States of Union: Family and Change in the American

States of Union: Family and Change in the American Constitutional Order (Constitutional Thinking)

In two canonical decisions of the 1920sâ€”Meyer v. Nebraska and Pierce v. Society of Sistersâ€”the Supreme Court announced that family (including certain relations within it) was an institution falling under the Constitution's protective umbrella. Since then, proponents of "family values" have claimed that a timeless form of familyâ€”nuclear and biologicalâ€”is crucial to the constitutional order. Mark Brandon's new book, however, challenges these claims.

Brandon addresses debates currently roiling Americaâ€”the regulation of procreation, the roles of women, the education of children, divorce, sexuality, and the meanings of marriage. He also takes on claims of scholars who attribute modern change in family law to mid-twentieth-century Supreme Court decisions upholding privacy. He shows that the "constitutional" law of family has much deeper roots.

Offering glimpses into American households across time, Brandon looks at the legal and constitutional norms that have aimed to govern those households and the lives within them. He argues that, well prior to the 1960s, the nature of families in America had been continually changingâ€”especially during western expansion, but also in the founding era. He further contends that the monogamous nuclear family was codified only at the end of the nineteenth century as a response to Mormon polygamy, communal experiments, and Native American households.

Brandon discusses the evolution of familial jurisprudence as applied to disputes over property, inheritance, work, reproduction, the status of women and children, the regulation of sex, and the legal limits to and constitutional significance of marriage. He shows how the Supreme Court's famous decisions in the latter part of the twentieth century were largely responses to societal change, and he cites a wide range of cases that offer fresh insight into the ways the legal system responded to various forms of family life.

More than a historical overview, the book also considers the development of same-sex marriage as a political and legal issue in our time. States of Union is a groundbreaking volume that explains how family came to be "in" the Constitution, what it has meant for family to be constitutionally significant, and what the implications of that significance are for the constitutional order and for families.
Country USA
Brand University Press of Kansas
Manufacturer University Press of Kansas
Binding Hardcover
UnitCount 1
EANs 9780700619238
ReleaseDate 0000-00-00

Country	USA
Brand	University Press of Kansas
Manufacturer	University Press of Kansas
Binding	Hardcover
UnitCount	1
EANs	9780700619238
ReleaseDate	0000-00-00

States of Union: Family and Change in the American Constitutional Order (Constitutional Thinking)

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