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

Studies in Legal History

by Michael Grossberg

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.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

417 pages, Paperback

First published October 11, 1985

Reviews

[Sándor Nagy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably the best legal history of the family in American context

The book addresses complex politico-legal and social problems in a clear, readable style. The synthesis is also noteworthy for the need to create a coherent picture basically of judicial cases.