Volume 51 (2019) Issue 4 (Winter)

R.A. Lenhardt. At three-years old, I overheard my parents talking about one of my uncles. Chatterbox that I was, I promptly found that uncle after their conversation ended and apparently repeated much of what they said. It was not that…

Courtney G. Joslin. Families are changing. In the past, most adults in the U.S. were married, and almost all children were born to married persons. That is no longer the case. About half of all adults in the U.S. today…

Naomi Cahn & June Carbone. In Blumenthal v. Brewer, the Illinois Supreme Court held that it would not enforce an alleged agreement between a nonmarital couple that centered on their relationship. The National Center for Lesbian Rights argued that the…

Ayelet Blecher-Prigat. This Article aims to draw attention to the dynamic interrelationship between nonmarriage and marriage in which the principles, values, and rhetoric used in laws that relate to nonmarital intimate relationships infiltrate the traditional laws governing marriage. The Article…

Edward Stein. For much of this nation’s history, the vast majority of people have believed that being married to more than one person at the same time is deeply problematic. Further, polygamous marriage has never been legal in the United…

Amanda Jayne Miller & Sharon Sassler. Do the relationship processes leading to cohabitation and subsequent outcomes contribute to growing social class disparities in family behaviors? Our paper explores the role played by gender and class in relationship progression, from dating,…

Kaiponanea T. Matsumura. It has often been said that there are three parties to every marriage: the two spouses and the state. This aphorism reminds us that the state has a strong interest in the marital relationship and that this…