Abstract
The word ‘parent’ has different meanings. Married parents, unmarried parents, parents-in-law, adoptive parents, step-parents, foster-parents and god-parents are all ‘parents’. The court in respect of a ward and a local authority when a child is in care can also be described as ‘parents’ as they stand in loco parentis. With some parent-child relationships there is a biological relationship between the parent and child which gives rise to a legal relationship, but with others the relationship may be one created or imposed by the law, e.g. a person with a residence order in his or her favour acquires parental responsibility. Sometimes it is necessary to establish whether a father is the child’s parent in order to establish a legal relationship between him and the child. This may be necessary, for example, to determine whether a father is obliged to pay maintenance to his child (see Chapter 15). Today with DNA and sophisticated blood-testing techniques it is easier to establish who is a child’s biological parent.
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Further Reading
Bainham, ‘When is a parent not a parent? Reflections on the unmarried father and his child in English law’ (1989) IJFL 208.
Barton and Bissett-Johnson, ‘The European Convention and parental rights’ [1995] Fam Law 507.
Barton and Douglas, Law and Parenthood, Butterworths, 1995.
Deech, ‘The unmarried father and human rights’ (1992) 4 J Ch L 3.
Deech, ‘The rights of fathers: sociological and biological concepts of fatherhood’ in Eekelaar and Sarcevic (eds.), Parenthood in Modern Society, Martinus Nijhoff, 1993.
Douglas, Law, Fertility and Reproduction, Sweet & Maxwell, 1991.
Edwards and Halpern, ‘Parental responsibility: an instrument of social policy’ [1992] Fam Law 113.
Eekelaar, ‘The eclipse of parental rights’ (1986) 102 LQR 4.
Eekelaar, ‘Are parents morally obliged to care for their children?’ (1991) OJLS 340.
Eekelaar, ‘Parental responsibility: state of nature or nature of the state?’ (1991) JSWFL 37.
Fortin, ‘Re F: The gooseberry bush approach’ (1994) 57 MLR 296.
Morgan (ed.), Changing Conceptions of Motherhood — The Practice of Surrogacy in Britain, British Medical Association, 1995.
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© 1997 Kate Standley
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Standley, K. (1997). Parents. In: Family Law. Macmillan Law Masters. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-14655-0_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-14655-0_12
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