News

Translated by Susan Wu, revised by Begonia Wang,May 27th,2014

 

On May 27, 2014, Professor Melanie B. Jacobs from Michigan State University College of Law delivered an inspiring and significant speech on the topic of "The 21st Century American Family" to SHUFE Law students. Dr. Hu Ling hosted the lecture and expressed a warm welcome to Professor Jacobs.

Professor Jacobs first stressed the importance of Family Law in American. Family Law could reflect the combination of legislation, culture and politics. American Family Law faces a revolutionary change attributing to marriage, parenthood and ARTs (artificial assisted reproductive technology). Traditionally, American family is called nuclear family which consists of parents, two kids and a pet. This stable family structure is changing. In 1960s, there were more than 70 percent of adults were married and about 60 percent of married people were in their twenties. In 1970s, there were 40 percent of American couples welcomed their first child under the age of eighteen. Up to now, there are only 20 percent of people between the age of 18 to 29 are married. Only 20 percent of American couples had their first child under the age of 18 in 2012. One of the reasons of this phenomenon is education and late marriage. More and more women choose to finish their college education. Education is a quite significant cause of late marriage and late childbirth. It is very hard for well educated and well trained women to find a satisfied husband in the situation of much more female college graduates and less male college graduates, especially in America. The increasing divorce rate and reconstituted family caused the so called Blended Family. 

Otherwise, disputes among various parties have a powerful influence on American marriages and parenthood. States which support the Democrats have a lower rate of divorce, delay of first marriage and late childbirth. States which support the Republicans tend to have a higher rate of early marriage, early pregnancy, abortion and divorce with the weak influence of religions. Although Americans still stress the importance of marriage and argue about gay marriage, about seventeen states legalize same-sex marriage with supports from the Supreme Court. The increase of single parent family, the appearance of gay parenthood and the application of ARTs (artificial assisted reproductive technology) influence American parenthood a lot.

In the end of lecture, Professor Jacobs indicated that there still have certain problems which remain to be solved in certain fields compared with other countries. The lecture was finished in tremendous applause of students and teachers.

Original News:http://law.shufe.edu.cn/structure/xyxwxx_153749_1.htm