Law Commons^™

Children's Interests In A Family Context - A Cautionary Note, James G. Dwyer

James G. Dwyer

No abstract provided.

Book Review Of The Child Cases: How America's Religious Exemption Laws Harm Children, James G. Dwyer

James G. Dwyer

No abstract provided.

A Child-Centered Approach To Parentage Law, James G. Dwyer

James G. Dwyer

No abstract provided.

A Child-Centered View Of Foster Parenting By Same-Sex Couples, James G. Dwyer

James G. Dwyer

No abstract provided.

A Taxonomy Of Children's Existing Rights In State Decision Making About Their Relationships, James G. Dwyer

James G. Dwyer

No abstract provided.

Will Marriage Promotion Work?, Vivian E. Hamilton

Vivian E. Hamilton

No abstract provided.

The Age Of Marital Capacity: Reconsidering Civil Recognition Of Adolescent Marriage, Vivian E. Hamilton

Vivian E. Hamilton

Age at marriage has for decades been the strongest and most unequivocal predictor of marital failure. The likelihood of divorce nears eighty percent for those who marry in mid-adolescence, then drops steadily. Delaying marriage until the mid-twenties reduces one’s likelihood of divorce to thirty percent. Women who marry at age twenty-one or younger, moreover – and one in ten U.S. women do – experience worse mental and physical health, attain less education, and earn lower wages than those who marry later. Post-divorce, they and their children tend to endure even greater economic deprivation and instability than do never-married mothers, who …

Why We Should Raise The Marriage Age, Vivian E. Hamilton

Vivian E. Hamilton

No abstract provided.

Principles Of U.S. Family Law, Vivian E. Hamilton

Vivian E. Hamilton

What explains U.S. family law? What are the origins of the current chaos and controversy in the field, the home of some of the most vituperative debates in public policy? To answer these questions, this Article identifies and examines family law's foundational principles. It undertakes a conceptual analysis of the legal practices that govern families. This analysis has yet to be done, and its absence hamstrings constructive thought on our family law. The Article develops a typology that conceptualizes U.S. family law and exposes its underlying principles. First, it identifies the significant elements, or rules, of family law. Second, it …

Mistaking Marriage For Social Policy, Vivian E. Hamilton

Vivian E. Hamilton

This Article examines the role of marriage in society, focusing on the state's use of marriage as a proxy for desirable outcomes in social policy. Its analytical point of departure is the normative vision of modern marriage embraced by many of its proponents. From there, the idealized marriage is analyzed, not as a monolithic, opaque institution, but as one whose functional components may be identified and examined. The Article identifies the following as the primary functions of the normative marital family: expression; companionship; sex/procreation; caretaking; and economic support or redistribution. Analyzing the roles in society of each of these functions, …

Expressing Community Values Through Family Law Adjudication, Vivian E. Hamilton

Vivian E. Hamilton

No abstract provided.

Family Structure, Children, And Law, Vivian E. Hamilton

Vivian E. Hamilton

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Dilemmas: Defense Of Marriage Act (Doma), Neal Devins, Tara Leigh Grove

Neal E. Devins

No abstract provided.

Commentary On Marriage Grants: Article Iii & Same-Sex Marriage, Neal Devins, Tara Leigh Grove

Neal E. Devins

No abstract provided.

A Constitutional Right To Home Instruction?, Neal Devins

Neal E. Devins

No abstract provided.

Nebraska Safe Haven Snafu, Revisited, Aaron-Andrew P. Bruhl

Aaron-Andrew P. Bruhl

No abstract provided.

Kairos And Safe Havens: The Timing And Calamity Of Unwanted Birth, Susan Ayres

Susan Ayres

It is impossible to know the number of infants killed or illegally abandoned at birth. No official reporting requirements exist, but conservative estimates claim that in the United States, 150-300 infants are killed within twenty-four hours of life and that over 100 infants are illegally abandoned. Beginning in 1999, in an effort to stem the problem of neonaticide and illegal abandonment, states began enacting laws to legalize abandonment. By 2008, all fifty states had enacted safe haven laws, which allow parents to anonymously abandon newborns by delivering them to designated providers, such as hospitals. This article provides a practical and …

Improving Outcomes In Child Poverty And Wellness In Appalachia In The "New Normal" Era: Infusing Empathy Into Law, Jill C. Engle

Jill Engle

No abstract provided.

