Law Commons^™

"Rethinking" Embryo Disposition Upon Divorce, Michael T. Flannery

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

An Incomplete Revolution: Reexaming The Law, History, And Politics Of Marital Property, Mary Ziegler

Scholarly Publications

Did the divorce revolution betray the interests of American women? While there has been considerable disagreement about the impact of divorce reform on women’s standard of living, many agree that judicial practices involving the division of marital property and the allocation of alimony have systematically disadvantaged women. Most often, in the courts and the academy, commentators see these practices as evidence of the need for family law reform.

These conclusions rely on a shared account of the history of divorce reform. According to this account, the transformation of divorce law in the 1970s and 1980s was a “silent revolution,” a …

The Future Of Family, Max D. Siegel

Student Articles and Papers

The State organizes society into families, implicating and often ignoring various liberty and equality interests while fortifying a “traditional” family structure comprised of one man, one woman, and their mutually and exclusively conceived offspring. This structure has historically benefited the heterosexual elite within the United States, but modern advancements for sexual minorities suggest a new standard for State recognition of family. Queer liberation will erase the traditional family by rewriting its legal and social dimensions, resulting in laws and policies that track more closely with familial bonds outside a heteronormative, man-woman binary. This Article explores the ramifications of enhanced queer …

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 …

Revisiting Mary Ann Glendon: Abortion, Divorce, Dependency, And Rights Talk In Western Law, Linda C. Mcclain, Margaret F. Brining

Faculty Scholarship

This essay revisits Mary Ann Glendon’s comparative law study, Abortion and Divorce in Western Law and her subsequent book, Rights Talk: The Impoverishment of Political Discourse. Glendon’s comparative study actually included a third topic: “forms of dependency which are connected with pregnancy, marriage, and child raising.” The topic of dependency has obvious relevance to consideration of intergenerational obligations and the interplay between family responsibility and societal responsibility for addressing dependency needs.

A central claim Glendon made in both books is that the U.S. legal tradition is “libertarian,” views individuals as “lone rights bearers,” and exalts the “right to be let …

Family Lawyering: Past, Present, And Future, John M. Lande, Forrest S. Mosten

Faculty Publications

In the past fifty years, divorce law has turned upside down. Marriage is not assumed to be a lifelong commitment. Fault generally is not legally relevant. Gender equality is a fundamental principle. Today, courts regularly handle a much broader range of issues, including disputes about issues such as domestic violence; parental relocation; religious upbringing; payment for children's college education; grandparent and stepparent visitation rights; rights of same-sex and unmarried couples; alienation of parents and children; and the role of e-mail, the Internet, and cybersex in divorce.

Family law practice inevitably evolved in response to these social and legal changes. This …

The Exit Myth: Family Law, Gender Roles, And Changing Attitudes Toward Female Victims Of Domestic Violence, Carolyn B. Ramsey

Publications

This Article presents a hypothesis suggesting how and why the criminal justice response to domestic violence changed, over the course of the twentieth century, from sympathy for abused women and a surprising degree of state intervention in intimate relationships to the apathy and discrimination that the battered women' movement exposed. The riddle of declining public sympathy for female victims of intimate-partner violence can only be solved by looking beyond the criminal law to the social and legal changes that created the Exit Myth.

While the situation that gave rise to the battered women's movement in the 1970s is often presumed …

Revisiting Mary Ann Glendon: Abortion, Divorce, Dependency, And Rights Talk In Western Law, Margaret F. Brinig, Linda C. Mcclain

Journal Articles

This essay revisits Mary Ann Glendon’s comparative law study, Abortion and Divorce in Western Law and her subsequent book, Rights Talk: The Impoverishment of Political Discourse. Glendon’s comparative study actually included a third topic: “forms of dependency which are connected with pregnancy, marriage, and child raising.” The topic of dependency has obvious relevance to consideration of intergenerational obligations and the interplay between family responsibility and societal responsibility for addressing dependency needs. A central claim Glendon made in both books is that the U.S. legal tradition is “libertarian,” views individuals as “lone rights bearers,” and exalts the “right to be …