The American Frontier and the Frontiers of Marriage
Love,
Lust, and the Law details the story of the legal
contest between the free love community gathered around
Moses Harman, a radically secularist newspaper
publisher in eastern Kansas, and the Kansas legal
authorities. When Harman's daughter Lillian pledges
herself to Harman's friend and business partner Edwin
Walker in an "autonomistic" union, where each is free
to come and go as they please, they are arrested and
prosecuted. While the authorities continue to press
charges, Harman uses his newspaper, "Lucifer, the Light
Bearer" to make their marriage a cause
celeb among
anarchists and atheists across the nation. The legal
struggle that is State of Kansas v. Walker anticipates
the great twentieth century controversies over
marriage. Is Marriage merely the continuing consent of
two individuals shorn of all social obligation? Or does
marriage cary with it public duties that may not be
altered by the consent of the
parties?
By the Powers
Vested
How One Church Invented American Marriage and Might Do
it Again
At
the time of the revolutionary war it was not clear
whether there would ever be an Episcopal Church in the
United States. From troubled beginnings and tainted
associations with the loyalists who sided with King
George III the Episcopal church became one of the
pillars of the American political, financial and legal
establishments. It's theology gave decisive shape to
the American law of marriage. Divided into three parts,
this book will explore the development of American
Episcopal Theology of Marriage; the many ways in which
this theology shaped nineteenth century legal thought,
and the deep and continuing influence exercised by the
Book of Common Prayer over the American Law of Domestic
relations.
The History of Western
Rights-Thought
A singular feature of western political and legal
thought has been it’s emphasis on rights. While many
scholars trace its sources to early modern or to
enlightenment thought, medieval canon law is saturated
with a concern for rights. Indeed, medieval canon law
can be called a system of rights based jurisprudence.
In a series of articles as
well as my Ph.D. dissertation I have explored many
facets of this western Christian phenomenon. I shall
be returning to it again shortly.