Legal Recognition of Non-Conjugal Families: New Frontiers in Family Law in the US, Canada and Europe

The insufficient recognition of ‘new families’ is a legal problem that needs fixing in light of recent evolutions in family structures and norms. While Western jurisdictions retain marriage as the key referent for social policies, people increasingly form familiar bonds outside of marriage (such as non-conjugal unions, polyamorous relationships, and various religion-based families). Part I of the book illustrates these evolutions, and the options lawmakers have to address the problem. Part II focuses on courtroom litigation on the basis that courts nowadays are central avenues of social change. It takes non-conjugal families as a case study and provides an analysis of the most compelling argumentative strategies that non-conjugal families can mobilise in Canada and the US, the EU and before the European Court of Human Rights. Through its comparative, interdisciplinary and critical legal method, aiming at predicting the approach jurisdictions are set to take and the hindrances thereof to overcome, this book provides scholars, activists and policymakers with key conceptual tools to tackle the current invisibility of all new families.