Of Fatherhood, Families, and Fantasy: The Legacy of Michael H. v. Gerald D.
![handle is hein.journals/tulr65 and id is 607 raw text is: OF FATHERHOOD, FAMILIES AND FANTASY:
THE LEGACY OF MICHAEL H. v. GERALD D.
MARY KAY KiSTHARDT*
INTRODUCTION
Family law has come of age. Despite earlier relegation to a
low status by members of the profession1 and by scholars,2 fam-
ily law has emerged as a vibrant area of concern.3 The jurispru-
dence of family law now concerns itself with lively debate about
the proper application of rights doctrines to address family
disputes. Some scholars criticize the use of a rights analysis as
being destructive to the family' or as improperly de-emphasizing
moral discourse.' Others refer to the recent changes as a trans-
formation6 that produces [a] body of family law that protects
only the autonomous self [and thereby] fails to nurture the rela-
tionships between individuals that constitute families.7 A signif-
* Assistant Professor of Law, University of Missouri-Kansas City. B.A. 1975,
King's College; J.D. 1978, Dickinson School of Law; LL.M. 1985, Yale. The author wishes
to thank her colleagues Nancy Levit, Ellen Suni and Barb Glesner for their invaluable
comments and editorial assistance and her students Janet Smith and Barbara Palen for
their research help. Also she gratefully acknowledges the support and assistance provided
by Dr. Mary Longo and Dr. Walter Kisthardt.
1. See Minow, Forming Underneath Everything That Grows: Toward a History of
Family Law, 1985 Wis. L. REV. 819, 819 (Family law is... 'underneath' other areas of
the law. Its low status within the profession is well-known.); see also C. EPSTEIN,
WOMEN IN LAW 107 (1981), in which the author, in describing the frequency with which
women specialize in family law, states that [t]he legal system appears to have its reasons
for clustering women in specialties that are remote from the high-echelon, high-powered,
and money-generating areas of law.
2. See Schneider, The Next Step: Definition, Generalization, and Theory in American
Family Law, 18 U. MICH. J.L. REF. 1039, 1044-48 (1985). Professor Schneider suggests
that family law has never developed a general theory. He hypothesizes that this is because
of its relatively recent emergence, the lack of natural attention to it, and its failure to
choose a unitary theme or single disciplinary focus.
3. See generally Teitelbaum, Placing the Family in Context, 22 U.C. DAVIS L. REv.
801 (1989); Weisbrod, On the Expressive Functions of Family Law, 22 U.C. DAVIS L. REV.
991 (1989). These articles appear in a recent symposium issue entitled The Changing Role
of the Family in the Law, 22 U.C. DAVIS L. REv. 689 (1989).
4. M. GLENDON, ABORTION AND DIVORCE IN WESTERN LAW 134 (1987).
5. Schneider, Moral Discourse and the Transformation of American Family Law, 83
MICH. L. REV. 1803, 1840-42 (1985); Teitelbaum, Moral Discourse and Family Law, 84
MICH. L. REv. 430, 430-34 (1985).
6. See generally M. GLENDON, THE TRANSFORMATION OF FAMILY LAW (1989).
7. Minow, supra note 1, at 894.
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Of Fatherhood, Families, and Fantasy: The Legacy of Michael H. v. Gerald D.
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