Böcker av Carol Smart

Based on extensive couple and individual interviews with young same sex couples who have legally formalized their relationships, this book argues that same sex marriages as they are lived need to be understood in terms of interlinked developments in lesbian and gay life, heterosexual relationships and in personal life.

For more than a decade, Carol Smart has been at the forefront of debates about the sociology of the family. Yet she has become frustrated by the fixation of many commentators with the supposed decline of commitment, and even the decline of the possibility of family life.

Carol Smart presents a new gendered analysis of the power of law and argues for a feminist post- structuralist approach. She comments on pornography, as well as discussing recent research on rape trials and abortion legislation.

This text examines the following trends: the shift from criminology to the sociology of law; law as a site of struggle rather than as a tool of reform; the contested nature of "woman" as a category; and the significance of feminists debating about values and epistemologies.

aeo A new book co--authored by one of the leading sociologists on the topical subject of family breakdown. aeo Based on new empirical research with a large number of divorcing and divorced families. aeo Advances a new theoretical understanding of the nature of family commitment after divorce.