This insightful Research Handbook provides a global perspective on key legal debates surrounding marriage and cohabitation. Bringing together an impressive array of established and emerging scholars, it adopts a comparative approach to analyse cross-jurisdictional trends and divergences in relationship recognition and family formation.
This open access book presents an innovative study of the rise of unmarried cohabitation in the Americas, from Canada to Argentina. Using an extensive sample of individual census data for nearly all countries on the continent, it offers a cross-national, comparative view of this recent demographic trend and its impact on the family. The book offers a tour of the historical legacies and regional heterogeneity in unmarried cohabitation, covering: Canada, the United States, Mexico, Central America, Colombia, the Andean region, Brazil, and the Southern Cone. It also explores the diverse meanings of cohabitation from a cross-national perspective and examines the theoretical implications of recent developments on family change in the Americas. The book uses data from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series, International (IPUMS), a project dedicated to collecting and distributing census data from around the world. This large sample size enables an empirical testing of one of the currently most powerful explanatory frameworks for changes in family formation around the world, the theory of the Second Demographic Transition. With its unique geographical scope, this book will provide researchers with a new understanding into the spectacular rise in premarital cohabitation in the Americas, which has become one of the most salient trends in partnership formation in the region.
Those not learned in the economic arts believe that economics is either solely or essentially concerned with commercial relations. And, so it was, originally. Then, in the second half of the 20th century, economists began applying their minimalist but sturdy tools to other human activities such as marriage, child-bearing, crime, religion and social groups. In this spirit, the Research Handbook on the Economics of Family Law gives us a series of original essays by distinguished scholars in economics, law or both. The essays represent a variety of approaches to the field. Many contain extensive surveys of the literature with respect to the particular question they address. Some employ empirical economics, others are more narrowly legal. They have in common one thing: each scholar employs a core economic tool or insight to shed light on some aspect of family law and social institutions broadly understood. Topics covered include: divorce, child support, infant feeding, abortion access, prostitution, the decline in marriage, birth control and incentives for partnering. This comprehensive and enlightening volume will be a valuable reference for those interested in law and economics generally and family law in particular.
In an era when half of marriages end in divorce, cohabitation has become more commonplace and those who do get married are doing so at an older age. So why do people marry when they do? And why do some couples choose to cohabit? A team of expert family sociologists examines these timely questions in Marriage and Cohabitation, the result of their research over the last decade on the issue of union formation. Situating their argument in the context of the Western world’s 500-year history of marriage, the authors reveal what factors encourage marriage and cohabitation in a contemporary society where the end of adolescence is no longer signaled by entry into the marital home. While some people still choose to marry young, others elect to cohabit with varying degrees of commitment or intentions of eventual marriage. The authors’ controversial findings suggest that family history, religious affiliation, values, projected education, lifetime earnings, and career aspirations all tip the scales in favor of either cohabitation or marriage. This book lends new insight into young adult relationship patterns and will be of interest to sociologists, historians, and demographers alike.
This pivotal Research Handbook analyses the interconnectedness of family property and the law through historical, contemporary, comparative and jurisdiction-specific lenses. Authors analyse some of the most well-known, contested and politicised legal developments in the field of family property law.
The Research Handbook on International Family Law brings together a carefully selected array of experts to address legal topics pertaining to family relationships in a cross-border context, and international family law disputes. It shows how this independent field of study has developed, and continues to develop, and adeptly surveys the practice and regulation of international family law.
This illuminating Research Handbook analyses the role that emotions play and ought to play in legal reasoning and practice, rejecting the simplistic distinction between reason and emotion.
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.
The late twentieth century has seen a fantastic expansion of personal, sexual, and domestic liberties in the United States. In Not Just Roommates, Elizabeth H. Pleck explores the rise of cohabitation, and the changing social norms that have allowed cohabitation to become the chosen lifestyle of more than fifteen million Americans. Despite this growing social acceptance, Pleck contends that when it comes to the law, cohabitors have been, and continue to be, treated as second-class citizens, subjected to discriminatory laws, limited privacy, a lack of political representation, and little hope for change. Because cohabitation is not a sexual identity, Pleck argues, cohabitors face the legal discrimination of a population with no group identity, no civil rights movement, no legal defense organizations, and, often, no consciousness of being discriminated against. Through in-depth research in written sources and interviews, Pleck shines a light on the emergence of cohabitation in American culture, its complex history, and its unpleasant realities in the present day.
“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.
