NYU Press
•
Fall 2020
27
Law
LIVING APART TOGETHER
Legal Protections for a New Form of Family CYNTHIA GRANT BOWMAN Argues for legal reforms to protect couples who live apart but perform many of the functions of a family Living Apart Together is an in-depth look at a new way of being a couple and “doing family”—living apart together (LAT)—in which committed couples maintain separate residences and finances. In Cynthia Grant Bowman’s own 2016 national survey, 9% of respondents reported maintaining committed relationships while living apart, typically spending the weekend together, socializing together, taking vacations together, and looking after one another in illness, but maintaining financial independence. She finds that while these living arrangements are more common than previously believed, there are virtually no legal protections for the people involved. Bowman concludes by proposing a number of legal reforms to support the caregiving functions LAT partners perform for each other. Living Apart Together makes an important case for formal recognition of this growing but largely overlooked family structure. Cynthia Grant Bowman is the Dorothea S. Clarke Professor of Law at Cornell Law School.
December 2020 224 pages • 6 x 9 13 black & white illustrations Cloth • $40.00S(£33.00) 9781479891047 In Families, Law and Society Law
DIVORCE IN CHINA
Institutional Constraints and Gendered Outcomes XIN HE Why are women still at a disadvantage in Chinese divorce courts? Despite the increase of gender consciousness in Chinese society and a trove of legislation to protect women, why are Chinese women still disadvantaged in divorce courts? Xin He argues that institutional constraints to which judges are subject, a factor largely ignored by existing literature, play a crucial role. This book is the only study of Chinese divorce cases based on fieldwork and interviews conducted inside Chinese courtrooms over the course of a decade. With an unusual vantage point, He offers a rare and unfiltered view of the operation of Chinese courts in the authoritarian regime. Through a socio-legal perspective highlighting the richness, sophistication, and cutting-edge nature of the research, Divorce in China is as much an account of Chinese courts in action as a social ethnography of China in the midst of momentous social change.
Xin He is Professor of Law at Hong Kong University.
January 2021 304 pages • 6 x 9 15 black & white illustrations Cloth • $65.00X(£54.00) 9781479805532 Law
