Introduction: After Legal Equality
Robert Leckey (ed), After Legal Equality: Family, Sex, Kinship (Routledge, 2015)
28 Pages Posted: 7 Jan 2016
Date Written: March 1, 2014
Abstract
This is the substantive introduction to an edited collection that explores questions that open up in the aftermath of legal reforms in the name of equality. It draws together equality issues such as equal marriage for same-sex couples, equal parenting rights for men and women, and the relation between race and sexuality equality arguments.
This collection presents new research, gathering under its rubric authors from England and Wales, the United States, and Canada. Under an overarching theme of kinship and care, the chapters are organized into three parts: Care and Justice under Neo-liberalism, States' Reach, and Sex and Love. The recognition of same-sex relationships - primarily conjugal ones - emerges as the prevalent site of investigation, but chapters also address care more broadly, gender relations in parenting, cohabitation, and organizing for racial equality. This gathering embodies an effort to transcend the barriers that often confine legal scholarship within law and, via specialized journals, within fields. For example, the collection sets scholars of family law in conversation with tax specialists. Disciplinarily, it juxtaposes socio-legal scholarship with the work of specialists in sociology, American studies, and women's studies. The introduction proposes a method and 'register' for researching 'after legal equality'.
Keywords: family law, law reform, equality, same sex marriage, kinship
JEL Classification: K19
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation