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Why Canada Has No Family Policy: Lessons From France And Italy, Philip Girard

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This paper uses a comparative legal history approach to examine the "private" law of the family in France, Italy, and the major English-speaking countries in order to clarify the fundamental notions of the family which predated the welfare state. It is suggested that a major cleavage exists, historically, between an autonomous family law in France and Italy oriented around notions of familial solidarity, sibling interdependence and equality, and intergenerational continuity, and a family law in the English-speaking countries marked by a preoccupation with the protection of property rights and the independence of individual family members. These contrasts reveal differing societal …