Family Law Commons^™

Equal Access And The Right To Marry, Nelson Tebbe, Deborah A. Widiss

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

How should courts think about the right to marry? This is a question of principle, of course, but it has also become a matter of litigation strategy for advocates challenging different-sex marriage requirements across the country. We contend that courts and commentators have largely overlooked the strongest argument in support of a constitutional right to marry. In our view, the right to marry is best conceptualized as a matter of equal access to government support and recognition and the doctrinal vehicle that most closely matches the structure of the right can be found in the fundamental interest branch of equal …

Disestablishing The Family, Alice Ristroph

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Whose Best Interests?: Custody And Access Law And Procedure, Noel Semple

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This article compares the law of custody and access disputes with the procedure used to resolve them. The author argues that there is a fundamental contradiction between the two. The former focuses on the interests of the children involved to the exclusion of everything else. The latter, however, is controlled by and designed to protect the rights and interests of the adult parties to the dispute. Despite their doctrinal centrality in custody and access law, children are usually silent and invisible in custody and access procedure. To resolve this contradiction, the author proposes a focus on the costs and benefits …

Parental Entitlement And Corporal Punishment, James G. Dwyer

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Revitalizing The Adversary System In Family Law, Jane C. Murphy

All Faculty Scholarship

The way in which families resolve disputes has undergone dramatic change over the last decade. Scholars have focused much attention on a number of substantive law changes that have contributed to this transformation. These include the changing definitions of marriage, parenthood, and families. But less attention has been paid to the enormous changes that have taken place in the processes surrounding family dispute resolution. These changes have been even more comprehensive and have fundamentally altered the way in which disputing families interact with the legal system. Both the methods and goals of legal intervention for families in conflict have changed, …

The Collateral Consequences Of Masculinizing Violence, Jamie Abrams

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Before an enraged gunman fired thirty-six deadly shots into an exercise class filled with women, on August 4, 2009, in Pennsylvania, he blogged that his killing spree was the result of his failure to meet society’s expectations of him as a man. This violent act tragically affirms that hegemonic masculinity – a dominant form of masculinity whereby some types of men have power over women and over some other men – can directly cause violence against women and reveals both the underlying connection between masculinities scholarship and feminist scholarship and the value in exploring that linkage further in both theory …

The Fallacy Of Neutrality From Beginning To End: The Battle Between Religious Liberties And Rights Based On Homosexual Conduct, Rena M. Lindevaldsen

Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Bible plainly states that everyone must either "bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ" or continue as "enemies in your mind." Un-Biblical thinking, like un-Bibical actions, leads one on a path away from God. Part II of this Article will briefly introduce a Biblical approach to thinking about contemporary issues and discuss how Christians can unwittingly abandon distinctively Biblical thinking under the guise of neutrality. Part III will present a number of cases that highlight the fallacy of neutrality in the battle between religious liberties and rights based on homosexual conduct. Part IV will contend that …

Essay: (Re)Constructing The Framework Of Work/Family, Nancy E. Dowd

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Editor's Note

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Class Differences In Women’S Family And Work Behaviors, Sharon Sassler, Amanda J. Miller

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

The Browning Of America—Multicultural And Bicultural Families In Conflict: Making Culture A Customary Factor For Consideration In Child Custody Disputes, Cynthia R. Mabry

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Partitioning Paternity: The German Approach To A Disjuncture Between Genetic And Legal Paternity With Implications For American Courts, Shelly Ann Kamei

San Diego International Law Journal

This paper will address the strengths and weaknesses of the German approach as well as the potential use of this approach by American states, with particular emphasis given to the conflict between the right to know one’s origins and a child’s right to care and support. Part II discusses the challenge of defining legal paternity in an age of genetic certainty. It will first give a brief explanation of how courts have used functional–social and genetic considerations in defining legal paternity. It will then evaluate the legal implications of this approach on the rights of the father, mother, and child. …

The Children's Rights Amendment And Family Law, Fergus Ryan

Other resources

This blog entry is part of a carnival blog posted to http://humanrightsinireland.wordpress.com/ It addresses the provisions of the proposed constitutional amendment on children's rights, as formulated by the Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Constitutional Amendment on Children, published in February 2010. This brief comment analyses the proposal, with particular reference to its potential impact on children in non-traditional family units.

