Family law

This article is about the legal concept. For the television drama, see Family Law (TV series).

Family law is an area of the law that deals with family-related issues and domestic relations including:

• the nature of marriage, civil unions, and domestic partnerships;
• issues arising throughout marriage, including spousal abuse, legitimacy, adoption, surrogacy, child abuse, and child abduction
• the termination of the relationship and ancillary matters including divorce, annulment, property settlements, alimony, and parental responsibility orders (in the United States, child custody and visitation, child support and alimony awards).

This list is by no means dispositive of the potential issues that come through the family court system. In many jurisdictions in the United States, the family courts see the most crowded dockets. Litigants representative of all social and economic classes are parties within the system.

For the conflict of laws elements dealing with transnational and interstate issues, see marriage (conflict), divorce (conflict) and nullity (conflict).

Family Law may also refer to the marriage contract in Islamic faith, which includes the allowance of men to marry up to four wives, under certain circumstances.

Criticism of Family Law

Main article: Fathers' rights movement

Members of the fathers' rights movement criticize the "win or lose" nature of family law in determining issues of divorce and child custody in many Western countries. Cross-national parties dealing with legal systems in different countries simultaneously grapple with substantive and procedural issues regarding child concerns.

Advocates of Alimony reform also critique the Family Law system. They argue that current system pits divorcing couples against each other over child support and alimony, creating a hostile environment for the family and requiring large payments to divorce attorneys.

See also

• Alimony
• Paternity fraud
• Merger doctrine (family law)
• supervised visitation

Specific jurisdictions

• Algerian Family Code
• Family Court of Australia
  • Australian family law
• Family Law Act (Alberta, Canada)
• Family law system in England and Wales
  • The Children Act 1989
  • Sir Morris Finer - Report on One Parent Families
• Malian Family Code
• Mudawana (The Moroccan Family Code).
• Civil Code of the Philippines
• Discrimination Against Men in Israeli Family Courts

Further reading

• Testimony of Barbara DaFoe Whitehead, Ph.D, Co-Director, National Marriage Project Rutgers University, before US Senate Subcommitee
• Wallerstein, Judith, Ph.D., "The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce", an analysis of the long-term effect of divorce on children; NPR interview (2000)

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