Law Commons^™

Getting To Equal: Resolving The Judicial Impasse On The Weight Of Non-Monetary Contribution In Kenya's Marital Asset Division, Benedeta Prudence Mutiso

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Marital property law reforms and changing international human rights standards in the late 20th and early 21st century prompted Kenya to end certain discriminatory practices against women, especially in the area of property rights. For 50 years, Kenya relied on England’s century-old law, the Married Women’s Property Act of 1882, to regulate property rights. In 2010, Kenya adopted a new Constitution that called for equality between men and women, and in 2013, Kenya enacted independent legislation in the form of the Matrimonial Property Act (MPA). The MPA provides a basis for trial courts to divide marital property upon divorce. Specifically, …

The Strange Pairing: Building Alliances Between Queer Activists And Conservative Groups To Recognize New Families, Nausica Palazzo

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This Article explores some of the legal initiatives and reforms that opponents of same-sex marriage in Canada and the United States have pushed forward. Despite being animated by a desire to dilute the protections for same-sex couples, these reforms resulted in “queering” family law, in the sense that they functionalized the notion of family. Consequently, two cohabiting relatives or friends would be eligible for legal recognition, along with all the public and private benefits of such recognition. I term these kinds of “unions” and other nonnormative relationships to be “new families.”

The central claim of this Article is thus that …

The (Mis)Categorization Of Sex In Anglo-American Cases Of Transsexual Marriage, John Parsi

Michigan Law Review

The United States' promise to establish equality for all has been challenged by post-operative transsexuals seeking recognition in their acquired sex. The birth certificate is the legal gateway to changing other legal documents; but the process for changing the birth certificate varies widely from state to state. This lack of national uniformity makes post-operative transsexuals' recognition of their acquired sex complicated at best and impossible at worst. This Note details the legal progression from non-recognition to recognition of post-operative transsexuals' acquired sex in the United Kingdom and through the European Court of Human Rights. The Note goes on to explore …

The Evolution Of Same-Sex Marriage In Canada: Lessons The U.S. Can Learn From Their Northern Neighbor Regarding Same-Sex Marriage Rights, Christy M. Glass, Nancy Kubasek

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

The broad differences between the United States and Canadian cases raise important questions about the social, political and legal factors that have promoted the extension of marriage rights in Canada while retarding similar efforts in the U.S. This article will compare the recent history of same-sex marriage laws in the United States and Canada. We argue that proponents of same-sex marriage as well as lawmakers could learn important lessons from the recent legalization of same-sex marriage in Canada. Section II develops a framework for comparing the U.S. and Canadian experience with same-sex marriage law. The next section traces Canada's recent …

The Marriage Dower: Essential Guarantor Of Women's Rights In The West Bank And Gaza Strip, Heather Jacobson

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This Article evaluates the impact that eliminating or reducing the marriage dower would have on the well-being of Muslim women in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Although Palestinian women's rights organizations seek to eliminate dower on the grounds that it is a "burdensome custom" that is "inconsistent with the intifada's stated goal of improving women's status," in fact, the interaction between dower and other laws relating to marriage and divorce is such that the majority of women would be materially harmed by its discontinuance. Therefore, while the movement to eliminate dower may benefit the financially secure upper class women …

Dowry Deaths: Proposing A Standard For Implementation Of Domestic Legislation In Accordance With Human Rights Obligations, Namratha S. Ravikant

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This article discusses the due diligence standard of governmental responsibility, and measures the adequacy of India's implementation of its national dowry death legislation in accordance with its international human rights obligations. India has enacted legislation designed to combat dowry violence. Although India's laws seem to follow the letter of its international human rights obligations, the country violates the spirit of human rights by lacking an actual commitment to implement this legislation. This Article demonstrates and examines India's breach of its duty of due diligence. Such a breach constitutes government complicity in condoning and perpetuating dowry deaths, which violate women's human …

Civilizing The Natives: Marriage In Post-Apartheid South Africa, David L. Chambers

Articles

South Africa is a land of many cultures. For several hundred years, British and Afrikaaner whites controlled the country, systematically manipulating black people to the whites' advantage. For the most part, however, whites tolerated the continuation within black communities of traditional marriage practices that white Christians considered uncivilized. In 1994, South Africa changed governments. A black majority Parliament came to power, adopting a consitution dedicated to equality and human dignity. Four years later, Parliament adopted a new marriage law that, though permitting some of the external trappings of the traditional marriage system to continue, eliminated by law much of the …

