Obligation and Commitment in Family Law

Erscheinungsjahr 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5099-4028-8
Verlag: HART PUB

Buch, Englisch, 304 Seiten, Paperback, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 426 g

A tension lies at the heart of family law. Expressed in the language of rights and duties, it seeks to impose enforceable obligations on individuals linked to each other by ties that are usually regarded as based on love or blood. Taking a contextual approach that draws on history, sociology and social policy as well as law and legal theory, this book examines the concept of obligation as it has been developed in family law and the difficulties the law has had in translating it from a theoretical and ideological concept into the basis of enforceable actions and duties. Increasingly, the idea of commitment has been offered as the key organising principle for the recognition of family relationships, often as a means of rebutting claims that family ties are becoming attenuated, but the meaning and scope of this concept have not been explored. The book traces how the notion of commitment is understood and how far it has come to be used as a rationale for imposing the core legal obligations which underpin care and caring within families.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Douglas, Gillian

Fachgebiete

• Rechtswissenschaften Bürgerliches Recht Familienrecht

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. The Ties that Bind?

I. Introduction

II. Care and Caring

III. Legal Obligation

IV. Obligation as a Social Norm

VI. The Rationale for Obligations Upon Family Members

VII. Obligation or Commitment

2. Family Change and Individual Commitment
I. Family Changes

II. A Demographic Picture

III. From the Family to the Individual

IV. Change and Commitment

3. To Have and To Hold

I. Compelling Cohabitation

II. The Concept of Consortium

III. The Suit for Restitution of Conjugal Rights

IV. The Modern 'Duty' of Cohabitation

V. Marriage as Personal Commitment

4. A Clean Break

I. A Duty to Maintain

II. Maintenance During Marriage

III. Post-Divorce Maintenance and the Clean Break

IV. Triumph of the Clean Break?

5. Can't Pay? Won't Pay!

I. Duty to State, Mother or Child?

II. Limiting the Burden on the State

III. Protecting the Position of Mothers

IV. Supporting the Child

V. A Culture of Non-Compliance

6. Parenthood is for Life

I. Obligation or Right?

II. Paternal Right and Maternal Concession

III. A Right of Both Parents

IV. A Right of the Child

V. A Parental Responsibility

VI. Enforcing Contact

VII. A Presumption of Continuing Parental Involvement

VIII. An Obligation to be 'Involved'?

7. Who Cares?

I. Care-Giving as an Obligation

II. Care-Giving as a Claim to a Remedy

III. Caring Relationships

IV. Recognition of Caring Relationships, or Recognition of Care?

8. The Law of Family Obligations

I. Care, Obligation and Commitment

II. Altruism, Family Obligation and Non-Justiciability

III. The Gendered Legal Approach to the Family Unit

IV. Obligations and Commitments in Family Law

V. Obligation and Commitment

Über Autor(innen)

Douglas, Gillian
Gillian Douglas is Executive Dean and Professor of Law at The Dickson Poon School of Law, King's College London.