Law Commons^™

Unlike previous work examining marriage and divorce law from an economic perspective, this article critiques traditional economic theory, which frequently fails to address issues like "trust" and “trustworthiness” in the forming of contractual and marital relationships, as well as a number of rules within the modern American marriage and divorce system. Additionally, the article also demonstrates how a number of rules within both marriage and divorce systems can be better understood and evaluated from a behavioral economic perspective and suggests how those legal systems may be developed in the future.

The practical implications of this article are threefold. First, it …

This article examines the legal and economic incentives created by the Islamic Marriage and Divorce System (“IMDS”) to develop an empirical model regarding the relative prevalence and severity of clitoridectomy practices in different Muslim societies and considers how those practices may be eliminated from an economic perspective.

Part I of the article establishes the economic link between the IMDS and clitoridectomy and compares the IMDS and the American Marriage & Divorce System (“AMDS”) in terms of their relative efficiency. Part II operationalizes and refines the basic theory outlined in Part I by creating a falsifiable model regarding the relative prevalence …