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Introduction: For Better Or For Worse? Relational Landscapes In The Time Of Same-Sex Marriage, Michael W. Yarbrough
Introduction: For Better Or For Worse? Relational Landscapes In The Time Of Same-Sex Marriage, Michael W. Yarbrough
Publications and Research
As same-sex marriage has become a legal reality in a rapidly growing list of countries, the time has come to assess what this means for families and relationships on the ground. Many scholars have already begun to examine how marriage is helping some same-sex couples, but in this introduction I call for a broader and more critical research agenda. In particular, I argue that same-sex marriage crystallizes a key tension surrounding families and relationships in many contemporary societies. On the one hand, strict family norms are relaxing in many places, allowing more people to form more diverse types of caring …
South African Marriage In Policy And Practice: A Dynamic Story, Michael W. Yarbrough
South African Marriage In Policy And Practice: A Dynamic Story, Michael W. Yarbrough
Publications and Research
Law forms one of the major structural contexts within which family lives play out, yet the precise dynamics connecting these two foundational institutions are still poorly understood. This article attempts to help bridge this gap by applying sociolegal concepts to empirical findings about state law's role in family, and especially in marriage, drawn from across several decades and disciplines of South Africanist scholarly research. I sketch the broad outlines of a nuanced theoretical approach for analysing the law-family relationship, which insists that the relationship entails a contingent and dynamic interplay between relatively powerful regulating institutions and relatively powerless regulated populations. …