Copyright (c) 2009 All rights reserved. http://works.bepress.com/martha_ertman Recent documents in Martha M. Ertman en-us Wed, 24 Jun 2009 11:43:00 PDT 3600 http://works.bepress.com/martha_ertman/18 http://works.bepress.com/martha_ertman/18 Tue, 23 Jun 2009 07:47:30 PDT Viviana Zelizer's latest book, The Purchase of Intimacy (2005) presents an innovative theory of how social and legal actors negotiate rights and obligations when money changes hands in intimate relationships--a perspective that could change how we understand many things, from valuations of homemaking labor to the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund. This essay describes Zelizer's critique of the reductionist "Hostile Worlds" and "Nothing But" approaches to economic exchange in intimate relationships, then explains her more three-dimensional approach, "Connected Lives." While Zelizer focuses on family law, the essay goes beyond that context, extending Zelizer's approach to transfers of genetic material, and concluding that her approach could point toward a more equitable resolution of disputes in and about these markets. Martha M. Ertman Family law Behavioral economics http://works.bepress.com/martha_ertman/17 http://works.bepress.com/martha_ertman/17 Tue, 17 Mar 2009 05:19:20 PDT Today's ban on polygamy grew out of nineteenth century Americans' view that Mormons committed two types of treason. First, antipolygamists charged Mormons with political treason by establishing a separatist theocracy in Utah. Second, they saw a social treason against the nation of white citizens when Mormons adopted a supposedly barbaric marital form, one that was natural for "Asiatic and African" people, but so unnatural for whites as to produce a new, degenerate species that threatened the project of white supremacy. This Article reveals how both kinds of treason provided the foundation of polygamy law through the discourse of legal, political and , medical "experts," as well as, and most vividly, cartoons of the day. Most striking is the way that this discourse designated the overwhelmingly white Mormons as non-white as a means to justify depriving them of citizenship rights such as voting, holding office, and sitting on juries. It then suggests two theoretical perspectives to understand this process. First, anthropologist Edward Said's concept of Orientalism helps explain how designating Mormons a subject race rendered their subjection inevitable. Second, Sir Henry Maine's 1864 observation that the move of progressive societies is from status to contract reveals ways that antipolygamy discourse viscerally defended racial and sexual status just as contractual thinking gained ground in the decades after the Civil War, when wage labor replaced slavery and the partnership theory of marriage began to displace coverture. In either case, the Article contends, the racial foundations of American antipolygamy law require us to rethink our own often reflexive condemnation of the practice. It concludes by suggesting three questions to help us frame that inquiry: (1) what justifies antipolygamy law today; (2) whether current antipolygamy law associates polygamy with barbarism, foreignness, and people of color; and (3) whether it is coincidental that the plain language of the Defense of Marriage Act prohibits both polygamy and same-sex marriage. Martha M. Ertman Legal History Women http://works.bepress.com/martha_ertman/16 http://works.bepress.com/martha_ertman/16 Tue, 11 Nov 2008 10:25:46 PST Martha M. Ertman Sexuality and the law http://works.bepress.com/martha_ertman/15 http://works.bepress.com/martha_ertman/15 Mon, 20 Oct 2008 10:33:16 PDT Martha M. Ertman Family law http://works.bepress.com/martha_ertman/13 http://works.bepress.com/martha_ertman/13 Thu, 16 Oct 2008 08:24:11 PDT Martha M. Ertman Contracts http://works.bepress.com/martha_ertman/11 http://works.bepress.com/martha_ertman/11 Fri, 19 Sep 2008 11:18:41 PDT Martha M. Ertman Contracts http://works.bepress.com/martha_ertman/10 http://works.bepress.com/martha_ertman/10 Fri, 19 Sep 2008 11:18:38 PDT Martha M. Ertman Contracts http://works.bepress.com/martha_ertman/8 http://works.bepress.com/martha_ertman/8 Fri, 19 Sep 2008 11:18:32 PDT Martha M. Ertman Marriage http://works.bepress.com/martha_ertman/7 http://works.bepress.com/martha_ertman/7 Fri, 19 Sep 2008 11:18:28 PDT Part of the "Law Stories" series published by Foundation Press, this chapter in Family Law Stories tells the back story of the 1878 US Supreme Court case Reynolds v. U.S.. While the case held that Mormon polygamy was not protected as the free exercise of religion, this chapter shifts our focus away from sex and religion and toward the Court's language linking Mormon polygamy with "Asiatic and African" peoples as well as political despotism. This close examination of the historical record shows that 19th century concerns about Mormon separatism - commercial, social and political separatism as well was religious - were as important, or even more so, than plural marriage itself. To make its case that antipolygamists of the day viewed Mormon polygamy as both politically and culturally treasonous, the chapter describes George Reynolds' career, marriages, and imprisonment, including how his life-long devotion to the Mormon Church led to him to be the defendant in this test case. In conclusion, this chapter suggests that Reynolds reliance on political claims of treason (as well as white supremacist views of Mormon polygamy as race treason) may limit the precedential value of the case. In particular, if Reynolds is really about Mormon's treasonous establishment of a separatist theocracy, it has little applicability to current discussions of same sex marriage since same sex marriage is an assimilationist project. Martha M. Ertman Legal History http://works.bepress.com/martha_ertman/6 http://works.bepress.com/martha_ertman/6 Fri, 19 Sep 2008 11:18:25 PDT Martha M. Ertman Marriage Family law