The Liberal Transformation of Spousal Law: Past, Present and Future
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Shahar Lifshitz
Scholars and lawmakers are familiar with a meta-narrative describing the liberal revolution of spousal law that occurred in the last decades of the twentieth century, which further transformed marriage, already transformed from a Catholic religious sacrament into a public institution and legal status model in the nineteenth century, into a private contract at the end of the twentieth. This Article addresses the liberal transformation of spousal law. The goals of the discussion are threefold: First, the Article examines the liberalization as a historical narrative and the sub-narratives contained therein. Secondly, it explores the liberalization as the normative framework for the current normative debates. Finally, the Article criticizes the existing school of thought and proposes principles for a new theory that would depart from the thought patterns imposed by the liberalization narrative.
©2012 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Article
- Introduction
- From Rights and Obligations to Contested Rights and Obligations: Individualization, Globalization, and Family Law
- The Liberal Transformation of Spousal Law: Past, Present and Future
- Self-Restraint: Social Norms, Individualism and the Family
- The Family and the Market -- Redux
- The Legal Relationship Between Cohabitants and Their Partners' Children
- Who and What Is a Mother? Maternity, Responsibility and Liberty
- The Costs of Raising Children: Toward a Theory of Financial Obligations
- Lay Intuitions About Family Obligations: The Case of Alimony
- Family Law Reform in Australia, or Frozen Chooks Revisited Again?
- Something Old, Something New? Re-theorizing Patriarchal Relations and Privatization from the Outskirts of Family Law
- Rethinking the Right to Procreate: An African Imperative
- Economic Consequences of Marriage and Its Dissolution: Applying a Universal Equality Norm in a Fragmented Universe
- Introducing the Political Family: A New Road Map for Critical Family Law
Articles in the same Issue
- Article
- Introduction
- From Rights and Obligations to Contested Rights and Obligations: Individualization, Globalization, and Family Law
- The Liberal Transformation of Spousal Law: Past, Present and Future
- Self-Restraint: Social Norms, Individualism and the Family
- The Family and the Market -- Redux
- The Legal Relationship Between Cohabitants and Their Partners' Children
- Who and What Is a Mother? Maternity, Responsibility and Liberty
- The Costs of Raising Children: Toward a Theory of Financial Obligations
- Lay Intuitions About Family Obligations: The Case of Alimony
- Family Law Reform in Australia, or Frozen Chooks Revisited Again?
- Something Old, Something New? Re-theorizing Patriarchal Relations and Privatization from the Outskirts of Family Law
- Rethinking the Right to Procreate: An African Imperative
- Economic Consequences of Marriage and Its Dissolution: Applying a Universal Equality Norm in a Fragmented Universe
- Introducing the Political Family: A New Road Map for Critical Family Law