Check-The-Box Regs And Gift Tax Discounts, Wendy G. Gerzog

All Faculty Scholarship

This article discusses the recent Tax Court decision in Pierre and the effect for gift tax purposes of an entity’s classification made under the check-the-box regulations. The court was split on what those regulations mean when they state that an entity is to be disregarded ‘‘for federal tax purposes.’’

Nebraska Safe Haven Snafu, Revisited, Aaron-Andrew P. Bruhl

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

The Need For A National Civil Justice Survey Of Incidence And Claiming Behavior, Theodore Eisenberg

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Civil justice issues play a prominent role in society. Family law issues such as divorce and child custody, consumer victimization issues raised by questionable trade practices, and tort issues raised by surprisingly high estimated rates of medical malpractice, questionable prescription drug practices, and other behaviors are part of the fabric of daily life. Policymakers and interest groups regularly debate and assess whether civil problems are best resolved by legislative action, agency action, litigation, alternative dispute resolution, other methods, or some combination of actions. Yet we lack systematic quantitative knowledge about the primary events in daily life that generate civil justice …

Emotional Abuse And Controlling Behaviors In Heterosexual Relationships: The Role Of Employment And Alcohol Use For Women And Their Partners, Egbert Zavala, Ryan Spohn

Center on Children, Families, and the Law: Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study is to examine the role of economic resources, status compatibility, and alcohol consumption on forms of nonphysical abuse, such as controlling and emotional abuse. Specifically, we focus on the connections between women’s employment, the employment of their partners, alcohol use, and women’s risk of abuse in intimate relationships. We hypothesize that women in intimate relationships with men will experience more emotional abuse to the extent that they are economically vulnerable. Moreover, abuse should increase if their employment status, in relation to that of their partner, challenges the man’s marital power. Moreover, alcohol use by women …

Private Relationships And Public Problems: Applying Principles Of Relational Contract Theory To Domestic Violence, Tamara L. Kuennen

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

This Article maps out a new theoretical critique of no-drop prosecution policies, the criminal justice system’s predominant approach to domestic violence. No-drop rules compel prosecutors to make decisions about whether to pursue charges against a batterer without regard to the victim’s wishes. When the law mandates this approach, it not only enforces the criminal law, but also effectively terminates the relationship between the victim and her partner. This blunt response to what is often a complex situation indiscriminately dispenses with the many reasons a victim may want or need to preserve her intimate relationship. While numerous scholars have grappled with …

Marriage And Parenthood As Status And Rights: The Growing, Problematic And Possibly Constitutional Trend To Disaggregate Family Status From Family Rights, Katharine K. Baker

All Faculty Scholarship

In upholding Proposition 8 one year after finding that same sex couples had a constitutional right to marry, the California Supreme Court followed a growing trend in family law to sever family rights from family status. The Court found that same sex couples were constitutionally entitled to the legal incidents of marriage, but not marriage itself. In the last 30 years, courts and legislatures have increasingly recognized a variety of different family forms by granting people in them the legal incidents of family relationship (Civil Unions and Domestic Partnerships for couples, Visitation and De Facto Parenthood for caretakers) without granting …

Chalimony: Seeking Equity Between Parents Of Children With Disabilities And Chronic Illnesses, Karen Czapanskiy

Faculty Scholarship

Many thousands of children experience serious disabling conditions such as autism and debilitating chronic illnesses such as asthma. Caring for these children is often so demanding that caregiving parents cannot remain employed outside the home. Parental resources available to these children are also limited because an unusually high percentage of them live with only one parent. Nonetheless, surprisingly few cases involving families with a disabled or chronically ill child appear in the family law case law or scholarly literature. Even where child support and alimony are concerned, these families are seen only at the margins.

In my recent article, I …