With many couples separating each year, the question of how to determine the financial and property consequences of such separation has always been a problem area within family law. Should the principles be the same for married and cohabiting couples? Should the division of assets reflect the parties' own expectations or norms imposed by society? These are just two of the questions which the essays in this collection seek to explore. Recent cases in the House of Lords have seen willingness on the part of the judges to seek out empirical studies to inform their deliberations, but if the law is to engage with empirical data then much more information is needed, both about the arrangements people make during their relationships, and about the impact of the law when a relationship breaks down. This inter-disciplinary work brings together leading academics in the fields of law, economics, sociology and psychology in an attempt to provide some of the missing empirical information. Part I sets out the legal framework and identifies the importance of empirical studies for this area. Part II examines how couples (whether cohabitants or spouses) manage their money during their relationships. Part III then considers the impact that the law currently has on separating couples - examining how legal principles translate into reality and what their consequences are for the parties. Finally, Part IV considers the issue of legal rationality: it may be rational for the law to be shaped by patterns of behaviour, but how far will individual couples allow their behaviour to be shaped by the law?

Fully updated by Stephen Gilmore and Lisa Glennon, the 4th edition of Hayes and Williams' Family Law provides comprehensive, critical and case-focused discussion of the key legislation and debates affecting adults and children. The book takes a critical approach to the subject and includes 'talking points' throughout each chapter which highlight areas of debate or controversy and help students develop their own ideas and analysis of the law. Review questions at the end of each chapter allow students the opportunity to reflect and apply their knowledge and offer the ideal preparation for exams and assessments. Cases are at the heart of family law and this textbook offers unrivalled case detail, with comprehensive summaries of key cases throughout the text to ensure students understand the development of family law legislation through the courts. Further case discussion is fully incorporated throughout the text to demonstrate complex points of law and offer a useful starting point for further research and debate. The text also includes a range of further features to support students studying the subject for the first time, including legislation extracts, contextual chapter introductions, and further reading advice, alongside a clear and engaging writing style.

For those embarking on or engaged in property law research, this is a unique resource which includes contributions from twelve international scholars who each analyse a different research approach, addressing its value, associated methodology and the challenges involved in pursuing it.

Family Law offers an engaging and debate-driven guide to the subject, with each chapter crafted by a team of highly experienced teachers writing on their specialist subject under the expert editorship of Ruth Lamont. Each chapter is a superbly clear guide to the topic, structured around the key debates central to that topic, which are then explored in detail throughout the chapter. Students are thereby introduced to an enlightening range of perspectives on the key issues in family law today, allowing them to formulate their own opinions and arguments. The social, economic, and political backdrop to each topic is also extensively discusssed to ensure that students' understanding is grounded in this essential context. Family Law is a critical and modern guide to this dynamic subject.

Family Life, Family Law, and Family Justice: Tying the Knot combines history, social science, and legal analysis to chart the evolution and interdependence of family life and family law, portray current trends in family life, explain the pressing policy challenges these trends have produced, and analyze the changes in family law that are essential to meeting these challenges. The challenges are large and pressing. Across the industrialized West, nonmarital birth, relational stress, multi-partner fertility, and relationship dissolution have increased, producing a dramatic rise in single parenthood, poverty, and childhood risk. This concentration of familial and economic risk accelerates socioeconomic inequality and retards intergenerational mobility. Although the divide is most pronounced in the United States, the same patterns now affect families throughout the Western world. Across the European Union, there are 9.2 million "lone" parents, and just under half of their families live in poverty. Tying the Knot demonstrates how today’s family patterns are deeply rooted in long-standing, class-based differences in family life and explains why these class-based differences have accelerated. It explains how the values that guide family law development inevitably reflect the world in which families live and develops a new family law capable of meeting the needs of twenty-first century families. The book will be of considerable interest to family specialists from a number of fields, including law, demography, economics, history, political science, public health, social policy, and sociology.

Child and family law tells us much about how a society operates, since it touches the lives of everyone living in that society. In this volume, a variety of experts examine child and family law in thirteen countries - Australia, Canada, China, India, Israel, Malaysia, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Russia, Scotland, South Africa and the United States. Each chapter identifies the imperatives and influences that have prevailed to date and offers informed predictions of how it will develop in the years to come. A common chapter structure facilitates comparison of the jurisdictions, and in the introduction the editor highlights common trends and salient differences. The Future of Child and Family Law therefore provides practitioners, academics and policy-makers with access not just to an overview of child and family law in a range of countries around the world, but also to insights into what has shaped it and options for reform.