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Love's Promises: How Formal & Informal Contracts Shape All Kinds of Families
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Bibliographic Detail
Publisher Beacon Pr
Publication date May 26, 2015
Pages 253
Binding Hardcover
Book category Adult Non-Fiction
ISBN-13 9780807033661
ISBN-10 0807033669
Dimensions 1 by 5 by 7 in.
Weight 1 lbs.
Original list price $26.95
Summaries and Reviews
Amazon.com description: Product Description: Blends memoir and legal cases to show how contracts can create family relationships
 
Most people think of love and contracts as strange bedfellows, or even opposites. In Love’s Promises, however, law professor Martha Ertman shows that far from cold and calculating, contracts shape and sustain families. 

Blending memoir and law, Ertman delves into the legal cases, anecdotes, and history of family law to show that love comes in different packages, each shaped by different contracts and mini-contracts she calls “deals.” Family law should and often does recognize that variety because legal rules, like relationships, aren’t one size fits all. The most common form of family—which Ertman calls “Plan A”—come into being through different kinds of agreements than the more uncommon families that she dubs “Plan B.” Recognizing the contractual core of all families shows that Plan B is neither unnatural nor unworthy of legal recognition, just different.

After telling her own moving and often irreverent story about becoming part of a Plan B family of two moms and a dad raising a child, Ertman shows that all kinds of people—straight and gay, married and single, related by adoption or by genetics—use contracts to shape their relationships. As couples navigate marriage, reproductive technologies, adoption, and cohabitation, they encounter contracts. Sometimes hidden and other times openly acknowledged, these contracts ensure that the people they think of as “family” are legally recognized as family in the eyes of the law.  

Family exchanges can be substantial, like vows of fidelity, or small, like “I cook and you clean.” But regardless of scope, the agreements shape the emotional, social, and financial terrain of family relationships. Seeing the instrumental role contracts will help readers better understand how contracts and deals work in their own families as well as those around them. 

Both insightful and paradigm-shifting, Love’s Promises lets readers in on the power of contracts and deals to support love in its many forms and to honor the different ways that our nearest and dearest contribute to our daily lives.

Editions
Hardcover
Book cover for 9780807033661
 
The price comparison is for this edition
from Beacon Pr (May 26, 2015); titled "Love's Promises: How Formal & Informal Contracts Shape All Kinds of Families"
9780807033661 | details & prices | 253 pages | 5.00 × 7.00 × 1.00 in. | 1.00 lbs | List price $26.95
About: Blends memoir and legal cases to show how contracts can create family relationships  Most people think of love and contracts as strange bedfellows, or even opposites.
Paperback
Book cover for 9780807059401
 
from Beacon Pr (May 24, 2016)
9780807059401 | details & prices | 280 pages | 5.75 × 8.75 × 0.75 in. | 0.90 lbs | List price $20.00
About: Blends memoir and legal cases to show how contracts can create family relationships  Most people think of love and contracts as strange bedfellows, or even opposites.

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