In continental Western Europe, family law has, in modern times, been understood as a technical term for the particular subdivision of law and the special field of legal scholarship dealing with the topics of marriage law, the law on parents and children, and the law on guardians and wards. The custom of classifying and combining these topics was developed by lawyers in different countries, particularly by Pufendorf. The classifications were later systematically used by the German pandectists and in the German Civil Code. In England, the expression “family law” was not used before the 1960s. As O. Kahn-Freund stated in his opening address to the first Family Law Workshop in 1966, “A battle has been necessary to introduce it in England.” Since then, family law has become the trademark for a comprehensive and new dimension of legal and social reasoning in family matters in England.
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References
1.
In this sense, e.g., Max Rheinstein, International Encyclopedia of Comparative Law, vol. 4 of Persons and Family (Tübingen, 1972), chap. 1; Stephen Cretney and Judith Masson, Principles of Family Law, 6th ed. (London, 1997), 3 n.12: "Family Law was the classification favoured by the German pandectists of the 19th century, departing in this respect from the Roman Law-derived `Law of Persons' adopted in the code Napoleon."
2.
Compare Margaret Puxon, The Family and the Law (Harmondsworth, 1963), 9, but with the unconvincing conclusion that "family law is the logical (?) framework for our present way of life."
3.
But the family is not primarily a juristic quantity. The family belongs only partially under the law. Thus, already Friedrich von Savigny, System des heutigen Römischen Rechts I (Berlin, 1840), 344, 347, stated, "daß die Familienverhältnisse nur zum Teil eine juristische Natur in sich tragen . . . die juristische Seite ihres Wesens gerade die geringere ist, indem die wichtigere einem ganz anderem Gebiet als dem des Rechts angehört." A different question concerns the much-discussed-especially in France by R. Savatier-problem of whether the family should be constructed as a legal person.
4.
Ernst Rabel, Grundzüge des Römischen Privatrechts, 2d ed. (Basle, 1955), 5: "daß die römischen Juristen die Sonderart des Familienrechts nicht erkannten." Already Gustav Hugo remarked "that the concept of family law remained unknown to the Romans." For details, see my article "Zur Diskussion um die systematische Einordnung des Familienrechts," Rabels Zeitschrift (1973): 609f. and Rabels Zeitschrift (1974): 533f.
5.
Contra Friedrich Ebrard, "Über Methoden, Systeme, Dogmen in der Geschichte des Privatrechts," Revue de Droit Suisse 67 (1948): 95-135, 105 et seq., based on his article "Die Entstehung des Corpus iuris des Kaisers Justinian," Schweizer Beiträge zur Allgemeinen Geschichte 5 (1947): 70 et seq.
6.
Johannes Althusius, Dicaeologicae l.I, cap. 18 and cap. 34; see also Erik Wolf, Große Rechtsdenker der deutschen Geistesgeschichte (Tübingen, 1963), 210.
7.
Hugo de Groot, Inleidinge tot de Hollandsche Rechts-Geleerdheit, ed. Devring, Fischer, and Meeijers (Leiden, 1952), 1 et seq.
8.
For example, Hugo de Groot, De Jure Belli ac Pacis, ed. Wolhuisen II, cap. III and seq. (Leiden, 1919).
9.
J. Althusius, Dicaeologicae l.I, cap. 13-17.
10.
In contrast to this modern conception, the ancient Roman jurists did not understand persona in such a limited individualistic sense but understood this expression to refer to the part a person plays in life, his or her typical function in the society, abstracted from his or her individual features.
11.
S. Stoljar, Encyclopedia of Comparative Law, vol. 4 of Children, Parents and Guardian-ship (Tübingen, 1980), 84.
12.
J. Schröder , "Wissenschaftliche Ordnungsvorstellungen im Privatrecht der frühen Neuzeit," Jus Commune ( 1947): 25 et seq.
13.
Thus verbatim E. Heydemann, Einleitung in das System des Preußischen Civilrechts I, 2d ed., 54.
14.
Gerhard Dilcher, "Die janusköpfige Kodifikation," Zeitschrift für europäisches Privatrecht (1994): 446-69; Thilo Ramm, "Das Familienrecht des preußischen ALR und der Code civil im Vergleich," in 200 Jahre Allgemeines Landrecht für die preußischen Staaten, eds. Barbara Döhlemeyer and Heinz Mohnhaupt (1995), 463-83.
