrete policies—same-sex marriage, no-fault divorce, etc.—with comparatively little investigation of potential connections among policies. This article begins to develop a more holistic approach focused on explaining and understanding what I call conjugal-recognition regimes. Adapting the concept from the existing literature on welfare regimes, I argue that conjugal-recognition regimes exist when an identifiable pattern or principle organizes an institution’s conjugal-recognition policy and thereby shapes social relations at multiple levels, from the individuals in conjugal relationships to the multiple …


The End Of Annulment, Kerry Abrams Jan 2013

The End Of Annulment, Kerry Abrams

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Family History: Inside And Out, Kerry Abrams Jan 2013

Family History: Inside And Out, Kerry Abrams

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Marriage Fraud, Kerry Abrams Jan 2012

Marriage Fraud, Kerry Abrams

Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines the astonishing array of doctrines used to determine what constitutes marriage fraud. It begins by locating the traditional nineteenth-century annulment-by-fraud doctrine within the realm of contract fraud, observing that in the family law context fraudulent marriages were voidable solely at the option of the injured party. The Article then explains how, in the twentieth century, a massive expansion of public benefits tied to marriage prompted new marriage fraud doctrines to develop in various areas of the law, shifting the concept of the injured party from the defrauded spouse to the public at large. It proposes a framework …


Peaceful Penetration: Proxy Marriage, Same-Sex Marriage, And Recognition, Kerry Abrams Jan 2011

Peaceful Penetration: Proxy Marriage, Same-Sex Marriage, And Recognition, Kerry Abrams

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Marriage As A Message: Same-Sex Couples And The Rhetoric Of Accidental Procreation, Kerry Abrams, Peter Brooks Jan 2009

Marriage As A Message: Same-Sex Couples And The Rhetoric Of Accidental Procreation, Kerry Abrams, Peter Brooks

Faculty Scholarship

In his dissent in the 2003 case Goodridge v. Department of Health, Justice Robert Cordy of the Massachusetts Supreme Court introduced a novel argument in support of state bans on same-sex marriage: that marriage is an institution designed to create a safe social and legal space for accidental heterosexual reproduction, a space that is not necessary for same-sex couples who, by definition, cannot accidentally reproduce. Since 2003, every state appellate court considering a same-sex marriage case has adopted Justice Cordy's dissent until the recent California Supreme Court decision In Re Marriage Cases. In case after case, courts have held that …


Polygamy, Prostitution, And The Federalization Of Immigration Law, Kerry Abrams Jan 2005

Polygamy, Prostitution, And The Federalization Of Immigration Law, Kerry Abrams

Faculty Scholarship

When Congress banned the immigration of Chinese prostitutes with the Page Law of 1875, it was the first restrictive federal immigration statute. Yet most scholarship treats the passage of the Page Law as a relatively unimportant event, viewing the later Chinese Exclusion Act as the crucial landmark in the federalization of immigration law. This Article argues that the Page Law was not a minor statute targeting a narrow class of criminals, but rather an attempt to prevent Chinese women in general from immigrating to the United States. Most Chinese women migrating to the United States in the early 1870s were …