Family Law Commons^™

Who Owns The Soul Of The Child?: An Essay On Religious Parenting Rights And The Enfranchisement Of The Child, Jeffrey Shulman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

At common law, and (for most of the nation's history) under state statutory regimes, the authority of the parent to direct the child's upbringing was a matter of duty, not right, and chief among parental obligations was the duty to provide the child with a suitable education. It has long been a legal commonplace that at common law the parent had a "sacred right" to the custody of his or her child, that the parent's right to control the upbringing of the child was almost absolute. But this reading of the law is sorely anachronistic, less history than advocacy on …

Marriage Fraud, Kerry Abrams

Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines the astonishing array of doctrines used to determine what constitutes marriage fraud. It begins by locating the traditional nineteenth-century annulment-by-fraud doctrine within the realm of contract fraud, observing that in the family law context fraudulent marriages were voidable solely at the option of the injured party. The Article then explains how, in the twentieth century, a massive expansion of public benefits tied to marriage prompted new marriage fraud doctrines to develop in various areas of the law, shifting the concept of the injured party from the defrauded spouse to the public at large. It proposes a framework …

Can Wrongful Death Damages Recovered By A Married Person Be Separate Property Under California Law?, William A. Reppy Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

Existing California judicial precedent uniformly holds that damages recovered by a married person based on the wrongful death of a relative of the married person during the marriage—and while the spouses were not living separate and apart—is entirely community property. Under the theoretical basis for this community property classification, it is irrelevant that the person tortiously killed was a child or grandchild only of the plaintiff- or payee-spouse and had no legally recognized relationship to that party’s husband or wife, who becomes owner of half the recovery because of its classification as community property. This Article rejects this community property …

Unsex Mothering: Towards A New Culture Of Parenting, Darren Rosenblum

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

I was, until recently, a pregnant man. I explored some of the issues that arose along my path to parenthood in a recent essay titled Pregnant Man?: A Conversation. My husband and I began the process of having a child several years ago when we hired a surrogacy agency that works primarily with gay male couples. After a complex process, we are now raising our daughter.

As a parent, I confront a far more sexed area of life than I have ever encountered before. Everyone congratulates my partner and me on being “fathers,” even though within our home we …

Family Law's Challenge To Religious Liberty, Raymond C. O'Brien

Scholarly Articles

This Article argues that challenges made to family law structures have provoked a significant reaction from persons and religious organizations advocating a distinctive worldview based on religious and historical values. Additionally, as family law changes from being a product of a religioushistorical worldview to being a product of private-ordering, the religious liberty of worldview adherents has been challenged. The struggle is apparent in the debates during the 2012 presidential election and is evidenced in government mandates that include, among other requirements, that employersincluding religious organizations-provide insurance coverage for employees that include contraception. Although many aspects of family law have been …

Outsourcing Childcare, Meredith Johnson Harbach

Law Faculty Publications

Existing discourse on childcare decisions proceeds as if there were one "right" answer to the question of who should care for children. The law has preferences, too. But the reality is that parents, like businesses, make diverse, strategic decisions about when to keep work in-house, and when to collaborate with outside partners. This Article uses the lens of business outsourcing to gain fresh perspective on childcare decisionmaking, and the law's relationship to it. The outsourcing framework provides three key insights. First, it enables us to better understand the diversity of childcare decisions and the reasons underlying them. Second, the outsourcing …

Child Support: Shifting The Financial Burden In Low-Income Families, Stacy Brustin

Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

Child Support Guidelines And Divorce Incentives, Margaret F. Brinig, Douglas W. Allen

Journal Articles

A child support guideline is a formula used to calculate support payments based on a few family characteristics. Guidelines began replacing court awarded support payments in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and were eventually mandated by the federal government in 1988. Two fundamentally different types of guidelines are used: percentage of obligor income, and income shares models. This paper explores the incentives to divorce under the two schemes, and uses the NLSY data set to test the key predictions. We find that percentage of obligor income models are destabilizing for some families with high incomes. This may explain why …

Explaining Abuse Of The Disabled Child, Margaret F. Brinig

Journal Articles

This article discusses abuse of disabled children in terms of two competing theories for why it may occur. The evolutionary biology theory has been discussed in the legal literature as well as in biological and social science pieces. The author contrasts this theory with a novel one, mimetic desire, which may be less familiar in legal circles, but which, he believes, better explains the abuse of Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder children and offers more hope for preventing abuse without disrupting intact families. While the evolutionary biology explanations for child abuse may be helpful and important, more territory can be covered …

