Law and Legitimacy in A Farewell to Arms

Laura Weinrib reads Ernest Hemingway’s celebrated 1929 novel as an indictment of war’s moral and legal logic. While commentary on A Farewell to Arms has typically emphasized the transgressive nature of Henry and Barkley’s love affair, Weinrib argues that the novel’s unmarried protagonists may in fact have entered into a common law marriage, and, at minimum, both their relationship and their unborn child are capable of retroactive legitimation. The sentimentality and comparative conventionality of the love story, according to Weinrib, accentuate the brutality of wartime conduct, which Hemingway regarded as irredeemably criminal. By the same token, the navigability and relative predictability of the civilian legal system stand in stark contrast to the arbitrariness of the wartime legal order.

Modern Marriage Myths: the Dichotomy Between Expectations of Legal Rationality and Lived Law

This chapter draws on nationally representative research from the British Social Attitudes Survey 2019, to explore the differences between the legal expectations and lived experiences of cohabitants. It demonstrates that the ‘common law marriage myth’ remains pervasive, questioning assumption of conscious, mutual and autonomous relationship decision making, and compares this with Muslim marriage myths. It then discusses how the law should respond.

What’s Love Got to Do with It?

By examining “zones of desire” and “zones of disgust,” first in Blackstone's poetry and then in the Commentaries, this chapter unpacks Blackstone's reliance on these twinned emotions as instrumental to his efforts to construct a new understanding of and loyalty to the English common law. Marriage law and orientalism are interrelated here with a discussion of Blackstone's celebration of the trial as a unique English contribution to justice. In these discussions, desire and disgust worked together to suggest an English legal tradition able to accommodate the forces of commodification and expansion that defined modernity.

Of ‘Keeps’ and ‘Concubines’

The Supreme Court in its decision in Velusamy v. Patchaiammal limited the scope of ‘relationship in the nature of marriage’ under the PWDVA and interpreted it as co-terminus with ‘common-law marriage’. By doing so, the Court left women in vulnerable intimate relationships without a remedy in law. The author argues that by transposing a non-statutory category (‘common-law marriage’) into the PWDVA, Velusamy watered down the promise of zero tolerance to violence within intimate domestic relationships. Using examples from the evolution of cohabitees’ rights in English law, the author argues that the Indian Constitution, in its framing of equality and right to life and personal dignity already provides the language and framework for protection to be extended to women in every stable cohabiting relationship. This is particularly significant in the Indian context where second wives and women in de facto marriages have little legal protection, even in situations of domestic violence.

Getting, Being, and Staying Married

Marriage changes the legal status of a relationship in a unique way. Individuals’ adjusting to such a changes can be supported by active premarital education or counselling. Additionally, there are legal requirements to effect the status change of going from nonmarried to married. Those requirements are rather simple and generally only require a license and solemnization. One exception is that of the narrowly defined common law marriage. Being married brings with it a number of legal privileges and protections, and also responsibilities and liabilities. For example, there are marital privileges related to property, taxes, medical decisions, torts, and evidence. In the instance of spousal rape, there is a marital privilege for the perpetrator but not the victim.

A constituição brasileira está viva? Living constitution e a atualização da constituição pelo Supremo Tribunal Federal na questão das uniões homoafetivas

O presente artigo analisa a aplicabilidade da doutrina da Living Constitution ao contexto brasileiro. Partindo do julgamento da Arguição de Descumprimento de Preceito Fundamental 132 e da Ação Direta de Inconstitucionalidade 4277, sobre o reconhecimento jurídico da união estável homoafetiva, investiga-se a adaptabilidade da referida doutrina à prática jurisprudencial do Supremo Tribunal Federal (STF). A defesa de uma Constituição viva, apta a abarcar novas situações, pode conflitar com o sentido pretendido pelo constituinte democraticamente legitimado. Cumpre analisar essa tensão entre atualização e majoritarismo na prática decisória do STF. Metodologicamente, a pesquisa confronta as propostas parlamentares e populares sobre uniões entre pessoas do mesmo sexo apresentadas nas comissões de elaboração do anteprojeto da Constituição de 1988 com a jurisprudência do STF sobre o tema. A partir da doutrina da Living Constitution, teorizada por David Strauss e Cass Sunstein, são analisadas as críticas de autores originalistas, como William Rehnquist. No tema selecionado, a pesquisa identifica um exemplo de como a tensão entre a Living Constitution e o majoritarismo democrático aparece na jurisdição constitucional brasileira. Em conclusão, aponta-se a fragilidade de uma atividade atualizadora da Constituição que não esteja amparada pela coerência com a jurisprudência da Corte. No Brasil, a ausência de uma cultura de precedentes abre a possibilidade de a Living Constitution se degenerar em decisões mais resultantes de volições conjunturais do STF do que de uma evolução jurisprudencial consistente. Abstract This article analyses the applicability of Living Constitution doctrine in Brazilian context, based on the Allegation of Disobedience of Fundamental Precept (ADPF) 54 and the Direct Action of Unconstitutionality (ADI) 4277 judgments, about the legal recognition of homosexual common-law marriage. It aims to investigate the compatibility of Living Constitution doctrine with the Federal Supreme Court (STF) decisions. Supporting a Living Constitution, able to change over time and embrace new circumstances, tends to confront with the original sense intended by the democratically legitimized Constituent. Therefore, it matters analyses how the STF deals with their judgments in this tension between updating and majoritarianism. Methodologically, the research confronts parliamentary and popular proposals about homosexual common-law marriage, presented in the elaboration commissions of Federal Constitution of 1988 preliminary draft, with the STF judgments about this subject. Starting from the Living Constitution doctrine, theorized by David Strauss and Cass Sunstein, have been analyzed criticisms from originalist authors, as William Rehnquist. On the theme in vogue, the research identifies an example of how does the tension between Living Constitution and democratic majoritarianism appear in the Brazilian constitutional jurisdiction. In conclusion, it is presented the fragility of Constitution updating that is not coherent with the Court’s jurisprudence. In Brazil, the lack of an established precedent culture allows Living Constitution doctrine to degenerate into judicial decisions, more resultant of STF conjuncture wills than a consistent evolution of the Court’s decisions.