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1、 江西财经大学江西财经大学 法律英语论文法律英语论文系别系别: : 20112011 级法律硕士级法律硕士 学号：学号： 8112085681120856 姓名：姓名： 梁有文梁有文 2Time of Request: monday, May 21, 2012 21:35:40 EST Client ID/Project Name: Number of Lines: 235 Job Number: 1845:348741563Research InformationService: Terms and Connectors Search Print Request: Current Docum
2、ent: Source: US Law Reviews and Journals, Combined Search Terms: SUMMARY(civil law) Send to: UNIVERSITY, JIANGXIJIANGXI UNIVERSITY OF FINANCE instead, it simply extends eligibility for the $ 250,000 federal benefit for survivors of public safety officers killed in the line of duty to include any “in
3、dividual designated by such officer as beneficiary under such officers most recently executed life insurance policy.“ 4 The House Committee Report similarly avoids the issue, observing simply that prior law limited beneficiaries to “the spouse, child, or parent of the decedent.“ 5 Conservative criti
4、cs, however, perceived a statement implicit in the Mychal Judge Act: “Homosexual folks see this as a first step toward recognizing homosexuality on the same level as marriage, and thats what it will be used for.“ 6The Mychal Judge Act does not, of course, effect federal recognition of same-sex marri
5、age. It is, however, one of the myriad ways in which American law increasingly accommodates the variant modes of American family life. Writing for the plurality in the Supreme Courts 2000 decision in Troxel v. Granville, 7 Justice OConnor observed - in a quip now popular among family law commentator
6、s 8 - that “the demographic changes of the past century make it difficult to speak of *2000 an average American family.“ 9 So, too, have the resulting legal changes made it difficult to speak of a coherent American family law. The Mychal Judge Act notwithstanding, family law is almost exclusively in
7、 the custody of the states, 10 and the unique demographic and cultural circumstances of each state have engendered considerable variation in the law governing marriage and divorce, parenthood and child support, and 5other aspects of family life. This variation - and the concomitant lack of clarity a
8、nd predictability for litigants - eventually prompted the American Law Institute (ALI) to make its first foray into the field of family law, with the goal of defining “a legal framework that can accommodate the different choices people make and the different expectations they bring to their family r
9、elationships.“3 11 The ALI published its Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution in 2002. 12 Perhaps inevitably, ALI Principles has already drawn fire for failing to reflect the full range of perspectives on the American family. 13In this Development, the Harvard Law Review assesses the present
10、gap - to paraphrase Dean Pound - between the family in casebooks and the family in action. 14 The purpose is to step beyond reactions to specific cases or legislation and to synthesize the recent innovations, both primary and secondary, in the law of marriage and family. The choice of subtopics acco
11、rdingly reflects two principal questions. First, where does American family law best reflect, and where does it most clearly abandon, modern American family practice? Second, what legitimate interests do states possess in the forms of American families? The answers to these questions will drive fami
12、ly law reform for years to come.*2001 A. The American Family in PracticeThe 2000 Census exposed, in empirical splendor, the divergent forms of the modern American family. Traditional family structures are less prevalent now than ever before in U.S. history. The “nuclear family“ 15 - still the archet
13、ype in American law and politics 16 - for the first time describes less than one-quarter of all U.S. households. 17 Indeed, an American household picked at random today is more likely to contain a person living alone than a nuclear family. 18 At the same time, single parents now constitute nearly on
14、e-third of all households with children. 19 Local conditions exaggerate these effects: in Washington, D.C., 6for example, single mothers with children now outnumber married couples with children. 20The rates of change, too, are surprising: since 1990, the number of “nonfamily“ households grew at mor
15、e than twice the rate of “family“ *2002 households. 21 While the proportion of households comprising married couples without children has remained fairly constant for decades, 22 the number of unmarried-partner households rose sharply from 3.2 million in 1990 to 5.5 million, or 5.2% of all household
16、s, in 2000. 23 Moreover, more than two-fifths of unmarried cohabiting couples in 2000 lived with minor children - only slightly less than the proportion of married couples with minor children (46%). 24These data admit of no tidy summary; indeed, their untidiness is the point. As this Development illustrates, the Mychal Judge Act is far from the only instance in which the law has responded, however grudgingly, to the disparate forms
