With regard to family law, this volume examines claims based on cultural tradition, ethnic background, custom, religious affiliation and sexual orientation, as well as various other "claims" that are not officially recognized in state law, in 15 jurisdictions around the world. The country reports seek to determine whether these claims represent a challenge to family law as conceived by the state, and if so, how these challenges are being managed. The focus lies on the interaction between (i) claims and traditions raising minority-related and diversity-related issues and (ii) the state as the addressee of these demands for accommodation. The reports identify specific instances and situations that have proven (and in many cases still are) particularly difficult to resolve. They force decision-makers to engage in a delicate balancing act between different, often clashing interests.

With regard to family law, this volume examines claims based on cultural tradition, ethnic background, custom, religious affiliation and sexual orientation, as well as various other “claims” that are not officially recognized in state law, in 15 jurisdictions around the world. The country reports seek to determine whether these claims represent a challenge to family law as conceived by the state, and if so, how these challenges are being managed. The focus lies on the interaction between (i) claims and traditions raising minority-related and diversity-related issues and (ii) the state as the addressee of these demands for accommodation. The reports identify specific instances and situations that have proven (and in many cases still are) particularly difficult to resolve. They force decision-makers to engage in a delicate balancing act between different, often clashing interests.

The article explores the ironies involved in the contemporary enforcement of family obligations. As forms of intimate partnership and parenthood become ever more varied, the law of family obligation - child support, property division and alimony - has become increasingly routine and formulaic. As scholars increasingly call for more attention to the varied ways in which different individuals and communities structure their care networks and their intimate lives, the law of family obligation has become less, not more attentive to context. This piece explains how the law's rejection of context is an understandable reaction to the growing diversity of family forms. By unpacking contemporary family law rules, one see that the baselines and value judgments informing the law of family obligation are usually contested or arbitrary or both. They are accepted not because they represent consensus on what obligation should be but because they clearly demarcate who is obligated and for how much. Predictability emerges as more important than context for almost everyone. Social acceptance of so many different family forms makes judicial attention to context extraordinarily invasive and expensive. In an area of law where very few of the parties have the resources or desire to debate the normative underpinnings of family obligation and where both the parties and the state have strong interests in minimizing contested issues, there are compelling reasons to establish a very rule and status based law of obligation, even if that system is rooted in a normative vision of family that, for most people, has ceased to exist. The article thus argues that despite the profoundly limited way in which the current law identifies families, some reliance on restricted legal definitions of family will be necessary for any meaningful system of family obligation to operate. In doing so, the article challenges much contemporary family law scholarship and suggests that we may have to accept the law's privileging of certain family forms if we are to expect an enforceable system of family obligation.

What are our duties or rights? How should we act? What are we responsible for? Joseph Raz examines the philosophical issues underlying these everyday questions. He explores the nature of normativity--the reasoning behind certain beliefs and emotions about how we should behave--and offers a novel account of responsibility.

Examining the diversity of perspectives and approaches in family law scholarship and drawing upon this work, this book provides an analysis of recent trends in family law from a socio-legal and feminist perspective, and questions the nature of the 'nuclear' family.

This book presents comparative perspectives based on findings presented in National Reports on the theme 'Plurality and Diversity in Law: Family Forms and Family's Functions'. The contributions focus on whether, and if so, how, family law recognises that a child can have multiple parents, and which family functions are recognised and favoured by the law.

One of the law’s most important and far-reaching roles is to govern family life and family members. Family law decides who counts as kin, how family relationships are created and dissolved, and what legal rights and responsibilities come with marriage, parenthood, sibling ties, and other family bonds. Yet despite its significance, the field remains remarkably understudied and poorly understood both within and outside the legal community. Family Law Reimagined is the first book to evaluate the canonical narratives, examples, and ideas that legal decisionmakers repeatedly invoke to explain family law and its governing principles. These stories contend that family law is exclusively local, that it repudiates market principles, that it has eradicated the imprint of common law doctrines which subordinated married women, that it is dominated by contract rules permitting individuals to structure their relationships as they choose, and that it consistently prioritizes children’s interests over parents’ rights. In this book, Jill Elaine Hasday reveals how family law’s canon misdescribes the reality of family law, misdirects attention away from the actual problems that family law confronts, and misshapes the policies that legal authorities pursue. She demonstrates how much of the “common sense” that decisionmakers expound about family law actually makes little sense. Family Law Reimagined uncovers and critiques the family law canon and outlines a path to reform. Challenging conventional answers and asking questions that judges and lawmakers routinely overlook, it calls on us to reimagine family law.

This pivotal Research Handbook analyses the interconnectedness of family property and the law through historical, contemporary, comparative and jurisdiction-specific lenses. Authors analyse some of the most well-known, contested and politicised legal developments in the field of family property law.

The aim of this book is to explore what response the law has or should have to different family practices arising from cultural and religious beliefs. The issue has become increasingly debated as western countries have become more culturally diverse. Although discussion has frequently focused on the role Islamic family law should have in these countries, this book seeks to set that discussion within a wider context that includes consideration both of theoretical issues and also of empirical data about the interaction between specific family practices and state law in a variety of jurisdictions ranging from England and Wales to Bangladesh, Botswana, Spain, Poland, France, Israel, Iran and South Africa. The contributors to the 17 chapters approach the subject matter from a variety of perspectives, illustrating its complex and often sensitive nature. The book does not set out to propose any single definitive strategy that should be adopted, but provides material on which researchers, advocates and policy makers can draw in furthering their understanding of and seeking solutions to the problems raised by this significant social development.

The Changing Concept of ‘Family’ and Challenges for Domestic Family Law explores the changing concept of ‘family’, with the current social, political, medical and scientific challenges for domestic family law discussed in over 20 European jurisdictions. National reports describe the current law and legal development for ‘horizontal’ (the law of relationships between adults such as marriage, divorce, cohabitation, same-sex relationships), ‘vertical’ (the law governing the relationships between adults and children, such as parentage including artificial reproductive techniques and surrogacy, parental responsibility and adoption) and ‘individual’ (the law of names and recognition of gender identity) family law. They show that, while considerable legal and societal diversity still exists within Europe, family law, in many areas, is developing along similar lines, with a convergence towards a European family law. This book, and the others in the set, will serve as an invaluable resource for anyone interested in family law. It will be of particular use to students and scholars of comparative and international family law, as well as family law practitioners.