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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Constitutionalization Of Fatherhood, Dara Purvis
The Constitutionalization Of Fatherhood, Dara Purvis
Journal Articles
Beginning in the 1970s, the Supreme Court heard a series of challenges to family law statutes brought by unwed biological fathers, questioning the constitutionality of laws that treated unwed fathers differently than unwed mothers. The Court’s opinions created a starkly different constitutional status for unwed fathers than for unwed mothers, demanding additional actions and relationships before an unwed father was considered a constitutional father. Although state parentage statutes have progressed beyond their 1970s incarnations, the doctrine created in those family law cases continues to have impact far beyond family law. Transmission of citizenship in the context of immigration law and …
Promoting The General Welfare: Legal Reform To Lift Women And Children In The United States Out Of Poverty, Jill C. Engle
Promoting The General Welfare: Legal Reform To Lift Women And Children In The United States Out Of Poverty, Jill C. Engle
Journal Articles
American women and children have been poor in exponentially greater numbers than men for decades. The problem has historic, institutional roots which provide a backdrop for this article’s introduction. English and early U.S. legal systems mandated a lesser economic status for women. Despite numerous legal changes aimed at combating the financial disadvantage of American women and children, the problem is worsening. American female workers, many in low-paying job sectors, earn roughly twenty percent less than their male counterparts. Nearly forty percent of single mothers and their children subsist below the poverty level. The recession exacerbated this problem, mostly because unemployment …
Intended Parents And The Problem Of Perspective, Dara Purvis
Intended Parents And The Problem Of Perspective, Dara Purvis
Journal Articles
When asked to identify the legal parents of a child, traditional family law principles look backwards in time, primarily to biology and to marriage. People using assisted reproductive technologies such as surrogacy, however, seek to manifest their intent to become parents with a forward-looking temporal perspective, before a child is conceived and born. Of the existing doctrines used to identify parentage – marital presumption, biology, functional theories, and intent – only intent facilitates a forward-looking perspective. Intent through time, however, is not treated consistently. A woman, for example, may donate an egg, and may place a baby up for adoption, …
A Consideration Of Alternatives To Divorce Litigation, Thomas E. Carbonneau
A Consideration Of Alternatives To Divorce Litigation, Thomas E. Carbonneau
Journal Articles
This article argues for the need to inform divorce proceedings with a sense of the human reality of matrimonial breakdown. Part one assesses the adequacy of the existing adjudicatory approach to divorce by focusing upon the hiatus between the legal approach to divorce and the emotional content of divorce disputes. Part two lays the foundation for constructive change, providing a statistical portrait of divorce in contemporary America. Part four discusses mediation and suggests that it is a more viable alternative mechanism to divorce litigation. Part five discusses the implementation of a judicial arbitration structure.