Gender and English Family Law Flashcards
3 key questions surrounding gender, religious and cultural diversity and family law?
1) To what extent is family law gendered?
2) Does family law effect men and women differently?
- >HOW?
3) To what extent are gender relations challenged i family law scholarship?
Who highlighted the importance of feminist perspective on family law?
DIDUCK and O’DONOVAN 2006
What did DIDUCK and O’DONOVAN 2006 say on feminism and family law?
‘Bring to light ways in which legal regulation of private family relations are also about regulation of socio-political relations: the nature and value of dependence and independence, the balance of social and economic power and the part the law plays in this regulation’
Most commonly accepted definition of marriage?
HYDE v HYDE 1866
- Voluntary union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others’
What is the basic legal principle of marriage?
- Can be created legally by anyone eligible with appropriate capacity to do so
- Both parties must comply with all the formal requirements
5 main feminist critiques of marriage?
i) Public/private control -> encourages subordination of women
ii) Ideological underpinnings the exact opposite of feminism
iii) Is a patriarchal institution (strongly rejected by Baroness Hale)
iv) Pre-2013 excluded same-sex couples
v) Not enough variation of marriage types
Definition of a Civil Partnership?
CPA 2004
s1(1) = a relationship between 2 people of the same sex
(a) Which is formed when they register as civil partners
Key differences between marriages and civil partnerships?
- In the formalities there is no mention of any form of religious connotation
- Does this grant parallel but different rights?
How can rights of civil partners be said to be parallel but different to those granted to spouses?
1) Share all characterstics, save name and slightly different formalities
2) ‘Civil Partnerships aimed at same-sex couples who cannot marry. We continue to support marriage and recognise it is the surest foundation for opposite-sex couples raising children’ - BARONESS SCOTLAND
What did Baroness Scotland say about the aims and perceptions of civil partnerships?
‘Civil Partnerships aimed at same-sex couples who cannot marry. We continue to support marriage and recognise it is the surest foundation for opposite-sex couples raising children’
How have discussions around marriage/civil partnership been underpinned by the idea of traditional nuclear families?
‘Stable couple form is good for the individual, the couple and society (both socially and economically). Living outside of this form is inefficient and costly and breakdown of the relationship form is too. As a consequence, long-term stable relationships become the socially preferred option for government’
STYCHIN
Who argued that long-term stable relationships are preferred by government on a social and economic basis (saves time and money)?
STYCHIN
How about relationships in contemporary society?
Increasing emergence of the ‘post-modern family’
See STACEY and DAVENPORT 2002
How did STACEY and DAVENPORT explain the idea of a post-modern family?
It ‘represents no new normal family structure, instead an irreversible condition of family diversity, choice, flux and contest. The sequence and package of [family life] is no longer predictable. Now there is no consensus on form a ‘normal’ family should assume, so every family is an ‘alternative’ family’
Who argues about the contemporary unpredictability of family life meaning there is no longer consensus on what a normal family is = post-modern family structure
STACEY and DAVENPORT 2002
