Download or read book Unmarried Couples Law and Public Policy written by Cynthia Grant Bowman and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2010 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this work, Cynthia Grant Bowman explores legal recognition of opposite-sex cohabiting couples in the United States. The author argues that the many benefits attendant upon formal marriage should be extended to cohabitants who have lived together for more than two years or give birth to a child.
Download or read book Living Apart Together written by Cynthia Grant Bowman and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2020-12-29 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Argues for legal reforms to protect couples who live apart but perform many of the functions of a family Living Apart Together is an in-depth look at a new way of being a couple and “doing family”—living apart together (LAT)—in which committed couples maintain separate residences and finances. In Bowman’s own 2016 national survey, 9% of respondents reported maintaining committed relationships while living apart, typically spending the weekend together, socializing together, taking vacations together, and looking after one another in illness, but maintaining financial independence. The term LAT stems from Europe, where this manner of coupledom has been extensively studied; however, it has gone virtually unnoticed in the United States. Living Apart Together aims to remedy this oversight by presenting original research derived from both randomized surveys and qualitative interviews. Beginning with the large body of social science literature from outside the US, Cynthia Bowman examines the prevalence of this lifestyle, the demographics of people who live apart, their reasons for doing so, and how these individuals manage finances, care during illness, and many other aspects of family life. She focuses in particular detail on three key demographics—women, gay men, and the elderly—and how individuals from these groups engage in LAT behavior. She finds that while these living arrangements are more common than previously believed, there are virtually no legal protections for the people involved. Bowman concludes by proposing a number of legal reforms to support the caregiving functions LAT partners perform for each other. Living Apart Together makes an important case for formal recognition of this growing but largely overlooked family structure.
Download or read book Living Together written by Toni Lynne Ihara and published by NOLO. This book was released on 2006 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This definitive guide for unmarried couples has been completely updated to reflect legal changes in common law marriage, property and debts, tax rules, insurance, medical care, public benefits, pre-marital agreements, alimony, estate planning and legal issues involving children, from adoption to custody and more. Includes tear-out agreements and sample forms.Unmarried couples living together should take certain legal precautions, whether you've lived together for years on end, or are simply contemplating the idea. This helpful book explains: § buying or renting a house § owning cars, boats and other property together or separately § having and raising children § writing wills and estate plans § getting authorization to make medical decisions for an ill or injured partner § breaking up The 13th edition provides the latest law in readable 50-state charts, and includes many fill-in-the-blank legal forms. It has new information on recent changes to tax laws, such as the "marriage penalty" and estate taxes. It also covers government and private companies that offer domestic partner benefits.
Download or read book Beyond Straight and Gay Marriage written by Nancy D. Polikoff and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2008-02-01 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The debate over marriage equality for same-sex couples rages across the country. Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage boldly moves the discussion forward by focusing on the larger, more fundamental issue of marriage and the law. The root problem, asserts law professor and LGBT rights activist Nancy Polikoff, is that marriage is a bright dividing line between those relationships that legally matter and those that don't. A woman married to a man for nine months is entitled to Social Security survivor's benefits when he dies; a woman living for nineteen years with a man or woman to whom she is not married receives nothing. Polikoff reframes the debate by arguing that all family relationships and households need the economic stability and emotional peace of mind that now extend only to married couples. Unmarried couples of any sexual orientation, single-parent households, extended family units, and myriad other familial configurations need recognition and protection to meet the concerns they all share: building and sustaining economic and emotional interdependence, and nurturing the next generation. Couples should have the choice to marry based on the spiritual, cultural, or religious meaning of marriage in their lives, asserts Polikoff. While marriage equality for same-sex couples is a civil rights victory, she contends that no one should have to marry in order to reap specific and unique legal results. A persuasive argument that married couples should not receive special rights denied to other families, Polikoff shows how the law can value all families, and why it must.
