Governing the Hearth: Law and the Family in Nineteenth-Century America

Presenting a new framework for understanding the complex but vital relationship between legal history and the family, Michael Grossberg analyzes the formation of legal policies on such issues as common law marriage, adoption, and rights for illegitimate children. He shows how legal changes diminished male authority, increased women's and children's rights, and fixed more clearly the state's responsibilities in family affairs. Grossberg further illustrates why many basic principles of this distinctive and powerful new body of law--antiabortion and maternal biases in child custody--remained in effect well into the twentieth century.

Author: Michael Grossberg
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Published: 08/01/1988
Pages: 436
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.39lbs
Size: 9.01h x 5.94w x 1.13d
ISBN: 9780807842256

About the Author
Grossberg, Michael: - Michael Grossberg is associate professor of history and adjunct associate professor of law at Case Western Reserve University.