Abstract
The familiar account of recent family law history describes how, in a generation, the law increasingly has come to deal with the family not as an organic unit bound by ties of relationship, but as a loose association of separate individuals. Historically, the family as a group occupied a unique and protected position in our legal system. Family relationships were essentially immutable, fixed by status and defined by duty. The principal effect of the revolution in family law has been to change this. Family members have become individuals with individual rights, and the family as a group has lost much of its legal importance and protection.' The trend, according to this account, is toward a society in which liberal principles of autonomy and equality define the legal relationship of family members to the state and to each other in much the same way as those principles define the relationship of individual citizens to the state. In the liberal state, individuals have freedom to pursue their own self-defined ends, and relationships are voluntary and contractual. Much of the recent reform in family law, including the law of divorce, reflects this vision.
Recommended Citation
Scott, Elizabeth S.
(1994)
"Rehabilitating Liberalism in Modern
Divorce Law,"
Utah Law Review: Vol. 1994:
No.
2, Article 5.
Available at:
https://dc.law.utah.edu/ulr/vol1994/iss2/5