Enlightenment, Donald J. Herzog

Articles

It's a curious broadside, a work of austere graphics and polite prose far removed from the mischievous engravings and bawdy ballads usually appearing on such sheets. Drawn from an address that 345 printers had signed and 138 had presented to the queen, the original text was committed to parchment "and accompanied by a Copy surperbly printed on white Satin, edged with white Silk Fringe, backed with purple Satin, and mounted in an Ivory Roller with appropriate Devices." Even in the published version, the arch is full of intricately detailed work. The printers took pride in their craftmanship: "This Specimen of …

Some Aspects Of Householding In The Medieval Icelandic Commonwealth, William I. Miller

Articles

There has been much, mostly inconclusive, discussion about how to define the household in a manner suitable for comparative purposes. Certain conventional criteria are not very useful in the Icelandic context, where it appears that a person could be attached to more than one household, where the laws suggest it was possible for more than one household to be resident in the same uncompartmentalised farmhouse; and where headship might often be shared. Definitions, for example, based on co residence or on commensalism do not jibe all that well with the pastoral transhumance practised by the Icelanders. Sheep were tended and …

What Causes Fundamental Legal Ideas? Marital Property In England And France In The Thirteenth Century, Charles Donahue Jr.

Michigan Law Review

Categorizing broadly, the marital property systems of the Western nations today are divided into two types: those in which husband and wife own all property separately except those items that they have expressly agreed to hold jointly (in a nontechnical sense) and those in which husband and wife own a substantial portion or even all of their property jointly unless they have expressly agreed to hold it separately. The system of separate property is the "common law" system, in force in most jurisdictions where the Anglo-American common law is in force. The system of joint property is the community property …

The Conflict Of Laws: A Comparative Study, Second Edition. Volume One. Introduction: Family Law, Ernst Rabel

Michigan Legal Studies Series

This volume, the first in Ernst Rabel's monumental comparative treatise on the conflict of laws, was initially published in 1945. Since then three additional volumes have been added, completing the survey of the systems of conflicts law as originally contemplated. Meanwhile, the first edition of the first two volumes has been exhausted for some time, and the literature of conflicts law has substantially increased, reflecting the new developments that have taken place since 1945. Accordingly, plans for a new edition of the first two volumes were discussed with the author before his death on September 7, I955, and were approved …

A Comparative Study Of Conflict Of Laws: A Review Of Volume One, Elliott E. Cheatham

Michigan Law Review

This is a notable book. It is the first volume of a comparative study of conflict of laws, undertaken at the invitation of the American Law Institute and completed with the support of the University of Michigan Law School. The author, Dr. Rabel, is a man whose great learning has been tempered and made fruitful by a distinguished and varied career as lawyer and as judge on national and international tribunals, as director of an institute of comparative law and conflict of laws serving practical as well as scholarly aims, and as author and professor of law.

The Conflict Of Laws: A Comparative Study. Volume One. Introduction: Family Law, Ernst Rabel

Michigan Legal Studies Series

Full application of comparative methods to the law of conflicts requires a working plan of some magnitude. We ought to take stock of the conflicts rules existing in the different countries of the world, state their similarities or dissimilarities, and investigate their purposes and effects. The solutions thus ascertained should moreover be subjected to an estimation of their usefulness, by the standards appropriate to their natural objective. Conflicts rules have to place private life and business relations upon the legal background suitable to satisfactory intercourse among states and nations. They are valuable to the extent that their practical functioning, rather …

Revocation Of Wills By Subsequent Change In The Condition Or Circumstances Of The Testator, Elizabeth Durfee

Michigan Law Review

Among the oldest rules in the law of wills are those by which a will is held to be revoked by implication by certain changes in the circumstances of the testator. The purpose of this paper is to investigate these rules. Special reference will be made to statutes, both those which deal generally with the subject and those which provide specifically for the effect of particular events, such as marriage; no attempt will be made, however to analyze the latter type of statute exhaustively. By way of introduction, a brief historical survey of the doctrine should be made.

The Revision Of The Treaties Of Montevideo On The Law Of Conflicts, Ernst Rabel

Michigan Law Review

In its issue of July 1940, the Revista Juridica Argentina of Buenos Aires has published the new "Tratados de Derecho Internacional Privado" of Montevideo concluded in 1939 and 1940. We are grateful to this review for apprising us of a significant event in the field of international codification.

Conflict Of Laws-Renvoi Doctrine

Michigan Law Review

H, an Englishman, married W in England. On separation H acquired a domicil in Germany. A child was thereafter born to Y, a woman with whom H was living in Germany. H subsequently divorced W in Germany and married Y. Whether the child was legitimate determined whether H had validly exercised a power of appointment in an English settlement. Held, legitimacy is to be determined by the law of the domicil, including its rules of private international law. Germany, referring the matter to English law, found a remittance which Germany accepted and applied German municipal law. The child, by …

Book Reviews

Michigan Law Review

A collection of book reviews by multiple authors.