For Immediate Release
November 5, 2007

Contact:

Kara Tershel, (202) 662-9500

Professor West

WASHINGTON, D.C. - How have attitudes toward marriage changed over the last half century? Does marriage still matter? Should it still exist, and if so, in what form?

Georgetown University Law Center Professor Robin West poses these questions and others in her new book, "Marriage, Sexuality, and Gender" (Paradigm Publishers, 2007).

West claims that the meaning and point of marriage as an institution has proven illusive over the last half century. She writes, "The institution of marriage, not long ago, had a quite specific social, cultural, and moral meaning: man-woman, for life, and in order to conceive, birth, and nurture children. That ground beneath us has shifted."

 

West divides her book into three sections. In the first, she analyzes the arguments for preserving traditional marriage as the lawful union of one man and one woman brought together for the purpose of procreation. In the next, she explores arguments for ending the institution put forth by feminists and other critics who believe that it is unconstitutional, exclusionary, or adverse for women and the poor. And in the third, she discusses two current reform movements: one that favors expanding marriage to include same-sex couples and one that advocates for more egalitarian marriage.

West concludes by proposing that "every state, municipality or jurisdiction should have a civil union law" that would exist alongside civil marriage. These civil unions would "become the legal mechanism by which any two people – regardless of sexual orientation – who wish to commit themselves to the lifelong care of each other and their shared dependents, formalize and sanctify their intention and desire to do so."

West came to Georgetown Law from the University of Maryland Law School, where she taught from 1986 to 1991. She has been a visiting professor at the University of Chicago and Stanford Law Schools. She also taught at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law at Cleveland State University from 1982 to 1985. West has written extensively on gender issues and feminist legal theory, constitutional law and theory, jurisprudence, legal philosophy, and law and literature. She is the author of "Re-imagining Justice" (Ashgate Press, 2003).

About Georgetown University Law Center 

Georgetown University Law Center is one of the world's premier law schools. It has the largest full-time faculty in the nation and is pre-eminent in several areas, including constitutional, international, tax and clinical law. Drawing on its Jesuit heritage, it has a strong tradition of public service and is dedicated to the principle that law is but a means, justice is the end. With this principle in mind, Georgetown Law has built an environment that cultivates an exchange of ideas and the pursuit of academic excellence. It brings together an extraordinarily varied group of teachers, scholars and practitioners, as well as an outstanding student body representing more than 60 countries.

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