Download or read book Living Together written by TONI LYNNE. IHARA and published by . This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Please note that this edition is now out of print and has been replaced by the 14th edition, also available through MyiLibrary ... Unmarried couples living together should take certain legal precautions, whether you've lived together for years on end, or are simply contemplating the idea. This helpful book explains: o buying or renting a houseo owning cars, boats and other property together or separatelyo having and raising childreno writing wills and estate planso getting authorization to make medical decisions for an ill or injured partnero breaking upThis definitive guide for unmarried couples has been completely updated to reflect legal changes in common law marriage, property and debts, tax rules, insurance, medical care, public benefits, pre-marital agreements, alimony, estate planning and legal issues involving children, from adoption to custody and more. Includes tear-out agreements and sample forms.
Download or read book Unmarried Couples with Children written by Paula England and published by Russell Sage Foundation. This book was released on 2007-10-17 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today, a third of American children are born outside of marriage, up from one child in twenty in the 1950s, and rates are even higher among low-income Americans. Many herald this trend as one of the most troubling of our time. But the decline in marriage does not necessarily signal the demise of the two parent family—over 80 percent of unmarried couples are still romantically involved when their child is born and nearly half are living together. Most claim they plan to marry eventually. Yet half have broken up by their child's third birthday. What keeps some couples together and what tears others apart? After a breakup, how do fathers so often disappear from their children's lives? An intimate portrait of the challenges of partnering and parenting in these families, Unmarried Couples with Children presents a variety of unique findings. Most of the pregnancies were not explicitly planned, but some couples feel having a child is the natural course of a serious relationship. Many of the parents are living with their child plus the mother's child from a previous relationship. When the father also has children from a previous relationship, his visits to see them at their mother's house often cause his current partner to be jealous. Breakups are more often driven by sexual infidelity or conflict than economic problems. After couples break up, many fathers complain they are shut out, especially when the mother has a new partner. For their part, mothers claim to limit dads' access to their children because of their involvement with crime, drugs, or other dangers. For couples living together with their child several years after the birth, marriage remains an aspiration, but something couples are resolutely unwilling to enter without the financial stability they see as a sine qua non of marriage. They also hold marriage to a high relational standard, and not enough emotional attention from their partners is women's number one complaint. Unmarried Couples with Children is a landmark study of the family lives of nearly fifty American children born outside of a marital union at the dawn of the twenty-first century. Based on personal narratives gathered from both mothers and fathers over the first four years of their children's lives, and told partly in the couples' own words, the story begins before the child is conceived, takes the reader through the tumultuous months of pregnancy to the moment of birth, and on through the child's fourth birthday. It captures in rich detail the complex relationship dynamics and powerful social forces that derail the plans of so many unmarried parents. The volume injects some much-needed reality into the national discussion about family values, and reveals that the issues are more complex than our political discourse suggests.
Download or read book Marriage and Values in Public Policy written by Elizabeth van Acker and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-01-20 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marriage is a site of political conflict. It is a controversial issue in the UK, Australia and the US where there is a clash of values between neoliberal governments and diverse groups either strongly opposing or supporting marriage. In the meantime, fewer couples are marrying, while other family forms are more widely accepted. This book explores this disconnect by examining policy issues such as class divides, ethnicity, religion, same-sex marriage, gender relations and romantic expectations. A top down approach explores different government policy responses to marriage. In all three countries, there are differences and similarities in how governments react to the changes in family formations, but values or ‘conceptions of the desirable’ play a significant role. Enhancing stability and commitment as well as personal responsibility are important for policymakers who aim to keep ‘the family’ intact and thereby lower the burden on the public purse. It is difficult for political actors to respond to conflicting and changing values surrounding the diversity in relationships or to translate them into policies. There is a strong case to be made for increased policy attention to adult relationships - and a much weaker case for marriage. Rich evidence is drawn from interviews with key stakeholders as well as politicians’ speeches, government departmental reports, stakeholders’ documents and responses to government policies, and media articles.
Download or read book Singlism written by Bella Depaulo Phd and published by Doubledoor Books. This book was released on 2011-05-01 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A social psychologist examines the widespread cultural bias against unmarried adults, debunks commonly held myths about singlehood, and challenges the financial, social, economic, and other discrimination that single adults confront.
