Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Discipline
- Institution
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Legal History
The Productive Tension Between Official And Unofficial Stories Of Fault In Contract Law, Martha M. Ertman
The Productive Tension Between Official And Unofficial Stories Of Fault In Contract Law, Martha M. Ertman
Martha M. Ertman
Officially Contract law ignores fault. However, an unofficial story complements the official one, and explains why fault occasionally slips into contract law through doctrines such as willful breach. This chapter of FAULT IN AMERICAN CONTRACT LAW (Omri Ben-Shahar & Ariel Porot, eds, Cambridge U. Press, forthcoming 2010) argues that the official and unofficial stories operate in productive tension to both facilitate ex ante planning and, when necessary, look backward at reasons for breach to reach a just result. The occasional presence of fault in contract law, in this view, represents merely one more instance of the common doctrinal pattern of …
Race Treason: The Untold Story Of America's Ban On Polygamy, Martha M. Ertman
Race Treason: The Untold Story Of America's Ban On Polygamy, Martha M. Ertman
Martha M. Ertman
Legal doctrines banning polygamy grew out of nineteenth century Americans’ view that Mormons betrayed the nation by engaging in conduct associated with people of color. This article reveals the racial underpinnings of polygamy law by examining cartoons and other antipolygamy rhetoric of the time to demonstrate Sir Henry Maine’s famous observation that the move in progressive societies is “from status to contract.” It frames antipolygamists’ contentions as a visceral defense of racial and sexual status in the face of encroaching contractual thinking. Polygamy, they reasoned, was “natural” for people of color but so “unnatural” for whites as to produce a …