Family Law

Same-Sex Marriage and Family Law Same-sex marriage is the legal recognition of marriage between two people of the same sex. In the United States, its legal status was transformed by the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015, which held that the Constitution protects the right of same-sex Read more

Common-Law Marriage Common-law marriage is a legally recognized marriage that can arise without the couple obtaining a traditional marriage license or participating in a formal wedding ceremony. But despite the name, simply living together for a long time does not automatically create a common-law marriage. In the United States, common-law Read more

Rights and Duties of Spouses Marriage creates a legal relationship between two people. Once a marriage is legally recognized, the spouses acquire a collection of rights, protections, responsibilities, and legal obligations that generally do not exist in the same form between unmarried partners. These rights and duties are not limited Read more

Void and Voidable Marriages Not every marriage that appears legally valid is necessarily valid in law. A marriage may be challenged because one or more legal requirements were not satisfied. But the law does not treat every defective marriage in the same way. One of the most important distinctions in Read more

Validity of Marriage A marriage may look valid from the outside and still raise difficult legal questions. Two people may have held a wedding ceremony, exchanged vows, obtained a marriage certificate, and lived together as spouses for many years. Yet a court may later be asked whether the marriage was Read more

Legal Requirements for Marriage Marriage is both a personal relationship and a legal status. Two people may consider themselves married, hold a wedding ceremony, or live together for years, but whether the law recognizes them as spouses depends on legal requirements. In the United States, there is no single nationwide Read more

What Is Marriage in Law? Marriage is both a human relationship and a legal status. People marry for many different reasons. Marriage may be understood as an emotional commitment, a religious institution, a cultural tradition, a social relationship, or a personal partnership. In law, however, marriage has a more specific Read more

Family Rights and Family Responsibilities Family relationships are among the most personal relationships recognized by law. They involve love, care, intimacy, trust, dependence, and shared responsibility. Yet when the law recognizes a family relationship, it does more than acknowledge a social or emotional connection. It creates legal rights and legal Read more

Sources of Family Law Family law is not contained in a single statute or legal code. It is derived from a combination of constitutions, statutes, regulations, judicial decisions, administrative rules, court procedures, and, in some circumstances, treaties and other sources of international law. Understanding these sources is essential because family Read more