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Full-Text Articles in Law

Bringing Up Baby: Adoption, Marriage, And The Best Interests Of The Child, Robin Fretwell Wilson, W. Bradford Wilcox Feb 2006

Bringing Up Baby: Adoption, Marriage, And The Best Interests Of The Child, Robin Fretwell Wilson, W. Bradford Wilcox

Faculty Scholarship

In the piece, Professor Brad Wilcox and I ask who should care for children when their biological parents cannot? This is a question of potentially explosive dimensions under new definitions of legal parentage proposed in this volume of the WILLIAM & MARY BILL OF RIGHTS JOURNAL. This question is also important today for evaluating state adoption laws. A significant number of states bar consideration of a prospective adopter’s marital or non-marital status. We believe these laws miss an important opportunity to maximize the best interests of each child being placed. In this piece, we take an exclusively child-centered approach, drawing …


Marriage, Biology, And Paternity: The Case For Revitalizing The Marital Presumption, Jana B. Singer Jan 2006

Marriage, Biology, And Paternity: The Case For Revitalizing The Marital Presumption, Jana B. Singer

Faculty Scholarship

This article examines the recent history and current status of the marital presumption of paternity. It explores the social, economic and legal developments that have contributed to the erosion of the presumption, focusing in particular on the efforts of federal and state governments to identify and collect financial support from unmarried biological fathers. The article then describes the procedural and equitable doctrines that some courts and legislatures have used to bolster the marital presumption in the face of conflicting biological evidence. Finding these approaches problematic, the article advocates a revitalized marital presumption as a substantive rule of law. It argues …


Some Abcs Of Feminist Sex Education (In Light Of The Sexuality Critique Of Legal Feminism), Linda C. Mcclain Jan 2006

Some Abcs Of Feminist Sex Education (In Light Of The Sexuality Critique Of Legal Feminism), Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

This essay offers some ABCs for a framework for sex education informed by feminist and liberal principles, in contrast to the conservative sexual economy underlying abstinence-only sex education. It embraces affirmative governmental responsibility to foster sexual and reproductive agency and responsibility and stresses the aims of capacity, equality, and responsibility. An adequate program of sex education should also address how gender role expectations and stereotypes may stand in the way of adolescents developing capacities for responsible self-government and acquiring a sense of personal agency with respect to intimacy and sexuality. The Essay then evaluates such a feminist project in light …


'God's Created Order', Gender Complementarity, And The Federal Marriage Amendment, Linda C. Mcclain Jan 2006

'God's Created Order', Gender Complementarity, And The Federal Marriage Amendment, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

Does marriage, in the United States, need the protection of an amendment to the federal constitution, which would enshrine marriage as only the union of a man and a woman? In answering "yes" to this question, sponsors and supporters of the Federal Marriage Protection Amendment (FMPA), in the House of Representatives and the Senate, have made various appeals to the gender complementarity of marriage: (1) opposite-sex marriage is part of "God's created order;" (2) procreation is the purpose of marriage and has a tight nexus with optimal mother/father parenting; (3) marriage bridges the "gender divide" by properly ordering heterosexual desire …


The Return Of The Ring: Welfare Reform’S Marriage Cure As The Revival Of Post-Bellum Control, Angela Onwuachi-Willig Dec 2005

The Return Of The Ring: Welfare Reform’S Marriage Cure As The Revival Of Post-Bellum Control, Angela Onwuachi-Willig

Faculty Scholarship

In 1996, the United States Congress began its imposition of a marital solution to poverty when it enacted the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act ("PRWORA"). Nearly ten years later, Congress has strengthened its commitment to marriage as a cure for welfare dependency with proposals such as the Personal Responsibility, Work, and Family Promotion Act of 2005. If passed, this bill would provide 1.5 billion dollars for pro-marriage programs and require each state to explain how its welfare program will encourage marriage for single mothers who receive public aid. With these proposals, Congress has continued to construct poverty as …


Evaluating Marriage: Does Marriage Matter To The Nurturing Of Children?, Robin Fretwell Wilson Oct 2005

Evaluating Marriage: Does Marriage Matter To The Nurturing Of Children?, Robin Fretwell Wilson

Faculty Scholarship

Three decades ago, it would have been inconceivable for people to discuss seriously the idea of withdrawing the legal and financial support society gives to marriage. In recent years, however, thinkers and policymakers have given more serious thought to the possibility of eliminating marriage as a category entitled to the State’s support. An important consideration in this debate is whether keeping or eliminating the State’s support of marriage matters to the well-being of children. A wealth of studies contemplating modern family forms now exists, many of which invariably stack newer family structures up against the more traditional nuclear family. Until …


