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Available open access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.
How families are formed, lived and understood has shifted dramatically—yet legal frameworks often still reflect outdated norms. This collection brings together a diverse team of international contributors to explore what a family is through a variety of disciplinary perspectives, including law, psychology, economics, family science and history, inviting transdisciplinary reflections on family regulation.
By examining how legal systems respond to, resist, or incorporate diverse family forms, from non-marital partnerships to trans families, the book reveals the tensions between lived realities and legal recognition. Offering fresh insight into how regulation shapes and is shaped by evolving family life, this book is essential for scholars interested in family law, social policy and the changing dynamics of kinship.
"This remarkable interdisciplinary volume is a must-read for any academic or policymaker trying to adapt family law to today’s families." Clare Huntington, Barbara Aronstein Black Professor of Law, Columbia Law School
"A thoughtful, compelling collection that rethinks what ‘family' means today, blending legal insight and interdisciplinary perspectives to help us see families anew." Bruce M Smyth, Emeritus Professor, Australian National University
Alice Margaria is an Assistant Professor in Law and Co-Director of the Interdisciplinary Research Program Human Reproduction Reloaded at the University of Zurich, Switzerland.
Claire Fenton-Glynn is a Professor of Law at the University of Monash, Australia.
Foreword - Martha Albertson Fineman
1. Introduction – Claire Fenton-Glynn and Alice Margaria
Part 1: Unsettling Traditional Paradigms
2. What Is a Family? A Feminist Family Science Perspective – Katherine R Allen
3. The Legal Family – Alan Brown
4. The Family and Its Disruption by Transgender Families – a Study of the Cases ‘Nigel and Beth’ and ‘Christina and Kimberly’ – Claire Jenkins
Part 2: Developing Regulation of Adult Relationships
5. Marriage and Family Formation at the Intersection of Law and History – Mary Jo Maynes
6. What Is a ‘European Family’? – Jens M Scherpe
7. Why Should the State Recognize Non-Conjugal Unions? An Analysis of the Debate Around Their Legal Recognition – Nausica Palazzo and Daniel Cardoso
Part 3: Empirical Approaches to Defining Families
8. What Is a Family? A Developmental Psychology Perspective – Kate Ellis-Davies and Sarah Foley
9. A Feminist Economist’s Perspective on Marriage Laws – Shoshana Grossbard
10. Family Ideals Across Cultures – Arnstein Aassve, Alícia Adserà, Paul Y. Chang, Letizia Mencarini, Chen Peng, Samuel Plach, James M. Raymo, Senhu Wang, and Wei-Jun Jean Yeung
Part 4: Rethinking the Family of Law
11. The Legal Family as a Child Development Incubator – Noam Peleg
12. From Folkhemmet to Post-Welfare Sweden: Rethinking Care and Dependency in a Neoliberal Context – Helena Moradi
13. Loneliness and Care: Rethinking the Role of Family Law – Jonathan Herring