Taking Responsibility, Law and the Changing Family

This volume considers the impact that changing family norms has had on the responsibility that the law allocates to people in family relationships. The book explores these social changes and considers the extent to which the law should reflect and direct the changes that have occurred in the family responsibilities that people have undertaken. Contributions are drawn from a wide variety of jurisdictions in which scholars, lawyers, judges and policy makers have been grapling with similar issues than we have been used to considering. Part I looks at the changes that have occurred in adult relationships and what they have done for our sense of the family responsibilities that adults take for one another. Part II reflects on the changing nature of the parental relationship in order to reconsider the way in which changing family structures affects the responsibilities we think people raising children should have. The third part brings the rights discourse that has dominated jurisprudence for much of the last fifty years into the discussion of family transformation and the responsibilities to which it gives rise. In the final section, the authors reflect on the difficulties of trying to resolve the meaning of family responsibility in this changing family world. The collection brings together some of the most eminent and imaginative scholars and judges working in this area. It will be a valuable resource for all those interested in the legal regulation of the transforming family.