Toward a Contractarian Account of Family Governance

Families have governments; family governments are characterized by a significant level of state involvement; state prescriptions for family governance are embodied in family law, which lays out a kind of "constitution" describing the powers of family authorities and a "Bill of Rights" for family members. An awareness of this underlying governance scheme is useful because it can illuminate linkages between seemingly disparate areas of law; it can also provide a basis for evaluating specific legislative enactments and judicial pronouncements. But given the rapidity with which family law has moved toward an egalitarian, democratic model of family governance, the model embedded in current family law contains a significant number of gaps and inconsistencies.