15.
Andreas Schwarz , "Zur Entstehung des modernen Pandektensystems ," Zeitschrift der Savigny Stiftung, Römische Abteilung42 (1921): 578-610.
16.
Jean-Marc Grossen , "Quelques remarques sur la situation et les méthodes du droit de la famille," Zeitschrift für Schweizerisches Recht85 (1966): 41-66 at 46 .
17.
For adherents of this doctrine such as de Montlosier, de Bonald, and Le Play in France and Rehberg in Germany, see Jean Carbonnier, Droit civil, vol. 2 of La famille (Paris, 1998), 27. 18. René Savatier, L'art de faire les lois. Bonaparte et le Code civil (1927); Pierre Villeneuve de Janti, Bonaparte et le Code civil (1934).
18.
Rheinstein, Encyclopedia of Comparative Law: "French families were to be the basic cells of which the French nation was to be composed, and they were conceived to be firm units."
19.
Bonnecase, La philosophie du Code Napoléon appliqué au droit de famille, 2d ed. (1928), 21 et seq.
20.
For example, Franz Wieacker, "Aufstieg, Blüte und Krisis der Kodifikationsidee," Festschrift für G. Boehmer (1954): 43.
21.
Comp. Juliot de la Morandière in Avant-Projet de Code Civil (Paris: Ministère de la Justice , 1954), 21 and 31 et seq.
22.
Alain Bénabent, Droit civil, La Famille (Paris, 1997), § 3, no. 15.
23.
Ibid., no. 13.
24.
The difference with English law is obvious. In England, three "systems of rules" concerning the family have been distinguished historically. The first, derived from the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts, was practiced around the divorce law by the superior courts. The second, connected with divorce cases of the poor, was developed from the criminal jurisdiction of justices of the peace and has been administered by magistrates' courts. The third, social security law, arose from the poor law.
25.
Bénabent, Droit Civil, § 3, no. 16, 1; in the same sense Carbonnier, Droit civil, 25, calling the Code de la famille "un trompe-l'oeil."
26.
J. Hilaire, "Le droit de la famille en Europe," in Le Droit de la Famille en Europe, ed. R. Ganghofer (Strasbourg, 1992), 3-7.
27.
Ebrard, "Über Methoden," 102: "From the 16th century on and increasingly until the end of the 18th century systematic endeavours have been the order of the day (in Germany), resulting in profound upheavals of jurisprudence."
28.
F. von Hippel, Gustav Hugos Juristischer Arbeitsplan (1931), 25 et seq., goes into the matter more closely, especially regarding how Hugo undertakes to fight obsolete doctrines of natural law.
29.
Hugo himself translated and edited chapter 44 of Gibbons's book under the title Edward Gibbons historische Übersicht des Römischen Rechts (1789). See Ebrard, "Über Methoden," 103.
30.
Gustav Hugo, Lehrbuch des Naturrechts (1819; reprint, 1971), 375.
31.
Hugo mentioned no particular names but obviously meant Roman and early natural law jurists.
32.
Friedrich Carl von Savigny, System des heutigen Römischen Rechts I (1840), 349, 340.
33.
Cf. Andreas Schwarz, Rechtsgeschichte und Gegenwart (Karlsruhe, 1960), 101.
34.
See my article, "Familienrechtliche Kodifikationen im Wandel der Anschauungen," in Festschrift für Hans Hinderling (Tübingen, 1976), 111-50, 128.
35.
Fritz Schulz , Classical Roman Law (1951), 142.
36.
Cf. also Savigny, System I, footnote at 338, arguing against Hegel: "das Sklavenverhältnis der römischen Kinder ist eine der diese Gesetzgebung befleckendsten Institutionen und diese Kränkung der Sittlichkeit ist eins der wichtigsten Momente den weltgeschichtlichen Charakter der Römer und ihre Richtung auf den Rechtsformalismus zu verstehen."
37.
Imre Zajtay, Beiträge zur Rechtsvergleichung (Tübingen, 1976), 85 et seq. See also Konrad Zweigert and Hein Kötz, Einführung in die Rechtsvergleichung ( Tübingen, 1976).
38.
Zajtay, Beiträge, concludes, "The classification, the concepts of the two law families therefore cannot be the same."
