Law and Gender Commons^™

Wrongful Death Of The Fetus: Viability Is Not A Viable Distinction, Sheryl Anne Symonds

Seattle University Law Review

This Comment reviews the history of tort law treatment of the fetus who is wrongfully injured or killed. The Comment discusses case history and wrongful death statutes, with a focus on Washington law. Finally, the Comment concludes that courts should ignore viability when deciding cases of fetal wrongful death.

Mediation Of Wife Abuse Cases: The Adverse Impact Of Informal Dispute Resolution On Women, Lisa G. Lerman

Scholarly Articles

This Article articulates a law enforcement critique of domestic violence mediation. It will explain the feminist view that mediation in abuse cases is based on misconceptions about the nature of wife abuse, and that mediation not only fails to protect women from subsequent violence, but also perpetuates their continued victimization.

The Article will recommend that other remedies be preferred over mediation. Recognizing that many programs will persist in mediation of wife abuse cases, however, the Article recommends that those programs should adopt procedures which will offer protection to victims of abuse, will make clear to the abuser that stopping the …

Rethinking The Substantive Rules For Custody Disputes In Divorce, David L. Chambers

Articles

A few states, mostly in the West and South, still retain a preference in custody disputes for placing young children with their mothers. In most other states, legislatures or courts have replaced the maternal presumption with a rule directing courts to be guided solely by the child's "welfare" or "best interests." A few legislatures have created a new preference for joint custody, directing courts to consider favorably requests by a parent for such arrangements, even over the objection of the other parent. This Article argues that the trend away from the maternal presumption is sensible, but that the current best-interests …

Inequality In Marital Liabilities: The Need For Equal Protection When Modifying The Necessaries Doctrine, Debra S. Betteridge

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note contends that the "primary/secondary" modification is unconstitutional because it ignores the husband's equal protection rights while unlawfully stigmatizing women as dependent. Part I discusses how the growing independence of women has led courts to modify the common law doctrine. Part II develops the test that the Supreme Court would apply in judging the constitutionality of any modification of the doctrine. Part III applies this test to the "primary/secondary" modification and concludes that the modification is unconstitutional and, therefore, not a legitimate reformation of the common law necessaries doctrine.

Child Support Law And Policy: The Systematic Imposition Of Costs On Women, Nan D. Hunter

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

From 1970 to 1981, the number of divorces in the United States more than doubled, and the number of children living with one parent increased by fifty-four percent, to a total of 12.6 million children, or one child in five. The great majority of these children have a living noncustodial parent from whom they are entitled to receive support payrents. Thus, approximately twenty percent of the nation's children are involved- at least potentially-in the child support system. Yet, despite its growing reach, the child support system remains in many ways primitive and inchoate. Award amounts are inadequate to pay for …

Domestic Violence: Illinois Responds To The Plight Of The Battered Wife - The Illinois Domestic Violence Act, 16 J. Marshall L. Rev. 77 (1982), Mary Lou Boland

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Women's Rights And The Proposed Family Protection Act, Karen Flax

University of Miami Law Review

In this article, the author examines the potential ramifications of the Family Protection Act, a bill recently introduced in the Senate by Senators Jespen and Laxalt. The author criticizes the bill both as a mechanism for legislatively enforcing the traditional role of women in American society and as a threat to civil liberties in general.

Protection Of Battered Women: A Survey Of State Legislation, Lisa G. Lerman

Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

Casenote, Constitutional Law--Equal Protection--New York Statute Requiring Consent Of Mother, But Not Of Father, As Prerequisite To Adoption Of Illegitimate Child Violates The Fourteenth Amendment Because It Draws Gender-Based Distinction Which Bears No Substantial Relation To State Interest In Encouraging Adoption Of Illegitimate Children--Caban V. Mohammed, 441 U.S. 380 (1979), Mary F. Radford

Faculty Publications By Year

No abstract provided.

Changing The Law On Personal Status Within A Liberal Interpretation Of The Sharia, Mohammed Al-Nowaihi

Faculty Book Chapters

Many minds, multiple energies and much cooperation has gone into the creation and production of this monograph. Principally it is the outcome of a seminar on the theme of "Law and Social Change: Problems and Challenges" which was organized and co-sponsored within the general framework of the Open University Seminar Series by the Department of Sociology-Anthropology-Psychology of the American University in Cairo and the National Center for Sociological and Criminological Research. The Open University Seminar, held annually, is a forum through which members of the AUC community and interested persons from the larger Egyptian community can come together to express …

Unmarried Couples And Unjust Enrichment: From Status To Contract And Back Again?, Robert C. Casad

