Law and Family

Causes and Implications of Marital Breakdown

These essays explore the causes of marital breakdown, and discuss the fact that courts are ill-equipped to deal with the sensitive disputes that arise from family breakdown. They point out the difficulties of trying to deal with these sensitive issues in an adversarial court system, and  the possibility that the court system itself creates inappropriate economic motives for divorce.

1.01 Family Meltdown

Family is the primal unit of society.  Men and women have obviously always met and produced offspring.  Successful marriages conserved energy and allowed the marriage partners to pursue other activities that are necessary for human advancement.  Maslow identified sex...

1.02 The Humpty Dumpty Problem

In the essay on Family Meltdown, I described the meltdown of family that resulted from our nation’s movement from an agrarian, small town economy to a technological economy.  Men and women have more contact with members of the opposite sex who are not their spouses...

1.03 Marriage Meltdown and Moral Formation

Twentieth century psychology correctly identified the sources of moral formation. Sigmund Freud, Erik Erikson, Jean Piaget, Lawrence Kohlberg and others showed that moral formation occurs in stages of development.  Internalization of the commands and images of the...

1.04 Child Support and Spousal Support

Family is the basic economic unit of our culture. Other essays in this series have examined the breakdown of family and problems related to the problem of trying to resolve family disputes in an adversarial judicial system. Problems related to child and spousal...