Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Publication Year
- Publication
- Publication Type
Articles 1 - 21 of 21
Full-Text Articles in Law
Black Marriage, White People, Red Herrings, Melissa Murray
Black Marriage, White People, Red Herrings, Melissa Murray
Michigan Law Review
Ralph Richard Banks's Is Marriage for White People? is worlds away from Agatha Christie's novels. Decidedly a work of nonfiction, Banks's book considers the plight of middle-class African Americans who, according to statistics, are the least likely of any demographic group to get and stay married. Despite these obvious differences, Is Marriage for White People? shares some important commonalities with Agatha Christie's mysteries. Banks seeks to solve a mystery, but red herrings draw attention away from the true issue that should be the subject of Banks's concern. The mystery, of course, is the black marriage decline. In 1950, 78 percent …
Family History: Inside And Out, Kerry Abrams
Family History: Inside And Out, Kerry Abrams
Michigan Law Review
The twenty-first century has seen the dawn of a new era of the family, an era that has its roots in the twentieth. Many of the social and scientific phenomena of our time - same-sex couples, in vitro fertilization, single-parent families, international adoption - have inspired changes in the law. Legal change has encompassed both constitutional doctrine and statutory innovations, from landmark Supreme Court decisions articulating a right to procreate (or not), a liberty interest in the care, custody, and control of one's children, and even a right to marry, to state no-fault divorce statutes that have fundamentally changed the …
Family Law In The Age Of Distrust, Carl E. Scheider
Family Law In The Age Of Distrust, Carl E. Scheider
Articles
I have been invited to examine the relationship between American culture and American family law at the end of the century. No doubt I was foolish to accept the invitation, since the topic can hardly be sketched, much less discussed, within the compass of even a lengthy article. On the other hand, that happy fault forces me to accept the luxury of writing a speculative essay and of eschewing the footnotes that are the misery (and majesty) of the academic lawyer. But even thus set free I am still enchained. Family law is shaped by more cultural forces than I …
Legal Narratives, Theraputic Narratives: The Invisibility And Omnipresence Of Race And Gender, Leslie G. Espinoza
Legal Narratives, Theraputic Narratives: The Invisibility And Omnipresence Of Race And Gender, Leslie G. Espinoza
Michigan Law Review
My first introduction to Denise Gray was through a form. The intake sheet was dated October 17, 1994. The legal problem was straightforward. My introduction to Denise Gray would come much later. I am a clinical law professor. The clinic, Boston College Legal Assistance Bureau, is known as "LAB." I teach students law by supervising them as they represent, usually for the first time, a real person with real problems.
25 Divorce Attorneys And 40 Clients In Two Not So Big But Not So Small Cities In Massachusetts And California: An Appreciation, David L. Chambers
25 Divorce Attorneys And 40 Clients In Two Not So Big But Not So Small Cities In Massachusetts And California: An Appreciation, David L. Chambers
Reviews
Jane is meeting with her lawyer Peter. She has been complaining bitterly about a restraining order obtained ex parte by the lawyer for her husband Norb. The order bars her from entering the home that she still owns jointly with Norb and that Norb has continued to live in. She moved out voluntarily, as a gesture of good will, a short while before only to have her husband's lawyer run to court and secure the order she abhors. Readers first met Jane back in 1986 when Austin Sarat and William Felstiner published the first article growing out of their massive …
Innocent Spouses, Reasonable Women And Divorce: The Gap Between Reality And The Internal Revenue Code, Stephen A. Zorn
Innocent Spouses, Reasonable Women And Divorce: The Gap Between Reality And The Internal Revenue Code, Stephen A. Zorn
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
This Article asks whether the "reasonable woman" should become the standard for women seeking relief from tax liabilities under the innocent spouse provision of the I.R.C. and whether an even more specific standard should be adopted for women who are also going through divorce or are in similar situations.
Fathers, The Welfare System, And The Virtues And Perils Of Child-Support Enforcement, David L. Chambers
Fathers, The Welfare System, And The Virtues And Perils Of Child-Support Enforcement, David L. Chambers
Articles
For half a century, Aid to Families with Dependent Children ("AFDC")' -the program of federally supported cash assistance to low-income families with children-has been oddly conceived. Congress has chosen to make assistance available almost solely to low-income single-parent families, not all low-income parents with children. At first many of the eligible single parents were women whose husbands had died. Over time, a growing majority were women who had been married to their children's father but who had separated or divorced. Today, to an ever increasing extent, they are women who were never married to the fathers of their children.2
Divorce, Custody, Gender, And The Limits Of Law: On Dividing The Child, Lee E. Teitelbaum
Divorce, Custody, Gender, And The Limits Of Law: On Dividing The Child, Lee E. Teitelbaum
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Dividing the Child: Social and Legal Dilemmas of Custody by Elanor E. Maccoby and Robert H. Mnookin
Marriage, Morals, And The Law: No-Fault Divorce And Moral Discourse, Carl E. Schneider
Marriage, Morals, And The Law: No-Fault Divorce And Moral Discourse, Carl E. Schneider
Articles
In this Essay, I want to reflect on no fault-divorce and the social attitudes that underlie it. In particular, I want to consider that reform in light of an article I wrote some years ago entitled Moral Discourse and the Transformation of American Family Law. There I argued that in recent years the language of American family law has changed notably: today family law issues are decreasingly discussed in the language of morality. In other words, legal institutions have decreasingly talked about those issues in moral terms. Rather, they have tended to avoid handling some moral issues altogether-often by …
Religion And Child Custody, Carl E. Schneider
Religion And Child Custody, Carl E. Schneider
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
In this Essay, I want to reflect on some problems at the intersection of religion, law, and the family. Specifically, I will explore the ways courts may consider a parent's religiously motivated behavior in making decisions about the custody of children. More precisely still, I will ask two questions. First, may a court refuse to award custody because of a parent's religiously motivated behavior in a dispute between a natural mother and a natural father? Second, when should a court agree to resolve a dispute between divorced parents over the religious upbringing of their children? These are topics of quiet …
Divorce Reform And The Legacy Of Gender, Milton C. Regan Jr.
