This book argues that insufficient recognition of new families is a legal problem that needs fixing in light of recent evolutions in family patterns and normative conceptions of 'family'. People increasingly invest in relationships falling outside the model of the marital family, such as non-conjugal unions of friends or relatives, polyamorous relationships and various religious-based families. Despite this, Western jurisdictions retain the marital family as the relevant basis for allocating family law benefits, rights and obligations. Part I of the book illustrates recent evolutions in family patterns and norms, and explores how law can accommodate multiple family grids without legal recognition involving normalisation. Part II focuses on courtroom litigation on the basis that courts nowadays are central avenues of social change. It takes non-conjugal families as a case study and provides an analysis of the most compelling argumentative strategies that non-conjugal families can mobilise to pursue legal recognition in Canada and the United States, and within the systems of the European Convention of Human Rights and the European Union. Through its comparative, interdisciplinary and critical legal method, the book provides scholars, activists and policymakers with conceptual tools to tackle the current invisibility of new families. Further, by advancing legal arguments to enhance the protection of non-conjugal families in courtrooms, the book illuminates the different approaches jurisdictions are likely to take and the hindrances thereof to overcome and debunk stereotypes associated with proper familyhood.

This study examines the legal discrimination suffered in the United States by children born out of wedlock. The authors analyze the Supreme Court's equal protection birth status decisions from 1968 to 1992 and, in a case-by-case analysis, trace the development of the Court's rulings, examine the pattern of equal protection tests utilized, and evaluate the consistency of the Court's position. In addition, the work examines the related discrimination suffered by the families of non-marital children, especially single parents and alternative family units, and concludes that it is impossible to gain full equality for children born out of wedlock unless equality is also gained for their family unit. Toward these ends, the authors suggest a feminist jurisprudence as a methodology for addressing the underlying issue at the crux of birth status distinctions.

Currently, there are at least five bases for recognizing parentage: biology, genetics, intent, marriage, and functional or de facto parentage. These many bases for parentage, combined with the realities of reproduction, cohabitation, and family interaction, are the reason why children can have more than two parents. In many states, however, to have three instead of two parents is legally impossible. For example, statutory restrictions may require the demonstration of one or two legal parents' unfitness as parents before a third party can be granted parental rights; these restrictions also prevent the assertion of de facto parenthood. Limiting the number of parents a child can have is noticeably disadvantageous for a child with three fit, putative parents, as the child would be deprived of a parent-child relationship. Indeed, without the legal recognition of full parentage, children may be deprived of important sources of financial support and contact with their perceived parents, which may be traumatic to them. Drawing from the best interests of the child standard, this article introduces a new doctrine for parental recognition, “parentage in praxi,” which requires (1) that a putative parent complete statutorily delineated requirements that culminate in them standing “in the shoes of a parent,” and (2) that state law operate to allow a child to have more than two parents -- if doing so would be in the best interests of the child. A parent in praxi would have the same rights and obligations as a legal parent. By recognizing parentage in praxi, states can protect the relationships that children have formed with putative parents who may not be currently recognized as legal parents, regardless of the parents' legal status in any sphere not concerning the well-being of the child (e.g., marital status, familial status, or gender).

This book presents comparative perspectives based on findings presented in National Reports on the theme 'Plurality and Diversity in Law: Family Forms and Family's Functions'. The contributions focus on whether, and if so, how, family law recognises that a child can have multiple parents, and which family functions are recognised and favoured by the law.

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.