New Articles on Marriage and Parenthood

On SSRN, Robin F. Wilson of the University of Maryland Law School posts two interesting looking family-law articles:

"Evaluating Marriage: Does Marriage Matter to the Nurturing of Children?"

This article evaluates the extent to which newer, more carefully constructed studies can assist us in isolating the impact on a child's well-being of living in a marital home. Part I describes the limitations of earlier studies of family structure. Part II examines a pair of studies published in 2003 that compare children's outcomes and parental investments in children in families that contain biological, married parents with those containing biological, unmarried parents. These studies conclude that "marriage per se confers advantage in terms of" how children thrive and to the extent to which parents are willing to invest in children. Part III evaluates the degree of reliance we should place on these newer studies. . . .  [It] concludes that perceptions of enduringness may shape not only relationships between the adults, but may also frame the adults' relationships to their children. 

"Undeserved Trust: Reflections on the American Law Institute's Treatment of De Facto Parents."

In its PRINCIPLES OF THE LAW OF FAMILY DISSOLUTION, the American Law Institute (ALI) proposes sweeping changes in the legal conception of parenthood. One such change would confer custody and visitation rights on a live-in partner of a legal parent who shared caretaking responsibility for a child for two or more years. . . .

Although the ALI is engaged in an admirable undertaking - to provide children with enduring contact with, in some cases, the only father [a] child ha[d] known - the drafters assume, without substantiation, that continuing contact between a child and the former live-in partner of the child's parent is an unadulterated good. However, by designating more and more adults as parents to whom custodial responsibility may be given, the ALI glosses over significant differences in the protective capacities of legal parents and other caretakers, as well as their desires to exploit children. Although some children may be made better off by the continued presence of de facto parents, their gain comes at a cost. Other children are likely to experience punishing physical abuse, sexual abuse or neglect, hastened in part by the fact that such contact occurs outside the protective presence of the child's legal parent.

Tom