How seriously do you think these lawyers are about supporting marriage?
http://www.marriagefoundation.org.uk/Web/Content/Default.aspx?Content=426
Conference in London, February 15th, 2013
Book a ticket here.
http://www.marriagefoundation.org.uk/Web/OnlineStore/Product.aspx?ID=142&RedirectUrl=~%2fWeb%2fOnlineStore%2fProducts.aspx%3fCatID%3d11
Cost: £40 and a day off work to exclude most people.
"Modern Marriage: Myths, Realities and Prospects"
Playing to our strength as the authoritative organisation for up-to-date research on marriage in the UK, we are staging this important conference on February 15th, 2013. The future of marriage is clouded by the prevalence of many myths and a conspiracy of silence around some key issues. This conference therefore explores the myths and realities that currently shape both debate about marriage and the choices of people as they form and dissolve relationships.The Conference is being held in the London HQ of Notre Dame University at 1 Suffolk Street, SW1Y 4HG, just off Trafalgar Square. This fine location was originally built for the United University Club. The first session will begin at 09.30 and the day will end at 16.30. There will be ample opportunity to engage in debate and discussion. Tickets cost £40, which includes lunch, tea and coffee, etc. Please click http://www.marriagefoundation.org.uk/Web/OnlineStore/Product.aspx?ID=142&RedirectUrl=~%2fWeb%2fOnlineStore%2fProducts.aspx%3fCatID%3d11 to book a ticket.
The speakers will include: Sir Paul Coleridge, Baroness Deech, Professor Rebecca Probert and Professor Anne Barlow. During the course of the day there will be opportunities to interact with speakers and other attendees. Check back to this page as we update fuller details of the conference programme and participants in the new year.
Paul Coleridge
The Marriage Foundation is rooted in the vision and concern of Paul Coleridge, its Chairman and Founder. Sir Paul was appointed a High Court judge in the Family Division in 2000 after thirty years as a family law specialist barrister. He deals with complex cases of family break up, especially those which involve children.
Ruth Deech
Baroness Deech DBE is a British academic, lawyer and bioethicist. She is currently Professor of Law at Gresham College, London and Chair of the Bar Standards Board. She has recently highlighted the conspiracy of silence which limits open and factually-informed discussion of the consequences of family breakdown.
[CK: I wonder what Baroness Deech thinks of http://www.facebook.com/pages/Are-Slut-Single-Mothers-a-burden-on-the-state/220271251432495?ref=ts&fref=ts? Stigmatisation of SSMs, calling a spade a spade and a slut a slut is the only language stupid sluts understand!
It is also very interesting that Baroness Deech has blocked me on Twitter, presumably to avoid answering my questions viz
- Should fault be reintroduced into divorce?
- Should the law require a marriage contract to be agreed before recognising a marriage?
Rebecca Probert
Professor of law at the University of Warwick, Rebecca Probert's recent work has recently shown that mass cohabitation is entirely a modern phenomenon. She has also written on the 'common-law marriage myth' and is currently addressing the question of whether legal rights should be accorded to relationships outside marriage and, if so, how they should be defined.
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/law/staff/academic/probert/
How likely is such a female academic to support marriage, bearing in mind her background and interests?
[CK: OF COURSE legal rights should NOT be accorded to relationships outside marriage if you are genuinely intent on reconsecrating marriage. Common sense should tell you what an idiotic idea it is.]
Anne Barlowe
Professor of law at Exeter University Anne Barlowe is an expert in the future of family law and policy. She has a particular interest in the regulation of adult relationships such as cohabitation and marriage. She has recently co-authored an article 'Is Modern Marriage a Bargain? Exploring Perceptions of Pre-Nuptial Agreements in England and Wales'.
http://socialsciences.exeter.ac.uk/law/staff/barlow/
How likely is such a female academic to support marriage, bearing in mind her background and interests?
[CK: Only a very foolish man would marry now if he has any money and is worth marrying. In fact, it is now time for men to go on an OFFICIAL marriage strike mentioned at http://www.facebook.com/groups/121566994537384/?fref=ts. Who would want to enter into a contract whereby the wealthier partner automatically forfeits half of his property and can be deprived of his children by malicious and false claims of child sexual abuse by his spouse? To reintroduce the fault into divorce, simply require that all who wish to marry agree a marriage contract. Such a simple and effective solution will predictably be vociferously resisted by the feminists.]
Why is this conference overwhelmingly dominated by female lawyers? Have Mesdames Probert and Barlowe ever been married? If so, what do their current spouses think of them as wives?
And if either of them are now divorced, what did their former husbands think of their divorce settlement? Why is Sir Paul Coleridge even bothering with this charade?]
Comments
It wouldn't have taken much digging to find out that Professor Rebecca Probert (my wife of seven years) is very much a supporter of marriage. There might be a reasonable if lazy link to be made between a large proportion of female family-law academics and "liberal" (though far too broad a term to be of any useful meaning here), feminist, or cultural-relativist ideas on marriage as outdated/patriarchal/unnecessary etc etc, but in Rebecca's case you're waaaay off the mark. Her work on the prevalence of cohabitation in previous decades and centuries has used huge cohort studies to disprove precisely the kind of wild claims I'd assume you dislike - eg that vast numbers of people lived together and raised families outside marriage in the past, and therefore it's nothing to worry about today.