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Redefining The Family: Recognizing The Altruistic Caretaker And The Importance Of Relational Needs, Beverly Horsburgh
Redefining The Family: Recognizing The Altruistic Caretaker And The Importance Of Relational Needs, Beverly Horsburgh
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Part I of this Article describes the general nonrecognition of altruism in the law. It then focuses on contract law, discussing cases involving parties who cohabitate without formalizing their relationship in a marriage, and those who are not sexually intimate but are nevertheless interrelated members of an extended family. I argue that when a relationship ends, a caretaker becomes aware of her sacrifice and effort on behalf of another and experiences a sense of loss. However, recovery in contract requires the perverse recharacterization of the parties as self-seeking strangers impersonally bargaining over market services in a commodity exchange. Courts indulge …
California Family Law Act, Meredith A. Nelson
California Family Law Act, Meredith A. Nelson
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
California's Family Law Act has been heralded as the first major change in the State's divorce provisions in one hundred years. The Act is an attempt to remedy two major criticisms of current divorce practice both in California and throughout the United States. First, those advocating reform believe that laws controlling the granting of divorces are in conflict with modem concepts of marriage and divorce. Many divorce laws impose punitive sanctions in an attempt to deter those who would otherwise seek a divorce. Second, notwithstanding their intent, divorce laws have not, in fact, reduced the frequency of divorce. The inability …