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A ‘Divorce Blueprint’? The Use of Heteronormative Strategies in Addressing Economic Inequalities on Civil Partnership Dissolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2016

Charlotte Bendall
Charlotte Bendall*
Affiliation:
School of Law, University of Essex, Colchester, UK (Lecturer in Law and Socio-legal Studies) and Birmingham Law School, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK (PhD candidate)charlotte.bendall@essex.ac.uk and clb212@bham.ac.uk
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Abstract

This article will explore data obtained through interviews with UK family law practitioners and clients with experience of financial relief on formalised same-sex relationship breakdown. It will focus on questions around how solicitors have approached and argued their dissolution cases (and the extent to which they have drawn upon heteronormative arguments and case law), and whether both they and the clients believed that civil partnerships are, and should be, treated similarly to marriages. The discussion will examine the different understandings of ‘equality’ employed, and question the ways that the participants relied on ideas of sameness and difference. It will be argued that the solicitors placed particular stress on sameness, and that heteronormative constructs of gendered inequalities have been transplanted into same-sex cases, in a system where practitioners’ submissions are based on ‘what works.’ This is despite the fact that lesbian and gay couples do not map onto the ‘template’ under which the parties have been subjected to different gendered expectations. Conversely, the clients were less willing to take on the full legal implications associated with (heterosexual) marital breakdown and less receptive of the solicitors ‘translating’ their matters to pigeonhole them into the existing framework.

Résumé

Le présent article examinera les données obtenues grâce à des entrevues réalisées auprès d’avocats en droit de la famille et de leurs clients en Grande-Bretagne ayant de l’expérience avec l’aide financière consécutive à la dissolution de relations homosexuelles formalisées. L’on examinera notamment la façon par laquelle les avocats plaidants ont abordé et argumenté ces affaires judiciaires (et la mesure par laquelle ils ont employé des arguments hétéronormatifs et de jurisprudence), et si les avocats et leurs clients estimaient que les partenariats civils étaient assimilables à un mariage et devaient être traités comme tel. La discussion examinera les diverses façons par lesquelles la notion d’« égalité » est appréhendée et la façon par laquelle les participants ont interprété les notions de similitude et de différence. L’article avancera que les avocats ont insisté sur l’aspect de la similitude et que le concept hétéronormatif d’inégalité entre les sexes a été transplanté à des affaires concernant des couples de même sexe, dans un système où les arguments des avocats se centraient sur « ce qui fonctionne ». Ceci s’effectue malgré le fait que les couples homosexuels (hommes ou femmes) ne précisent pas la façon par laquelle chacune des parties a été soumise à des attentes différenciées selon le sexe. Ceci dit, les clients homosexuels étaient réfractaires à l’idée d’assumer les pleines répercussions juridiques inhérentes aux dissolutions de relations maritales hétérosexuelles et peu intéressés à ce que les avocats « traduisent » leur affaire afin de l’insérer dans le cadre juridique existant.

Keywords

civil partnershiprelationship breakdownfinancial provisionequalityheteronormativitylegal practicepartenariat civildissolution de relationsecours financierégalitéhétéronormativitépratique juridique
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Law and Society / La Revue Canadienne Droit et Société , Volume 31 , Special Issue 2: Les transferts économiques entre ex-époux à la suite du divorce : logiques alimentaire, compensatoire, indemnitaire? / Financial Transfers Between Spouses on Divorce: Logics of Need, Restitution, or Compensation? , August 2016 , pp. 267 - 286
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Law and Society Association / Association Canadienne Droit et Société 2016 

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