Changing Contours of Domestic Life, Family and Law

Drawing from a wide range of material and socio-legal methods, this collection brings together original essays, written by internationally renowned scholars, investigating emerging patterns in the shape and form of the legal regulation of domestic relations. Taking as a focus the theme of 'caring and sharing', the collection includes chapters which reflect on the changing contours of what we think of as 'domestic relations'; the impact which legal recognition carries in making visible some relationships rather than others; the potential for normative values carried within patterns of legal recognition and regulation; intersections between private law and public policy; the role of private law in the allocation of responsibility and privilege; the differential impact of seemingly progressive policies on economically vulnerable or socially marginal groupings; tensions between family law models and models carried within other fields of private law; and, unusually, architectures in law and the built environment designed to facilitate broader accounts of domestic relationships. This thoughtful, provocative and wide-ranging collection will be a must for anyone, whatever their discipline background, interested in the insights and potential offered by a fresh engagement with the complexity of domestic relations and the law.
Authors: Anne Barlow, Anne Bottomley, Susan Boyd and Cindy Baldassi, Alison Diduck, Susan Scott-Hunt, Nan Seuffert, Carol Smart, Simone Wong and Claire Young.