Family law covers all matters that deal with the family including, civil unions, marriages, divorces, adoption, prenuptial agreements, child custody, and property settlements. Many time family laws are disputed in court, and deal with people from all different backgrounds. The unique thing about family law is that it pertains to everyone, and doesn’t favor anyone from a specific socioeconomic background. Everyone has a family, and everyone has problems within their family, this makes family law an area of law that is necessary on a daily basis. In the nineteen seventies, family laws were redefined rapidly, as they had become a part of the wider national debate regarding family values, gender bias, and morality. The areas of family law that experienced the most changes were divorce, child custody, and child support. By nineteen eighty seven, all states had adopted no fault divorces, which make dissolving a marriage a relatively easy process.
This has angered some who advocate traditional family values, because it appears to encourage couples to resort to divorces rather than to address the reasons for problems in their relationships.
The most contentious family issues today are those dealing with child custody. Child custody had been traditionally awarded to mothers during the twentieth century, but as the father’s role in the family evolved, family laws changed to allow fathers custody, and eventually, the concept of joint custody was created. In joint custody, both parents share the responsibility of taking care of the child. Court decisions do not always make both parents happy. The Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act or UCCJA was enacted by states in the United States because it was previously possible for a parent who was unhappy with a family court ruling in one state to kidnap the child in order to receive a more favorable decision in a different state. The UCCJA did not prove to be effective, so Congress passed the nineteen eighty Parental Kidnapping Act at the same time the United States adopted the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, which has served to enhance the effectiveness of family law. The federal government now governs parental kidnapping cases, and the convention allows for the protection of custodial rights even beyond national borders.
In many ways the government has become more aggressive in the area of family law. Although states are allowed to make their own family laws, every state has to keep these laws in line with the national amendments and mandates. One notable change is how family laws have been broadened to encompass couples who do not choose to marry. The Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement Support Act or URESA is an example of how the federal government has become more aggressive in collecting custodial support, because parents who are not receiving the required support are more likely to apply for welfare support. URESA allows for a person seeking custodial support from someone living in another state to sue for payment in his or her state of residency. This also gives the government to an opportunity to doge paying funds to support families unnecessarily. Family law is an increasingly important area of legal studies, with many law schools offering numerous elective courses on the subject and the bar exam testing knowledge of this area of law. Furthermore, family law is evolving as the national debate surrounding family continues.
Tags: Family law, Family Laws