caa a22 4500 388073675 CHVBK 20180307125155.0 cr unu---uuuuu 161130s1999 xx s 000 0 eng 10.1017/S0829320100005962 doi S0829320100005962 pii (NATIONALLICENCE)cambridge-10.1017/S0829320100005962 Gavigan Shelley A.M. Osgoode Hall Law School, York University Legal Forms, Family Forms, Gendered Norms: What is a Spouse? [Elektronische Daten] [Shelley A.M. Gavigan] The limits of the normative nature of law may be illustrated in the current English Canadian context by apparently contradictory phenomena: legal defeats of welfare mothers (e.g. Masse and Falkiner), and the legal victories of lesbian mothers (Re K). Drawing upon Fine, this paper employs the analytic frame of form and content to analyse contradictions within the legal form, notably in respect of the definition of spouse and the regulation of relations of property and poverty, and the struggles of lesbian parents who have applied to the courts to formalize their relationships to their children by way of adoption, and who, in so doing, have challenged the normative content of spousal relations. In analysing law as a gendering strategy, it is necessary to be mindful that law may not be the dominant site through and in which gender relations are constructed, regulated, reconstructed, or resisted. In this paper, the author examines and analyzes the contradictions in the legal form that have been mobilized, the ‘stirring up' of the content that has been done, and the constraints and limits that shape the results. Copyright © Canadian Law and Society Association 1999 Canadian journal of law and society Cambridge University Press 14/01(1999), 127-157 0829-3201 14:01<127 1999 14 CLS https://doi.org/10.1017/S0829320100005962 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0829320100005962 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 100 1- Gavigan Shelley A.M. Osgoode Hall Law School, York University NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Canadian journal of law and society Cambridge University Press 14/01(1999), 127-157 0829-3201 14:01<127 1999 14 CLS CC0 http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0 nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-cambridge