Introduction

• Author: Jessica Dixon Weaver
• Position: Issue Editor, Editorial Board Member, Family Law Quarterly
• Pages: ix-xi

ix

Introduction

On Bridging the Divide Between

Family Law and Family Life

The featured articles in this issue were developed from a collection of

papers presented at the Family and Juvenile Law joint program during

the 2018 Association of American Law Schools Annual Meeting. The

Sections on Children and the Law and Aging and the Law co-sponsored

this program, which was entitled “Keeping Up with the Changing Face

of the American Family.” The concept derived from the observance of

signicant changes over the last sixty-ve years in the composition and

structure of families in the United States. From the decline of marriage

and fertility to the increase in blended families, interracial relationships,

and single parenthood, the face of the family is visibly different. The

legalization of same-sex marriage, the rise in the number of working

women and fathers who share in household and childcare responsibilities,

and the growing number of aging family members who need daily care

have impacted how families function. In some ways, federal and state

family laws precipitated these changes and opened the door for the new

trends, but in other ways, the law has been mired in tradition, making it

more difcult for the modern family to operate.

This issue explores the ways in which family law and other, related laws

lie behind the curve in areas such as reproduction, custody, companionship,

and caretaking. Our featured articles also examine the various consequences

of this gap between law and the realities of families today and consider ideas

and current efforts being made to close the divide.

The articles span a wide range of topics, from new developments in

the intimate relationships of the Baby Boom generation to discrimination

faced by lesbian mothers within the child welfare system. All highlight

how family formation is impacted by socio-legal policy and how legal

regulation of families outside the normative family has not caught up with

the real lived lives of modern day families. Four esteemed family law

professors offer dynamic contributions to this issue. We are also pleased to

present in this issue the 2017 and 2018 winners of the Howard C. Schwab

Published in Family Law Quarterly, Volume 52, Number 1, Spring 2018. © 2019 American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof

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