Chapter 6, Marriage and Family Flashcards
Coverture
The legal status of a married woman, considered to be under her husband’s protection and authority. Rights as single women transferred to her husband.
Married Women’s Property Acts
Abolished coverture under state jurisdiction and granted women the same contract and property rights as unmarried women. Fell short as most wives lacked significant separate assets from their husbands. Majority of states also allowed husbands to retain control over women’s earnings.
No Fault Divorce
Allows women and men to dissolve their marriages unilaterally without having to allege adultery, abandonment, or other misconduct. An evolving concept of marriage based on equal treatment and individual choice.
Covenant Marriage
State jurisdiction (in Arkansas, Arizona, and Louisiana) that a couple can choose to undergo in which they must agree to undergo premarital counseling and to make all reasonable efforts to preserve their marriage. Dissolution of this type of marriage requires a showing of abuse, adultery, abandonment, or other special circumstances. Basically, opposite of no-fault divorce. A response to this evolving concept of marriage that some believed to be “too user friendly”.
Defense of Marriage Act (1996, called DOMA)
Passed by Congress as state efforts towards marriage equality started to gain steam. The statute defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman for the purposes of federal law and allowed states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages granted in other jurisdictions
United States v. Windsor (2013)
Key case in Same-Sex Marriage Movement. Same-sex couple Windsor and Spyer married while on vacation in Toronto in 2007 where same-sex marriage was legalized. When Spyder passed away in 2009 of MS and left her estate to Windsor, Windsor was not allowed to claim a spousal estate-tax exemption on her federal tax form (due to DOMA). She sued, and the Supreme Court ruled in her favor. SCOTUS struck down DOMA’s marriage restriction and required the IRS to recognize Windsor’s tax benefit of over $363,000. As a result, the cap on marraige benefits was lifted, and DOMA was no longer in effect.
Goodridge v. Department of Public Health (2003)
Opinion issued by Massachusetts Supreme Court. First decision by a U.S. high court to hold that same-sex couples had the right to marry. Gay and lesbian couples sued the state’s Department of Public Health for denying them marriage licenses. The department argued that restricting was justified by the state’s interest to provide a “favorable setting for procreation.” Court determined that the essence of marriage lay in “permanent commitment, not begetting children.”
Proposition 8
Referendum to the California State Constitution passed by voters to bar same-sex marriage. Federal trial court invalidated that effort for offending the federal Equal Protection Clause…something that was upheld in by SCOTUS in 2013.
Obergefell v. Hodges (2015)
SCOTUS held that both the Equal Protection and the Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment require states to license marriages between two people of the same sex and to recognize marriages between people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed in other jurisdictions.
Domestic Partnership
An unmarried, but mutually committed, couple sharing a household, of the same or opposite sex, with or without children.
Equitable Distribution
The distribution of property and debt obligations used by courts in most states when dividing marital property during divorce proceedings.
Tender Years Doctrine
A legal principle in family law that started in the late nineteenth century. In common law, it presumed that during a child’s “tender” years (generally regarded as the age of four and under), the mother should have custody of the child. Derived from trends in psychological theory that emphasized the importance of a maternal connection in childrearing.
Joint Custody
Allows parents to share responsibilities over legal decisions affecting their children. Children in this arrangement typically live primarily in one parent’s home and regularly visit the other.
Primary Caretaker Standard
Used for a time in Minnesota and West Virginia, the standard favored custody for the parent most involved in childcare activities (the cooking, the laundry, etc.). Would typically favor mothers.
