ABSTRACT
The words evoke very different images: Law is formal, cold, and impersonal; families are informal, warm, and affectionate. On the surface, at least, the law and the family are antagonistic and belong to separate domains within society—the law to the civil domain and the family to the communal one. The nineteenth century was a period of tremendous growth and change in the United States. The combination of economic and ideological currents that existed in post-Revolutionary America gave rise to what was, in many respects, a new family. As individuals within society, freed from normative and legal controls to an unprecedented degree, continue to explore new ways of constituting family life, new and complex issues of law will emerge. Lord Hardwicke’s Act put an end to “irregular” or informal marriages, but the requirement that unions be solemnized in the Anglican church also invalidated the marriages of Protestant dissenters and Roman Catholics.