Download or read book Cohabitation Marriage and the Law written by Anne Barlow and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2005-06-23 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unmarried heterosexual cohabitation is rapidly increasing in Britain and over a quarter of children are now born to unmarried cohabiting parents. This is not just an important change in the way we live in modern Britain; it is also a political and theoretical marker. Some commentators see cohabitation as evidence of selfish individualism and the breakdown of the family, while others see it as just a less institutionalised way in which people express commitment and build their families. Politically, 'stable' families are seen as crucial - but does stability simply mean marriage? At present the law in Britain retains important distinctions in the way it treats cohabiting and married families and this can have deleterious effects on the welfare of children and partners on cohabitation breakdown or death of a partner. Should the law be changed to reflect this changing social reality? Or should it - can it - be used to direct these changes? Using findings from their recent Nuffield Foundation funded study, which combines nationally representative data with in-depth qualitative work, the authors examine public attitudes about cohabitation and marriage, provide an analysis of who cohabits and who marries, and investigate the extent and nature of the 'common law marriage myth' (the false belief that cohabitants have similar legal rights to married couples). They then explore why people cohabit rather than marry, what the nature of their commitment is to one another and chart public attitudes to legal change. In the light of this evidence, the book then evaluates different options for legal reform.
Download or read book Cohabitation Without Marriage written by Michael D. A. Freeman and published by Aldershot, Hants., England : Gower. This book was released on 1983 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book reviews the trends in Britian and in North America and in Scandinavia regarding cohabitation without marriage. The contents of this book; discussions of the responses of English law to cohabitation, justifications for equivalent treatment, and for differential treatment. The appendix contains cohabitation contracts and the law.
Download or read book Marriage Equality written by William N. Eskridge and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2020-08-18 with total page 1041 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The definitive history of the marriage equality debate in the United States, praised by Library Journal as "beautifully and accessibly written. . . . .An essential work.” As a legal scholar who first argued in the early 1990s for a right to gay marriage, William N. Eskridge Jr. has been on the front lines of the debate over same†‘sex marriage for decades. In this book, Eskridge and his coauthor, Christopher R. Riano, offer a panoramic and definitive history of America’s marriage equality debate. The authors explore the deeply religious, rabidly political, frequently administrative, and pervasively constitutional features of the debate and consider all angles of its dramatic history. While giving a full account of the legal and political issues, the authors never lose sight of the personal stories of the people involved, or of the central place the right to marry holds in a person’s ability to enjoy the dignity of full citizenship. This is not a triumphalist or one†‘sided book but a thoughtful history of how the nation wrestled with an important question of moral and legal equality.
Download or read book Marriage at the Crossroads written by Marsha Garrison and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-10-15 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The institution of marriage is at a crossroads. Across most of the industrialized world, unmarried cohabitation and nonmarital births have skyrocketed while marriage rates are at record lows. These trends mask a new, idealized vision of marriage as a marker of success as well as a growing class divide in childbearing behavior: the children of better educated, wealthier individuals continue to be born into relatively stable marital unions while the children of less educated, poorer individuals are increasingly born and raised in more fragile, nonmarital households. The interdisciplinary approach offered by this edited volume provides tools to inform the debate and to assist policy makers in resolving questions about marriage at a critical juncture. Drawing on the expertise of social scientists and legal scholars, the book will be a key text for anyone who seeks to understand marriage as a social institution and to evaluate proposals for marriage reform.
Download or read book Cohabitation Nation written by Ms. Sharon Sassler and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2017-08-15 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “We have fun and we enjoy each other’s company, so why shouldn’t we just move in together?”—Lauren, from Cohabitation Nation Living together is a typical romantic rite of passage in the United States today. In fact, census data shows a 37 percent increase in couples who choose to commit to and live with one another, forgoing marriage. And yet we know very little about this new “normal” in romantic life. When do people decide to move in together, why do they do so, and what happens to them over time? Drawing on in-depth interviews, Sharon Sassler and Amanda Jayne Miller provide an inside view of how cohabiting relationships play out before and after couples move in together, using couples’ stories to explore the he said/she said of romantic dynamics. Delving into hot-button issues, such as housework, birth control, finances, and expectations for the future, Sassler and Miller deliver surprising insights about the impact of class and education on how relationships unfold. Showcasing the words, thoughts, and conflicts of the couples themselves, Cohabitation Nation offers a riveting and sometimes counterintuitive look at the way we live now.