Divorce Reform And The Legacy Of Gender, Milton C. Regan Jr.
Michigan Law Review
A Review of The Illusion of Equality: The Rhetoric and Reality of Divorce Reform by Martha Albertson Fineman
The Channelling Function In Family Law, Carl E. Schneider
The Channelling Function In Family Law, Carl E. Schneider
Articles
On an occasion such as this, we are called to step back from our daily work to seek what Justice Holmes called a "liberal view" of our subject. Today, I propose to do so by exploring a function of family law that I believe is basic, that underlies much of family law, that resonates with the deepest purposes of culture but that is rarely addressed expressly-namely, what I call the "channelling function." As I will soon explain at length, in the channelling function the law recruits, builds, shapes, sustains; and promotes social institutions. My exploration of this topic will have …
Commentary: Meeting The Financial Needs Of Children, David L. Chambers
Commentary: Meeting The Financial Needs Of Children, David L. Chambers
Articles
Those who drafted the equitable distribution statutes adopted in New York and elsewhere wanted to help assure women and children an acceptable level of financial well-being after divorce. Marsha Garrison has shown that divorcing couples rarely possess enough resources to attain financial well-being even when they live together as a couple, let alone when they live in two separate households. She has also shown that, even in the cases of couples with substantial assets, the broad and general language of the equitable distribution statute did not lead (and could not have been expected to lead) to consistent distributions that assured …
The Multiple-Marriage Society And Spousal Rights Under The Revised Uniform Probate Code, Lawrence W. Waggoner
The Multiple-Marriage Society And Spousal Rights Under The Revised Uniform Probate Code, Lawrence W. Waggoner
Articles
Nearly everyone knows about the transformation of the American family that has taken place over the last couple of decades. The changes, from the latter half of the 1970s into the present, comprise one of the great events of our age. Articles on one aspect or another of the phenomenon frequent the popular press, and a special edition of Newsweek was recently devoted to the topic.' The traditional "Leave It To Beaver" family no longer prevails in American society. To be sure, families consisting of a wage-earning husband, a homemaking and child-rearing wife, and their two joint children still exist. …
Family Traits, Inga Markovits
Family Traits, Inga Markovits
Michigan Law Review
A Review of The Transformation of Family Law: State, Law and Family in the United States and Western Europe
Spousal Probate Rights In A Multiple-Marriage Society, Lawrence W. Waggoner
Spousal Probate Rights In A Multiple-Marriage Society, Lawrence W. Waggoner
Other Publications
Nearly everyone knows about the transformation of the American family that has taken place over the last couple of decades. The changes comprise one of the great events of our age-from the latter half of the 1970's into the present. Articles on one aspect or another of the phenomenon frequent the popular press, and a special edition of Newsweek was recently devoted to the topic. The traditional "Leave It To Beaver" family no longer prevails in American marriage behavior. To be sure, the wage-earning husband, the homemaking and child-rearing wife, and their two joint children-this type of family still exists. …
Legislatures And Legal Change: The Reform Of Divorce Law, Carl E. Schneider
Legislatures And Legal Change: The Reform Of Divorce Law, Carl E. Schneider
Michigan Law Review
A Review of A Silent Revolution: Routine Policy Making and the Transformation of Divorce Law in the United States by Herbert Jacob
Abortion And Divorce In Western Law, Sara J. Vance
Abortion And Divorce In Western Law, Sara J. Vance
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Abortion and Divorce in Western Law by Mary A. Glendon
The Coming Curtailment Of Compulsory Child Support, David L. Chambers
The Coming Curtailment Of Compulsory Child Support, David L. Chambers
Articles
Absent parents ought to contribute to the support of their minor children and states can appropriately invoke the force of law to compel them to do so. Stated so generally, even absent parents behind in their payments would probably agree. Since so many others agree as well, and since the numbers of single-parent children have mushroomed, systems of governmentally compelled support in this country have grown enormously. By the early part of the next century, if current laws remain in force and current population trends continue, most of America's children on any given day will be entitled to support from …
Men Who Know They Are Watched: Some Benefits And Costs Of Jailing For Nonpayment Of Support, David L. Chambers
Men Who Know They Are Watched: Some Benefits And Costs Of Jailing For Nonpayment Of Support, David L. Chambers
Articles
Suppose that by some mysterious process the police in your town received each Monday a list of all the robberies and burglaries committed during the preceding week and the names of the persons who committed them. Suppose further that the list itself was admissible in evidence at trial and generally led to conviction. And suppose finally that persons considering committing offenses knew that the police had such a list and used it, relentlessly tracking down the miscreants named on it. Under such circumstances, one would probably expect that many potential offenders in the town with the magical list would resist …
Divorce Laws And The Increase Of Divorce, Evans Holbrook
Divorce Laws And The Increase Of Divorce, Evans Holbrook
Articles
Along with the condemnation of the divorce evil has gone a very general disposition to condemn our divorce laws as being responsible for the evil. The committee on resolutions of the Congress on Uniform Divorce Laws in its report to the Congress at its adjourned session in Philadelphia, November 13, 1906, speaks of the "many evils engendered by the lax and unphilosophic system prevailing in many of the states."3 On this phase of the question also our late president gave his views in his special message to Congress on January 30, 1905, in the following words: "There is a wide-spread …