Law Commons^™

Parent, Child, Husband, Wife: When Recognition Fails, Tragedy Ensues, Scott Fitzgibbon

Scott T. FitzGibbon

This article briefly notes some developments in the law and society of our present age regarding the understanding — the recognition — of marriage, fatherhood, motherhood, and the family. The article warns against a certain casualness, a confusion, perhaps even a certain promiscuity of thought, that has occasionally emerged in the law. Drawing on Sophocles' drama Oedipus the King and on the scriptural narrative of David and Bathsheba, the article investigates what might be called the "moral location" of the activity of recognition. It proposes that recognition of basic family forms is a process with a deep dimension. It apprehends …