Download or read book Family Law A Very Short Introduction written by Jonathan Herring and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2014-02-27 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is a family? What makes someone a parent? What rights should children have? Family Law: A Very Short Introduction gives the reader an insight not only into what the law is, but why it is the way it is. It examines how laws have had to respond to social changes in family life, from rapidly rising divorce rates to surrogate mothers, and gives insight into family courts which are required to deal with the chaos of family life and often struggle to keep up-to-date with the social and scientific changes which affect it. It also looks to the future: what will families look like in the years ahead? What new dilemmas will the courts face? ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Download or read book More Than Marriage written by John G. Culhane and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-05-02 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduces an expansive vision of the family and a brilliant legal arrangement that will protect the lives of millions of adults. Today, about half of all adults are unmarried. Many of those are in significant relationships--some intimate, others based in friendship, finances, or family ties--but the law offers them few protections. Amid the growing recognition that modern families take all shapes, More Than Marriage presents a refreshing vision for the future. With this book, noted family-law expert John G. Culhane takes us on a guided tour of how the march toward marriage equality spun off a number of other legal statuses, and explores how the law has expanded and where it falls short. This lively living history is grounded in relatable, in-depth interviews that give voice to the millions of Americans building family structures outside the protections of marriage--whether by choice, necessity, or exclusion. Culhane proposes an updated legal status that offers flexible and portable benefits for a diverse range of commitments and needs. As More Than Marriage shows, this "choose your own adventure" structure more accurately reflects, and more equitably protects, the many kinds of families we choose to build.
Download or read book Love s Promises written by Martha M. Ertman and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2015-05-26 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Blends memoir and legal cases to show how contracts can create family relationships Most people think of love and contracts as strange bedfellows, or even opposites. In Love’s Promises, however, law professor Martha Ertman shows that far from cold and calculating, contracts shape and sustain families. Blending memoir and law, Ertman delves into the legal cases, anecdotes, and history of family law to show that love comes in different packages, each shaped by different contracts and mini-contracts she calls “deals.” Family law should and often does recognize that variety because legal rules, like relationships, aren’t one size fits all. The most common form of family—which Ertman calls “Plan A”—come into being through different kinds of agreements than the more uncommon families that she dubs “Plan B.” Recognizing the contractual core of all families shows that Plan B is neither unnatural nor unworthy of legal recognition, just different. After telling her own moving and often irreverent story about becoming part of a Plan B family of two moms and a dad raising a child, Ertman shows that all kinds of people—straight and gay, married and single, related by adoption or by genetics—use contracts to shape their relationships. As couples navigate marriage, reproductive technologies, adoption, and cohabitation, they encounter contracts. Sometimes hidden and other times openly acknowledged, these contracts ensure that the people they think of as “family” are legally recognized as family in the eyes of the law. Family exchanges can be substantial, like vows of fidelity, or small, like “I cook and you clean.” But regardless of scope, the agreements shape the emotional, social, and financial terrain of family relationships. Seeing the instrumental role contracts will help readers better understand how contracts and deals work in their own families as well as those around them. Both insightful and paradigm-shifting, Love’s Promises lets readers in on the power of contracts and deals to support love in its many forms and to honor the different ways that our nearest and dearest contribute to our daily lives.
Download or read book Living Together written by Toni Ihara and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Please note that this edition is now out of print and has been replaced by the 14th edition, also available through MyiLibrary ... Unmarried couples living together should take certain legal precautions, whether you've lived together for years on end, or are simply contemplating the idea. This helpful book explains:o buying or renting a houseo owning cars, boats and other property together or separatelyo having and raising childreno writing wills and estate planso getting authorization to make medical decisions for an ill or injured partnero breaking upThis definitive guide for unmarried couples has been completely updated to reflect legal changes in common law marriage, property and debts, tax rules, insurance, medical care, public benefits, pre-marital agreements, alimony, estate planning and legal issues involving children, from adoption to custody and more. Includes tear-out agreements and sample forms.
