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Full-Text Articles in Law
Paternity Un(Certainty): How The Law Surrounding Paternity Challenges Negatively Impacts Family Relationships And Women's Sexuality, Susan Ayres
Susan Ayres
It is popularly believed that false paternity rates are 10-30%, and that thousands of unsuspecting men are supporting children who are not theirs. These reported rates of false paternity have become urban legend, demonizing women as over-sexualized partners who shouldn’t be trusted. This in turn has influenced laws regarding paternity, which have evolved to allow men to dis-establish paternity years after a child’s birth, even when there has been an adjudication or acknowledgment of paternity. This article argues that society should be cautious about elevating science as the highest consideration in truth claims about paternity. It examines the incoherent and …
Two Ways To End A Marriage: Divorce Or Death, Laura A. Rosenbury
Two Ways To End A Marriage: Divorce Or Death, Laura A. Rosenbury
Laura A. Rosenbury
Default rules governing property distribution at divorce and death are often identified as one of the primary benefits of marriage. This Article examines these default rules in all fifty states, exposing the ways property distribution differs depending on whether the marriage ends by divorce or death. The result is often counter-intuitive: in most states, a spouse is likely to receive more property if her marriage ends by divorce than if the marriage lasts until "death do us part." This difference can be explained in part by the choices of feminist activists over the past thirty-five years: feminists played a large …
Friends With Benefits, Laura A. Rosenbury
Friends With Benefits, Laura A. Rosenbury
Laura A. Rosenbury
Family law has long been intensely interested in certain adult intimate relationships, namely marriage and marriage-like relationships, and silent about other adult intimate relationships, namely friendship. This Article examines the effects of that focus, illustrating how it frustrates one of the goals embraced by most family law scholars over the past forty years: the achievement of gender equality, within the family and without. Part I examines the current scope of family law doctrine and scholarship, highlighting the ways that the home is still the organizing structure for family. Despite calls for increased legal recognition of diverse families, few scholars have …
"Well-Behaved Women Don't Make History": Rethinking English Family, Law, And History, Danaya C. Wright
"Well-Behaved Women Don't Make History": Rethinking English Family, Law, And History, Danaya C. Wright
Danaya C. Wright
In 1857 Parliament finally succumbed to public and political pressure and passed a bill creating a domestic relations court: the Court for Divorce and Matrimonial Causes. This new court for the first time in common-law history, combined the following jurisdictions: the ecclesiastical court's jurisdiction over marital validity and separation; the Chancery court's jurisdiction over child custody and equitable estates; the common-law court's jurisdiction over property; and Parliament's jurisdiction over divorce and marital settlements. Wives were given the legal right to seek a divorce or judicial separation in a court of law, receive custody of the children of the marriage, and …
From Sex For Please To Sex For Parenthood: How The Law Manufactures Mothers, Beth A. Burkstrand-Reid
From Sex For Please To Sex For Parenthood: How The Law Manufactures Mothers, Beth A. Burkstrand-Reid
Beth A. Burkstrand-Reid
As soon as sperm enter a woman, so do law and politics, or so the decades-long disputes surrounding abortion suggest. Now, however, renewed debates surrounding contraceptives show legal and political interference with women’s sexual and reproductive autonomy may actually precede the sperm. This Article argues that, increasingly, women even thinking about having sex are defined socially and legally as “mothers.” Via this broad definition of who is a “mother," the State extends its reach into women’s decision-making throughout their reproductive lifetime. This Article argues that the State simultaneously devalues women’s choices to have sex for pleasure, which this Article calls …
Dirty Harry Meets Dirty Diapers: Masculinities, At-Home Fathers, And Making The Law Work For Families, Beth A. Burkstrand-Reid
Dirty Harry Meets Dirty Diapers: Masculinities, At-Home Fathers, And Making The Law Work For Families, Beth A. Burkstrand-Reid
Beth A. Burkstrand-Reid
Who is the “man”? Implicit in this question is whether the man at issue demonstrates traits traditionally associated with masculinity: traits such as power, rejecting all things associated with being female, aggression, and being the family breadwinner. If a man, then, abandons paid work and stays at home full time with his children, is he still a “man” as typically defined? The answer to this question bears both on whether families are truly evolving away from the traditional, gendered construct that places men as family breadwinners and women as caregivers and whether work-family balance law meets the needs of these—and …
Interview With Professor Martha Albertson Fineman, Linnéa Wegerstad, Niklas Selberg
Interview With Professor Martha Albertson Fineman, Linnéa Wegerstad, Niklas Selberg
Linnéa Wegerstad
No abstract provided.
Interview With Professor Martha Albertson Fineman, Linnéa Wegerstad, Niklas Selberg
Interview With Professor Martha Albertson Fineman, Linnéa Wegerstad, Niklas Selberg
Niklas Selberg
No abstract provided.