Law, state and the family : the politics of child custody.

Law State and the Family: the Politics of Child
Custody is an examination of the development of law
and legal practices in relation to mothers and the
legal custody of children. It maps the history of
statute law and re-reads legal practice focusing
upon the way in which these practices reproduce and
sustain the conditions of motherhood.
The first section documents the construction of
the infant as a legal subject and the emergence of
mothers legal rights in relation to children under the
nineteenth century Guardianship Acts. The second
section examines debates regarding the role of the
state in the area of children and divorce following
the Second World War. This section also examines
the influence of ideologies of welfare upon the legal
treatment of different categories of children during
this period. In addition, this section also analyses
the limited role which the law plays in the majority
of decisions concerning custody of children following
divorce. The third section documents and analyses
women's experiences of contesting custody of their
children through an empirical study of a sample of
lesbian mothers. The focus is upon both the courts
and legal processes involving lawyers and divorce
court welfare officers. This section reveals the
influences of notions of good mothering and perceptions
of female sexuality upon those legal processes.
The final section is concerned with contemporary
debates in the 1980s regarding the role of the state
generally in the area of children and divorce and
particularly, discussions of the role of law in constructing children's relationships with fathers.
This section addresses the issues of 'joint custody'
of children and conciliation schemes through a
discussion of the implications of these practices in
America. This section concludes with a discussion
of the general trend away from 'law' and legal rules
in this area, towards 'private ordering' in conciliations. Finally, it sets out the implications of
that trend for feminist discussions of future policy
in the area of children and divorce in Britain.