The Practice Of Marriage, Katharine B. Silbaugh Jan 2005

The Practice Of Marriage, Katharine B. Silbaugh

Faculty Scholarship

Over the past 40 years, robust law has developed addressing the treatment of non-marital cohabitants. Consequently, the government's gatekeeping role operates somewhat differently than before. States are now more clearly policing the social benefits and the symbolism accompanying marriage, having agreed to provide many of its legal benefits to non-marital couples. This article investigates the state's current role in articulating and managing, as well as responding to, the social meaning of marriage in the context of three recent high profile cases: the prosecution of polygamist Tom Green, the Goodridge same sex marriage case in Massachusetts, and the challenge to Michael …


Intimate Affiliation And Democracy: Beyond Marriage?, Linda C. Mcclain Jan 2003

Intimate Affiliation And Democracy: Beyond Marriage?, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

This article takes up the question: Should family law and policy move beyond marriage? It assesses a spectrum of answers to that question. Rejecting proposals, on the one hand, to shore up traditional marriage, and, on the other, to abolish marriage, it argues that family law and policy should not move wholly beyond marriage, but should support marriage in a way that better fosters greater equality within and among families. The article is part of a symposium on "Marriage, Families, and Democracy," published in 32 Hofstra Law Review 23-421 (2003).


The Place Of Marriage In Democracy's Formative Project, Linda C. Mcclain Jan 2002

The Place Of Marriage In Democracy's Formative Project, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

Shoring up the institution of marriage is a theme in the "mar riage movement" and in recent legislative debates over welfare reform and family policy. One common premise is that strength ening marriage and renewing a "marriage culture" is vital to national health and that the best way for government, at all lev els, to strengthen and support families and to foster the well being of children is to promote and support marriage (Marriage Movement; Bush, 2002) Calls to renew civil society identify marital, two-parent families as foremost among the seedbeds of civic virtue upon which our Nation depends for …


Reconstructive Tasks For A Liberal Feminist Conception Of Privacy, Linda C. Mcclain Mar 1999

Reconstructive Tasks For A Liberal Feminist Conception Of Privacy, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

If liberal conceptions of privacy survive appropriately vigorous feminist critique and re-emerge in beneficially reconstructed forms, then why haven't more feminists gotten the message and embraced, rather than spurned, such privacy? If liberal privacy survives feminist critique, does it face an even more serious threat if contemporary society has both diminishing expectations of and taste for privacy? Does the transformation of the very notion of "private life," due in part to the rise of such new technologies as the Internet and its seemingly endless possibilities for making oneself accessible to others and gaining access to others, suggest the need for …


Commercializing Marriage: A Proposal For Valuing Women's Work Through Premarital Security Agreements, Martha M. Ertman Jan 1998

Commercializing Marriage: A Proposal For Valuing Women's Work Through Premarital Security Agreements, Martha M. Ertman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Reconstructing Marriage: An Intersexional Approach, Martha M. Ertman Jan 1998

Reconstructing Marriage: An Intersexional Approach, Martha M. Ertman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Marriage Contracts And The Family Economy, Katharine B. Silbaugh Jan 1998

Marriage Contracts And The Family Economy, Katharine B. Silbaugh

Faculty Scholarship

One simplified view of contract law is that the state enforces private bargains without looking into the substance of those bargains. From this contractual perspective marriage might look like a contract to exchange services and goods: love, money, the ability to have and raise children, housework, sex, emotional support, physical care in times of sickness, entertainment and so forth. But when the parties to a marriage put these terms in writing, courts only enforce the provisions governing money. This contract/family law rule of selective enforcement disproportionately benefits those who bring more money to a marriage, who are more likely to …


Legal Regulation Of Marriage: From Status To Contract And Back Again?, Jana B. Singer Jun 1997

Legal Regulation Of Marriage: From Status To Contract And Back Again?, Jana B. Singer

Faculty Scholarship

The purpose of this paper is to give a brief historical overview of the way in which the American legal system has traditionally regulated marriage.


Alimony And Efficiency: The Gendered Costs And Benefits Of Economic Justification For Alimony, Jana B. Singer Jan 1994

Alimony And Efficiency: The Gendered Costs And Benefits Of Economic Justification For Alimony, Jana B. Singer

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


The New Arkansas Inheritance Laws: A Step Into The Present With An Eye To The Future, Robert R. Wright Jan 1969

The New Arkansas Inheritance Laws: A Step Into The Present With An Eye To The Future, Robert R. Wright

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Legalizing Proxy Marriages, John S. Bradway Apr 1953

Legalizing Proxy Marriages, John S. Bradway

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Family Watchdog, John S. Bradway Jun 1938

Family Watchdog, John S. Bradway

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Tampering With Marriage, John S. Bradway Mar 1937

Tampering With Marriage, John S. Bradway

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.