Between Tradition And Progress: A Comparative Perspective On Polygamy In The United States And India, Cyra Akila Choudhury

University of Colorado Law Review

Both the United States and India have had longstanding experiences with polygamy and its regulation. In the United States, the dominant Protestant majority has sought to abolish Mormon practices of polygamy through criminalization. Moreover, a public policy exception has been used to deny recognition of plural marriages conducted legally elsewhere. India's approach to polygamy regulation and criminalization has been both similar to and different from that of the United States. With a sizable Muslim minority and a legal framework that recognizes religious law as family law, India recognizes polygamy in the Muslim minority community. However, it has criminalized it in …

Renegotiating The Social Contract, Jennifer S. Hendricks

Publications

This review of The Supportive State: Families, Government and America’s Political Ideals highlights Maxine Eichner’s important theoretical contributions to both liberal political theory and feminist theory, applauding her success in reforming liberalism to account for dependency, vulnerability, and families. The review then considers some implications of Eichner’s proposals and their likely reception among feminists. It concludes that The Supportive State is a sound and inspiring response to recent calls that feminist theory move from being strictly a school of criticism to developing a theory of governance.

Unexplained Fractures In Infants And Child Abuse: The Case For Requiring Bone-Density Testing Before Convicting Caretakers, Matt Seeley

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

State Of Alaska V. Native Village Of Tanana: Enhancing Tribal Power By Affirming Concurrent Tribal Jurisdiction To Initiate Icwa Defined Child Custody Proceedings, Both Inside And Outside Of Indian Country, Heather Kendall-Miller

Alaska Law Review

This Article provides an overview of the significant cases that have defined state-tribal relations in Alaska as related to Indian child proceedings and further discusses various policies that have been implemented over time. After outlining these cases and shifting policies, the Article examines the current state of the law in Alaska with a focus on State v. Native Village of Tanana, which clarified confusion regarding the inherent jurisdiction held by federally recognized Alaska Native tribes to initiate the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA)-defined child custody proceedings. Finally, the Article discusses those jurisdictional questions left unresolved by Tanana to be decided …

Domestic Relations, Barry B. Mcgough, Elinor H. Hitt

Mercer Law Review

This survey period' saw continued evolution of domestic relations law.2 Legislation passed during the 2010 and 2011 Regular Session of the Georgia General Assembly took effect during this survey period, and the Georgia Supreme Court continued to accept nonfrivolous appeals in divorce cases, which provide guidance to those interested in domestic relations law.

Confounding Identities: The Paradox Of Lgbt Children Under Asylum Law, Susan Hazeldean

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Pregnant Pause: An International Legal Analysis Of Maternity Discrimination, Candace S. Kovacic-Fleischer

Book Reviews

Professor Kovacic-Fleischer reviewed Pregnant Pause, which collects legal documents relating to workplace discrimination with emphasis on maternity and paternity leave issues. The book suggests that the United States should provide paid maternity leave as most countries do and paternity leave as some countries do. No country provides women and men with equal amounts of paid family leave. Pregnant Pause explains that without maternity leave, women may lose jobs when they have a baby and/or may pay an economic “child penalty.” Pregnant Pause notes that depending on how much or little leave and pay is allocated to men, parental leave policies …

Family Law, Ronald R. Tweel, Elizabeth P. Coughter, Jason P. Seiden

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Winning The Battle Or Losing The War: The Implications Of Boseman V. Jarrell On The Same-Sex Adoption Debate In North Carolina, Jacinta Jones

North Carolina Central Law Review

No abstract provided.

2011 Survey Of Juvenile Law, Michael J. Dale

Faculty Scholarship

Atypically, the Supreme Court of Florida was not active during the past year, deciding no cases in the juvenile law field. On the other hand, the intermediate appellate courts were active both in the delinquency area and in the dependency field. As in the past, decisions in the delinquency area involving generic issues of criminal procedure not unique to juvenile delinquency are not covered in this article.

Coalition, Cross-Cultural Lawyering, And Intersectionality: Immigrant Identity As A Barrier To Effective Legal Counseling For Domestic Violence Victims, Jessica H. Stein

Connecticut Public Interest Law Journal

Vol. 11, No. 1