Comparing Supreme Court Jurisprudence In Obergefell V. Hodges And Town Of Castle Rock V. Gonzales: A Watershed Moment For Due Process Liberty, Jill C. Engle

Jill Engle

“The nature of injustice is that we may not always see it in our own times. The generations that wrote and ratified the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment did not presume to know the extent of freedom in all of its dimensions, and so they entrusted to future generations a charter protecting the right of all persons to enjoy liberty as we learn its meaning. When new insight reveals discord between the Constitution’s central protections and a received legal stricture, a claim to liberty must be addressed.” -- Obergefell v. Hodges, 135 S. Ct. 2584, …

The Constitutionalization Of Fatherhood, Dara Purvis

Dara Purvis

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 …

Windsor, Surrogacy, And Race, Khiara M. Bridges

Khiara M Bridges

Scholars and activists interested in racial justice have long been opposed to surrogacy arrangements, wherein a couple commissions a woman to become pregnant, give birth to a baby, and surrender the baby to the couple to raise as its own. Their fear has been that surrogacy arrangements will magnify racial inequalities inasmuch as wealthy white people will look to poor women of color to carry and give birth to the white babies that the couples covet. However, perhaps critical thinkers about race should reconsider their contempt for surrogacy following the Supreme Court’s recent decision in United States v. Windsor. …

In The Right Direction, Family Diversity In The Inter-American System Of Human Rights, Macarena Sáez

Macarena Saez

Properly Accounting For Domestic Violence In Child Custody Cases: An Evidence-Based Analysis And Reform Proposal, Debra Pogrund Stark, Jessica M. Choplin, Sarah Elizabeth Wellard

Debra Pogrund Stark

Promoting the best interests of children and protecting their safety and well-being in the context of a divorce or parentage case where domestic violence has been alleged has become highly politicized and highly gendered. There are claims by fathers’ rights groups that mothers often falsely accuse fathers of domestic violence to alienate the fathers from their children and to improve their financial position. They also claim that children do better when fathers are equally involved in their children’s lives, but that judges favor mothers over fathers in custody cases. As a consequence, fathers’ rights groups have engaged in a nationwide …

Sal Annual Review 2019 On Family Law.Pdf, Jonathan Muk, Siyuan Chen

Jonathan Muk

Living Apart Together As A “Family Form” Among Persons Of Retirement Age: The Appropriate Family Law Response, Cynthia Grant Bowman

Cynthia Grant Bowman

As the Baby Boom generation enters retirement age, patterns of living among older persons are beginning to change. Unlike their predecessors, the Baby Boomers lived through the sexual revolution, divorced more easily and more often, and institutionalized new patterns of coupling, such as cohabitation. As a result, the rate of marriage has declined and the percent of the population classified as “single” has gone up. This age cohort has now moved into the sixty-five-plus group and makes up those we think of as the retirement generation, or the “Third Age” group. As longevity has increased and the divorce rate for …

Rethinking Premarital Agreements: A Collaborative Approach, Elizabeth Carter

Elizabeth R. Carter

No abstract provided.

Family Law And Female Empowerment, Andrea B. Carroll

Andrea Beauchamp Carroll

No abstract provided.

The Polarization Of Reproductive And Parental Decision-Making, Jamie R. Abrams

Jamie R. Abrams

Women’s abortion and parental decision-making in child rearing are constructed as polarized methods of decision-making in law, politics, and society. Women’s abortion decision-making is understood as myopic and individualistic. Parental decision-making is understood as sacrificial and selfless. This polarization leaves reproductive decision-making isolated, marginalized, and vulnerable while parental decision-making is essentialized, protected, and revered. Both framings are inaccurate and problematic. A unified family decision-making framework that aligns abortion decision-making and parental decision-making reveals that both forms of decision-making are more multi-dimensional, relational, and family-centered than currently understood. This Article exposes the ground to be gained by crossing longstanding boundaries in …

Cultural Diversity In Custody Disputes, Frederick H. Zemans

Frederick H. Zemans

The Commentaries give us a perspective of the expectations of medieval English society and its laws with respect to child rearing and the transmission of community values. Canada has inherited the common laws' values as articulated by Blackstone and has attempted to integrate them into its very different society.

Heterogeneous and pluralistic, Canada's society contains numerous cultural groups, each of which maintain distinct and independent traditions as well as the various national and religious institutions required to support these traditions.

Blending Surnames At Marriage, Hannah Haksgaard

Hannah Haksgaard