ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the relationship between power and responsibility in the creation, assessment and regulation of the legal family. It explores both the power exercised by individuals within their own relationships and the power exercised by the state in framing and regulating the family responsibilities that people in relationships undertake for one another. Marriage created both social and legal ties between adults, and children derived their family status through the marriage of their parents. The chapter also traces the empirical changes in legal regulation relatively easily through statutory reforms or through the case law of a jurisdiction; lawyers are, after all, experts at arguing for these changes and at tracing their trajectories. Friendship attracts no legal regulation whatsoever; there are no 'formalities' for the creation or dissolution of friendships, nor are there any financial or caring duties imposed on friends by law.