Michigan Law Review

In recent years, litigation over property arrangements between unmarried cohabitants has posed some old questions in a new light and has yielded some new answers. One of the most intriguing of these questions is whether a cohabitant has a right, upon dissolution of the relationship, to remuneration for household services rendered during the relationship. A spouse who contributed household services in an actual marriage, of course, may upon divorce receive a share of the property acquired by the other spouse during the marriage or may receive a monetary award as compensation for the contributions made to the other during the …

Wife Abuse: The Failure Of Legal Remedies, 11 J. Marshall J. Of Prac. & Proc. 549 (1978), Lynn A. Sacco

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Parental Consent Abortion Statutes: The Limits Of State Power, Barbara Freedman Wand

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Custody Rights Of Lesbian Mothers: Legal Theory And Litigation Strategy, Nan D. Hunter, Nancy D. Polikoff

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Equal Rights Amendment: Constraint On Discretion In Family Law, Marylou Clark, Tricia Semmelhack, Sara Steinbock

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Married Woman's Surname: Is Custom Law?, Julia C. Lamber

Articles by Maurer Faculty

A general awakening of concern for the rights of women has occurred in recent years, and with it the particular problems of married women have been analyzed against a background of centuries of legal and social assumptions. With the impetus of employment discrimination legislation, the proposed equal rights amendment, and litigation raising sex discrimination issues, it is not surprising that many women are actively seeking to retain their pre-marriage names. This movement compels us to re-examine the custom that a woman must assume her husband's surname upon marriage. That such a phenomenon is custom and not law deserves our attention …

Struck V. Secretary Of Defense, Lewis F. Powell Jr.

Supreme Court Case Files

No abstract provided.

Divorce Law Reform In Michigan, B. H. Lee

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Few social questions touch the individual so intimately and foster such widely divergent views as the question of divorce. From those who regard marriage as a perpetual and indissoluble bond instituted by God to those who consider it a terminable contract between a man and a woman, every shade of opinion can be found. The subject of marital breakdown is neither new nor peculiar to our age. As one author has said: "The breakdown of marriage with provisions for divorce and remarriage is a phenomenon widely recognized in Babylonian, Hebrew, Greek and Roman law." Nevertheless, ever since Christianity established a …

Abortion Law In South Carolina, 24 S.C. L. Rev. 425 (1972), Gerald E. Berendt

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

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 …

Abortion And Legal Rationality, John M. Finnis

Journal Articles

This article concerns the legitimacy of various legal schemes for dealing with abortion. Legitimacy in one sense is secured simply by complying with the formal criteria for valid law-making: enactment within power and in due form. But jurists have learned (or re-learned) that more can be said about legitimacy, without betraying the purity of their discipline by moralizing and advocacy. From this development in jurisprudential thought emerges the range of questions and criteria deployed in the present study.

Quantum Meruit Recovery In Divorce Litigation

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Compulsory Husband-Wife Testimony In Criminal Cases

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Denial Of Alimony To Solvent Wife, Richard Crouch

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Persons-Husband And Wife-Wife's Right To Earnings

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Breach Of Promise Suits, Robert C. Brown

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Domicile Of A Married Woman, The, James L. Parks

University of Missouri Bulletin Law Series

Originally the rule was that the domicile of a married woman was that of her husband. It made no difference what the actual facts were, a wife would not be heard to say that she had a separate domicile. This notion was largely due to the law's conception of a married couple as one person, which idea was based on a wife's duty to be with her husband, he in turn being bound to support her.

A Critique Of Methods For Alteration Of Women's Legal Status, Gladys Wells

Michigan Law Review

A case was appealed because all women electors were excluded from the jury. Held, the Nineteenth federal Amendment merely prohibits discrimination, leaving the states to confer the right of suffrage. Moreover, jury service is distinct therefrom; and the state constitution excludes women by providing for juries of twelve "men." If being an elector ipso facto entitled to jury service, the legislature could prescribe no other limitation. No question of violation of the Fourteenth Amendment can be raised since the accused does not belong to the excluded class.

Married Women - The Husband's Right To His Wife's Services And To Her Earnings, Evans Holbrook

Articles

A Michigan statute passed in 1911 (LAWS OF 1911, ch. 196; COMP. LAWS 1915, § 11478) provided that a married woman should be "entitled to * * * earnings acquired * ** * as the result of her personal efforts." A married woman, before 1911, had worked as housekeeper for X and had continued to work for him after 1911; on his death she filed a claim against his estate for her services during the whole period. Held, she could not recover for the period before 1911, as her services and earnings prior to that date belonged to her husband.

Unrecorded Transactions Between Husband And Wife, Reuben B. Hutchcraft Jr.

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.