The article offers an interpretive synthesis of recent scholarship on family law
and government regulation of the family. It traces changes in family law from the colonial era to
the present and concludes with an analysis of family law as a discourse involving four broad
themes: the law's social functions; the social values upheld by law; the relative responsibility of
private individuals and the larger society for enforcing values; and the ways in which the law
intervenes in family affairs.
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