Law Commons^™

Abstract: This Article questions whether and why it should be unconstitutional to treat legitimate and illegitimate children differently. It argues that legitimacy doctrine is rooted in a biological essentialism completely at odds with contemporary efforts to expand legal recognition of nontraditional parenting practices including same-sex parenting, single parenthood by choice, surrogacy, and sperm donation. The routine invocation of legitimacy doctrine by advocates purporting to help nontraditional families is thus at best ironic and at worst dangerous. Analysis of the U.S. Supreme Court’s legitimacy cases reveals that liberal Justices, in trying to dismantle marriage—a legal construct—as the arbiter of legitimate parenthood, …

The article explores the ironies involved in the contemporary enforcement of family obligations. As forms of intimate partnership and parenthood become ever more varied, the law of family obligation - child support, property division and alimony - has become increasingly routine and formulaic. As scholars increasingly call for more attention to the varied ways in which different individuals and communities structure their care networks and their intimate lives, the law of family obligation has become less, not more attentive to context. This piece explains how the law’s rejection of context is an understandable reaction to the growing diversity of family …

This article explores how shame sanctions may be able to change the social meaning and decrease the prevalence of date rape. Arguing that men's tendency to date rape is fostered by social norms that treat sex as an accomplishment and, importantly, an accomplishment that enhances a man's masculinity status, the article suggests that one way to curb date rape is to curb the extent to which it is associated with masculine behavior. This strategy is necessary because the high premium society places on masculinity and the cultural confusion about when date rape is morally wrong and how it is different …