Abstract
Marriage between two people is one of the oldest social institutions in the world. So why do we need to legally regulate marriage? The answer is simple—marriage is a contract, albeit a special one, between two people that covers many aspects of their lives together. Most countries in the world like each state in the U.S. define a marriage as taking place between a man and a woman. But, we know that there are many family arrangements where people live in a marriage-like home without a formal marriage ceremony. This includes same gender couples as well as friendship groups often called ‘families-of-choice’. Sometimes the law covers them and sometimes it does not.
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Reference
Gottman, J. (1999). The marriage clinic: A scientifically based marital therapy. NY: W.W Norton.
Kaslow, E (Ed.) (2000). Handbook of couple and family forensics. NY: Wiley.
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© 2003 Springer Science+Business Media New York
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Walker, L.E.A., Shapiro, D.L. (2003). Marriage and Divorce. In: Introduction to Forensic Psychology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-3795-0_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-3795-0_11
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-3421-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-4757-3795-0
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