This book is for anyone interested in the history of marriage and cohabitation, whether historian, lawyer or general reader. It is written in an accessible style, while providing a radical reassessment of existing ideas about the popularity, legal treatment and perceptions of cohabitation between 1600 and 2010.

Unmarried heterosexual cohabitation is rapidly increasing in Britain and over a quarter of children are now born to unmarried cohabiting parents. This is not just an important change in the way we live in modern Britain; it is also a political and theoretical marker. Some commentators see cohabitation as evidence of selfish individualism and the breakdown of the family, while others see it as just a less institutionalised way in which people express commitment and build their families. Politically, 'stable' families are seen as crucial - but does stability simply mean marriage? At present the law in Britain retains important distinctions in the way it treats cohabiting and married families and this can have deleterious effects on the welfare of children and partners on cohabitation breakdown or death of a partner. Should the law be changed to reflect this changing social reality? Or should it - can it - be used to direct these changes? Using findings from their recent Nuffield Foundation funded study, which combines nationally representative data with in-depth qualitative work, the authors examine public attitudes about cohabitation and marriage, provide an analysis of who cohabits and who marries, and investigate the extent and nature of the 'common law marriage myth' (the false belief that cohabitants have similar legal rights to married couples). They then explore why people cohabit rather than marry, what the nature of their commitment is to one another and chart public attitudes to legal change. In the light of this evidence, the book then evaluates different options for legal reform.

What is a family? What makes someone a parent? What rights should children have? In this Very Short Introduction Jonathan Herring provides an insight not only into what the law is, but why it is the way it is. It also looks at the future to consider what families will look like in the years ahead, and what new dilemmas the courts may face.

'Bromley's Family Law' is a well-established and popular textbook with students and practitioners alike. This edition has been updated to take into account recent developments in family law.

Presented in an accessible format, this text provides a detailed and authoritative exposition of the law, illustrated by carefully selected materials and complemented by clear and engaging commentary drawing on a range of critical and theoretical perspectives.

Written by a team of highly experienced teachers of family law, this innovative new textbook is a contextual, critical, and highly engaging guide to the subject. Each expert author has crafted a superbly clear guide to their particular area of expertise, which is structured around the key debates central to that topic. These debates are explored and discussed throughout the chapter, and students are thereby introduced to an enlightening range of perspectives on the key issues. The social, economic, and political backdrop to each topic is also extensively discussed, to ensure that students' understanding is grounded in this essential context. Family Law is a fresh, modern, and unique guide to this dynamic subject.

Succession, Wills and Probate is an ideal textbook for those taking an undergraduate course in this surprisingly vibrant subject, and also provides a clear and comprehensive introduction for professionals. Against an account of the main social and political themes of succession law, the book gives detailed explanations of core topics such as alternatives to wills and the making, altering and revocation of wills. It also explains personal representatives and how they should deal with a deceased person's estate and interpret and implement the will. Gifts may fail, estates may be insolvent or a person may die intestate, without a will at all. Increasingly relatives and others seek to challenge the will, for example on the grounds of the testator's capacity or under the law of family provision. This third edition is edited, updated and revised to take account of new legislation and case law across all the relevant issues, including a new final chapter dealing with the potentially contentious issues that are becoming more central to professional work in the field of succession.

Research Paper (undergraduate) from the year 2014 in the subject Law - Civil / Private / Family Law / Law of Succession, grade: A - Excellent, University of Hertfordshire, course: Independent Legal Study, language: English, abstract: There are many ways to define marriage and there are numerous perspectives on which these definitions can be based. Every country or even state has its own legal definition, each culture will have its own cultural and sociological definition, religions will have their own religious definitions and even each era will has its own anthropological definition. The British anthropologist Eleanor Kathleen Gough Aberle defined marriage in 1959 as „a relationship established between a woman and one or more other persons, which provides that a child born to the woman under circumstances not prohibited by the rules of the relationship, is accorded full birth-status rights common to normal members of his society or social stratum.” For statistical purposes the United Nations have recommended the following definition: „the legal union of persons of opposite sex. The legality of the union may be established by civil, religious, or other means as recognised by the laws of each country; and irrespective of the type of marriage, each should be reported for vital statistics purposes.” It is particularly interesting that the United Nations have added the word “legal” to their definition which provides the institution of marriage with a legal dimension. In the book “A practical treatise on the law of marriage and divorce“, Leonard Shelford explains that “Marriage, in its origin, is a contract of natural law antecedent to its becoming in civil society a civil contract, regulated and prescribed by law and endowed with civil consequences.” However, the past decades have experienced a decline in marriages amongst the British population as well as a substantial increase of cohabiting partners, who share the same domicile without having some form of contract governing the relationship. This has given rise to various approaches as to how relationships and families in particular are to be regulated. The following discussion will begin by taking a look at the current situation in England and Wales. Hereafter, points 3 and 4 will provide a theoretical foundation of the development of marriage and families as well as laws and justice. Finally, the last two points will discuss the recommended reform of the laws governing cohabitation and the current marriage scepticism which is growing in feminist and liberal jurisprudence.

This open access book presents an innovative study of the rise of unmarried cohabitation in the Americas, from Canada to Argentina. Using an extensive sample of individual census data for nearly all countries on the continent, it offers a cross-national, comparative view of this recent demographic trend and its impact on the family. The book offers a tour of the historical legacies and regional heterogeneity in unmarried cohabitation, covering: Canada, the United States, Mexico, Central America, Colombia, the Andean region, Brazil, and the Southern Cone. It also explores the diverse meanings of cohabitation from a cross-national perspective and examines the theoretical implications of recent developments on family change in the Americas. The book uses data from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series, International (IPUMS), a project dedicated to collecting and distributing census data from around the world. This large sample size enables an empirical testing of one of the currently most powerful explanatory frameworks for changes in family formation around the world, the theory of the Second Demographic Transition. With its unique geographical scope, this book will provide researchers with a new understanding into the spectacular rise in premarital cohabitation in the Americas, which has become one of the most salient trends in partnership formation in the region.

During the past three decades, nations all over the world have been debating whether to allow same-sex couples to marry, or at least grant these couples various rights associated with marriage. In Equality for Same-Sex Couples, Yuval Merin presents the first comparative study of the legal regulation of same-sex partnerships worldwide, as well as a unique survey of the status of same-sex couples in Europe. Merin begins by providing a historical overview of the transformation of marriage from antiquity to the present. He then identifies and critically compares four principal models for the legal regulation and recognition of same-sex partnerships: civil marriage, registered partnership, domestic partnership, and cohabitation. Merin concludes that all of the models except civil marriage discriminate against gays and lesbians just as the "separate but equal" doctrine discriminated against African Americans; thus, so-called alternatives to marriage, even if they provide the same rights and benefits as marriage, are inherently unequal and therefore unconstitutional.