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Full-Text Articles in Legal History
Civil Rites: The Gay Marriage Controversy In Historical Perspective, Joanna L. Grossman
Civil Rites: The Gay Marriage Controversy In Historical Perspective, Joanna L. Grossman
Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters
This short essay, written for a volume that celebrates and reflects on Lawrence M. Friedman’s work in legal history and legal culture, explores the modern controversy about same-sex marriage through a historical lens. The legalization of same-sex marriage by five states, and the express condemnation of it by more than forty others, has reintroduced the age-old problem of non-uniform marriage laws and the complicated interactions that follow. This modern story - a challenge to traditional marriage, a divisive moral debate, and the emergence of strong oppositional forces that are stuck, at least temporarily, but perhaps indefinitely, in a kind of …
Christianity And The Legal Status Of Abandoned Children In The Later Roman Empire, Joshua C. Tate
Christianity And The Legal Status Of Abandoned Children In The Later Roman Empire, Joshua C. Tate
Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters
Late Roman imperial legislation relating to abandoned or exposed children has been the subject of much debate. Some have argued that the constitutions of Constantine relating to abandoned children marked a new Christian influence, and that the years between Constantine and Justinian merely refined and explained Constantine's legislation. This paper argues that the legislation of Constantine was not distinctly Christian in content, but that some Christian influence can be seen in the rhetoric of imperial constitutions beginning in the fifth century, and that Christian ideas seem to have affected both the substance and the rhetoric of Justinian's legislation. The paper …