39.
Blackstone's division is similar to Pufendorf's, who distinguishes first of all the spheres of the individual, the family, and the state; see R. Benser, Die Systematik des Privatrechts in Blackstone's "Commentaries on the Laws of England" (Heide, 1938), 77.
40.
For example, F. Mackinnon in Johnson's England, ed. A. S. Turberville, vol. 2 (1933), 290.
41.
David Bradley , "Convergence in Family Law: Mirrors, Transplants and Political Economy," Maastricht Journal of European Law (1999): 144: "In England the break with Rome was a political rather than a religious development."
42.
"Putting Asunder-A Divorce Law for Contemporary Society" (1966) was the report of a group appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury in January 1964. Chairman of the group was the Rt. Rev. R. C. Mortimer, Lord Bishop of Exeter.
43.
See The Listener 24, no. 9 (1970): 407 et seq.
44.
D. Schindler , Recht, Staat- und Völkergemeinschaft (1948), 115, calls the family die Ursprungsgemeinschaft.
45.
Ricarda Huch, Urphänomene (1946), 13, describes the family as erstes Urphänomen der Natur.
46.
Grossen, "Méthodes du droit de la famille."
47.
Uwe Diederichsen, "Familien = Menschen in der Reform," in Festschrift G. Beitzke (1979), 169 et seq.
48.
Mary Ann Glendon, The New Family and the New Property (Toronto, 1981). See also my review in American Journal of Comparative Law 33 (1985): 733.
49.
Mary Ann Glendon, The Transformation of Family Law (Chicago, 1989).
50.
See Diederichsen, "Menschen in der Reform," for further details.
51.
It is significant that Sir Otto Kahn-Freund has been praised as the "father of English family law," notably in Germany, which had a separate "family law" long before. See Dieter Giesen in his foreword to the German translation of the first edition of John Eekelaars, Family Law and Social Politics (Berlin, 1983). This position seems, however, a bit exaggerated, for behind the concept of family law lies a philosophy with certainly more than one single "father."
52.
Otto Kahn-Freund , "The Content of the Undergraduate Course in General," Journal of the Society of Public Teachers of Law9 (1966-1967): 202.
53.
Michael Freeman , "Family Values and Family Justice," Current Legal Problems50 (1997 ): 318.
54.
I thank Mr. David Bradley, Law Department of the LSE, for this information.
55.
I thank Mr. John Eekelaar, Pembroke College, Oxford, for his information, which supplements the personal information once given to me by Sir Otto Kahn-Freund.
56.
Freeman, "Family Values."
57.
Ibid.
58.
M. Bromley, review of A Century of Family Law, Journal of the Society of Public Teachers of Law (1957-1958): 49.
59.
With many details: Peter Dopffel, "Englisches und Kanonisches Eherecht," Zeitschrift für das gesamte Familienrecht (1975): 557-76.
60.
Harry Willekens, "Explaining Two Hundred Years of Family Law in Western Europe," in Het gezinsrecht in de sociale wetenschappen, ed. Harry Willekens (The Hague, 1997), 59-93, 75.
61.
John Eekelaar, "The Place of Divorce in Family Law's New Role," Modern Law Review 38 (1975): 241 et seq.
62.
Later: Matrimonial Causes Act of 1973.
63.
Lord Scarman in his public lecture on Family Law and Law Reform at the University of Bristol, 1966.
64.
F. H. Lawson, "The Rational Strength of English Law," The Hamlyn Lectures 3 (1951): 23.
65.
Bradley, "Convergence in Family Law."
66.
See Odo Marquard, Abschied vom Prinzipiellen (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1981). For the development of family law since the introduction of the BGB, see Rainer Frank, "Hundert Jahre BGB- Familienrecht zwischen Rechtspolitik, Verfassung und Dogmatik," Archiv für die civilistische Praxis 200 (2000): 401-25.
67.
On this act, see Dame Brenda Hale, "The Family Law Act 1996: The death of marriage?" in Family Towards the Millennium: Essays for P. M. Bromley, ed. C. Bridge (London, 1997), 1 et seq.
68.
But contrary Wrangham J. in Mouncer v. Mouncer (1972) WLR 321.
69.
Stanislas J. Lec, Das große Buch der unfrisierten Gedanken (1971), 188.
