1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910782997403321

Autore

Collier Richard <1961->

Titolo

Fragmenting fatherhood : a socio-legal study / / Richard Collier, Sally Sheldon

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Oxford ; ; Portland, Oregon : , : Hart Publishing, , 2008

ISBN

1-4725-6446-4

1-282-04844-9

9786612048449

1-84731-455-4

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (282 p.)

Disciplina

346.42017

Soggetti

Families

Fatherhood - Social aspects

Fathers - Legal status, laws, etc - England

Fathers - Legal status, laws, etc - Wales

Parent and child (Law) - England

Parent and child (Law) - Wales

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (pages 239-274).

Nota di contenuto

1. Introducing Fatherhood and Law -- 2. Fatherhood and 'Natural' Reproduction -- 3. Fatherhood and Assisted Reproduction -- 4. Marital Fatherhood -- 5. Post-Separation Fatherhood -- 6. Unmarried Fatherhood -- 7. Fragmenting Fatherhood

Sommario/riassunto

Debates about the future of fatherhood have been central to a range of conversations about changing family forms, parenting and society. Law has served an important, yet often neglected, role in these discussions, serving as an important focal point for broader political frustrations, playing a central role in mediating disputes, and operating as a significant, symbolic, state-sanctioned account of the scope of paternal rights and responsibilities. Fragmenting Fatherhood provides the first sustained engagement with the way that fatherhood has been understood, constructed and regulated within English law. Drawing on a range of disparate legal provisions and material from diverse



disciplines, it sketches the major contours of the figure of the father as drawn in law and social policy, tracing shifts in legal and broader understandings of what it means to be a 'father'and what rights and obligations should accrue to that status. In thematically linked chapters cutting across substantive areas of law, the book locates fatherhood as a key site of contestation within broader political debates regarding the family and gender equality. Multiple visions of fatherhood, evolving unevenly over time across diverse areas of law, emerge from this analysis. Fatherhood is revealed as an essentially fragmented status and one which is intertwined in complex ways with the legal, cultural and political contexts in which discourses of parenthood are produced. Fragmenting Fatherhood provides an important and unique resource, speaking to debates about fatherhood across a range of fields including law and legal theory, sociology, gender studies, social policy, marriage and the family, women's studies and gender studies