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9 Va. J. Soc. Pol'y & L. 239 (2001-2002)
Why Marriage

handle is hein.journals/vajsplw9 and id is 249 raw text is: WHY MARRIAGE? Martha Albertson Fineman* INTRODUCTION In 1974, when I was a law student in a class called Injunctions, we often struggled through the factual and legal complexities of an opinion determining whether an injunction should issue. My professor, Owen Fiss, was fond of reminding us after each such session that the object of this entire struggle-the injunction-was only a piece of paper. His point was that it takes more than the issuance of some form or document to make things happen, to transform the status quo. Words are, after all, only words. Standing alone, they often are not worth much more than the paper upon which they are written. Instead, it is the interpretation and implementation that really matter-not the issuance of the document, but what comes next, that confers content and meaning. I cannot help but reflect upon this bit of practical- injunction-realism when confronted with the many questions that emerge in response to contemporary policy discussions about the need for laws to strengthen the institution of marriage.1 Like an injunction, marriage is reducible to a piece of paper-the marriage license. This piece of paper distinguishes one on-going relationship from others, not officially designated marital in nature. Yet what * Dorothea S. Clarke Professor of Feminist Jurisprudence and Director of the Feminism and Legal Theory Project, Cornell Law School. 1 Martha Albertson Fineman, The Neutered Mother, The Sexual Family, and Other Twentieth Century Tragedies 15 (1995) (Policy on the national and state levels, for the most part, attempts to revitalize and replicate idealized traditional modes of intimate connection symbolized by the nuclear family. This failure of creative imagination on the part of law and legal institutions has resulted in an impoverished approach to the dilemmas of poverty for mothers and children in our society).

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