The family, as a social and legal institution, is of central importance to religious groups. Since families are a major socializing force, religious cultures insist that they reflect the believes and values of the larger collective, including regarding sexuality, gender roles, and the proper education children ought to receive. Hence, religious laws were created to govern the establishment, everyday life, and breakdown of families.

Such religious understating of the family is, however, in tension with secular perceptions, which regard the family as serving the needs and interests of individuals. Still, even in civil legal systems, the family receives special treatment, as the laws that govern the interactions between family members are different from those that govern the interactions between strangers.

As we live in an era of unprecedented intensity of global movement of humans, capital, and information, the religious and secular perceptions of the family might be found in the same territory. Communities of religious immigrants, inter-religious couples, cross-border reproduction technologies, are among the sites in which national, religious and global forces conflict, and cooperate, in relation to families.

This course will look into the socio-legal tensions created by the co-existence of civil and religious understandings of the family, while using international, national and religious legal systems to highlight the familial social and normative challenges that individuals, families, congregations, states and the international community, face, in our era.

I – Globalization and Borders

II – Families in the Era of Bordered Globalization

III – Religious Law and Courts

IV – Marriage

V – Divorce

VI – Financial Matrimonial Aspects

VII – Reproduction Tourism: Surrogacy and Abortion

VIII – Child Custody and Support

IX – Citizenship

X – Care at Old Age and Succession

XI – Violence against Women

XII – Violence against Children