Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2016
Abstract
As along-time critic of family law, I find it odd to be singing the system's praises. And yet I am. Sort of. In this issue of the Family Law Quarterly, which addresses cohabitation and nonmarital families, I want to focus on what happens when relationships end. For all its shortcomings, family law provides an institution to help divorcing couples restructure their families following the end of relationships. For nonmarital families, not so much. Unmarried parents theoretically can go to court when they separate, but most do not. Thus., as a practical matter, the legal system leaves unmarried parents without an effective way to transition from families based on romantic relationships to families based on co-parenting. Family law has been slow to recognize this problem.
Disciplines
Family Law | Law
Recommended Citation
Clare Huntington,
Nonmarital Families and the Legal System's Institutional Failures,
50
Fam. L. Q.
247
(2016).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/4203
Comments
©2016 by the American Bar Association. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association.