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University of Michigan Law School

Marriage

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Michigan Law Review

Articles 1 - 14 of 14

Full-Text Articles in Law

Black Marriage, White People, Red Herrings, Melissa Murray Apr 2013

Black Marriage, White People, Red Herrings, Melissa Murray

Michigan Law Review

Ralph Richard Banks's Is Marriage for White People? is worlds away from Agatha Christie's novels. Decidedly a work of nonfiction, Banks's book considers the plight of middle-class African Americans who, according to statistics, are the least likely of any demographic group to get and stay married. Despite these obvious differences, Is Marriage for White People? shares some important commonalities with Agatha Christie's mysteries. Banks seeks to solve a mystery, but red herrings draw attention away from the true issue that should be the subject of Banks's concern. The mystery, of course, is the black marriage decline. In 1950, 78 percent …


Family History: Inside And Out, Kerry Abrams Apr 2013

Family History: Inside And Out, Kerry Abrams

Michigan Law Review

The twenty-first century has seen the dawn of a new era of the family, an era that has its roots in the twentieth. Many of the social and scientific phenomena of our time - same-sex couples, in vitro fertilization, single-parent families, international adoption - have inspired changes in the law. Legal change has encompassed both constitutional doctrine and statutory innovations, from landmark Supreme Court decisions articulating a right to procreate (or not), a liberty interest in the care, custody, and control of one's children, and even a right to marry, to state no-fault divorce statutes that have fundamentally changed the …


For And Against Marriage: A Revision, Anita Bernstein Nov 2003

For And Against Marriage: A Revision, Anita Bernstein

Michigan Law Review

When anthropologist Henry Sumner Maine issued his famous proclamation that modern legal development evolved "from Status to Contract," he used juridical categories to make a statement about progress. Voluntary relations now build the law, Maine declared. The alternative to voluntary relations - identity-based legal labels to decree what people may and may not do - must relocate to the dustbin of history. Only a backwater society would keep them. American legal change in the century-plus since Maine's death in 1888 gives credence to the claim that status inexorably yields to contract. At one level, newer developments refute the Maine thesis. …


Divorce, Custody, Gender, And The Limits Of Law: On Dividing The Child, Lee E. Teitelbaum May 1994

Divorce, Custody, Gender, And The Limits Of Law: On Dividing The Child, Lee E. Teitelbaum

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Dividing the Child: Social and Legal Dilemmas of Custody by Elanor E. Maccoby and Robert H. Mnookin


Family Traits, Inga Markovits May 1990

Family Traits, Inga Markovits

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Transformation of Family Law: State, Law and Family in the United States and Western Europe


Legislatures And Legal Change: The Reform Of Divorce Law, Carl E. Schneider May 1988

Legislatures And Legal Change: The Reform Of Divorce Law, Carl E. Schneider

Michigan Law Review

A Review of A Silent Revolution: Routine Policy Making and the Transformation of Divorce Law in the United States by Herbert Jacob


Reexamining The Law Of Rape, Janet E. Findlater May 1988

Reexamining The Law Of Rape, Janet E. Findlater

Michigan Law Review

A Review Real Rape by Susan Estrich


Women And The Law Of Property In Early America, David H. Bromfield May 1987

Women And The Law Of Property In Early America, David H. Bromfield

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Women and the Law of Property in Early America by Marylynn Salmon


The Unnecessary Doctrine Of Necessaries, Michigan Law Review Jun 1984

The Unnecessary Doctrine Of Necessaries, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues that neither the traditional nor the modem necessaries doctrines are justifiable in contemporary society. Part I investigates the practical effects of both the traditional and contemporary necessaries doctrines and demonstrates that neither is an effective mechanism for providing support to a needy spouse. While a more successful support remedy might be devised to replace modem and traditional versions of the necessaries rule, Part II shows that yet another reformulation would not be worthwhile because the theoretical underpinnings of the doctrine are faulty. There is no persuasive evidence to establish the existence of the narrow support problem the …


The Home Front: Notes From The Family War Zone, Michigan Law Review Feb 1984

The Home Front: Notes From The Family War Zone, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Home Front: Notes from the Family War Zone by Louise Armstrong


The Marriage Contract, Michigan Law Review Mar 1983

The Marriage Contract, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of the The Marriage Contract by Lenore J. Weitzman


Illegitimacy: An Examination Of Bastardy, Michigan Law Review Mar 1983

Illegitimacy: An Examination Of Bastardy, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Illegitimacy: An Examination of Bastardy by Jenny Teichman


The Constitutional Status Of Marriage, Kinship, And Sexual Privacy -- Balancing The Individual And Social Interests, Bruce C. Hafen Jan 1983

The Constitutional Status Of Marriage, Kinship, And Sexual Privacy -- Balancing The Individual And Social Interests, Bruce C. Hafen

Michigan Law Review

Today's lopsided competition between the individual and social interests has made the law a party to the contemporary haze that clouds our vision of what a family is or should be. In that sense, recent legal developments have contributed to the crisis Stanley Hauerwas has identified regarding American family life today - our inability to define "what kind of family should exist" and our inability to articulate ''why we should think of [the family] as our most basic moral institution."

In response to those two questions, this Article considers whether, as a constitutional matter, the courts should recognize claims by …


Conflicts Of Interest And The Changing Concept Of Marriage: The Congressional Compromise, Michigan Law Review Aug 1977

Conflicts Of Interest And The Changing Concept Of Marriage: The Congressional Compromise, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

The number of women, including married women, seeking prominent positions in American business and government has increased rapidly in recent years, and this development raises serious questions regarding potential conflicts of interest between spouses who work either in related areas of the public and private sectors or solely within the public sector. Specifically, when one spouse is a member of Congress, conflicts of interest can occur if the other spouse occupies a high-level position in private industry or in the executive branch of the government. This Note examines the potential dangers in these employment arrangements of members of Congress and …