Family Law
Chapter 1 -
Chapter Overview
Chapter 1 focuses on marriage and the legal recognition of no marital couples. Interestingly, I have found that most students think of marriage as a purely personal matter, and have never really contemplated the fact that the marital relationship is subject to legal regulation. Thus, an important goal of this chapter is to expose students to the many ways that the law regulates marriage, whether through the provision of benefits or restrictions upon who can marry.
This chapter includes a longer historical overview than is found in most chapters. Beyond providing students with specific historical information, this overview is intended to help them understand the significance of the state's interest more generally in family relationships -- a theme that runs through this book.
Next, the chapter considers how states regulate the choice of marital partners through marriage restriction laws. This topic raises the important policy question of what role the state should play in shaping our intimate relationships—again, a theme that is repeated throughout the book. In light of its contemporary importance, considerable time is devoted to the issue of marriage between same-sex partners including a fairly detailed discussion of the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, 135 S. Ct. 2584 (2015).
The chapter the turns to a discussion of marriage formalities and focuses on formation requirements. The discussion of marriage concludes with a look at common law marriage, including the issue of interstate recognition.
The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of the legal rights of cohabiting couples with a focus on the contemporary erosion (although not erasure) of the traditional bright line between marriage and cohabitation. For those who have used previous editions of this book, please note that in light of their declining significance in a post-Obergefell world, the discussion of other approaches to family formation have been dropped from this edition.