Rebecca Probert is Senior Lecturer at the University of Warwick, UK.

Contents: Under one roof: law's interactions with family life, Rebecca Probert; Part I Keeping a Roof over the Family: Family law and housing law: a symbiotic relationship?, Anne Barlow; The security of the home and the home as security, Rebecca Probert. Part II Using the Law in Intact Families: Violence in a family context: the criminal law's response to domestic violence, Sharon Cowan and Jacqueline Hodgson; Medical negligence: secondary victims and psychiatric illness: family tragedies and legal headaches, Rachael Mulheron; Contract - a justifiable taboo?, Chris Barton. Part III Intact Families and the State: Family law and social security, Nick Wikeley; Income tax and family life, David Salter; Work-life balance and employment law: cultural change or Mission: Impossible?, Graham Moffat; Home or home: caring about and for elderly family members in a welfare state, Ann Stewart. Part IV Families Across International Boundaries: International families: making new relationships at home and away, Judith Masson; Immigration law and family life - a happy marriage?, Helen Toner; The asylum-seeking family, Dallal Stevens; Families and European Union law, Clare McGlynn; Bibliography Index.

This book brings a modern critical approach to bear on the broad range of subjects that used to constitute 'family law.' A key consideration in this collection is the way in which law itself is premised upon, constructing a particular image of the family. By bringing different areas of law together, Probert et al suggest it is possible to explore how differing ideas about 'the family' inform different areas of law. This approach allows Family Life and the Law to analyze the extent to which the law is consistent and/or inconsistent in its concept and treatment of the family across and within disciplines. The book is particularly timely in view of the passage of the Civil Partnership Act 2004, the implications of which reverberate throughout family law and allied disciplines, and the current reconsideration of the position of cohabiting couples.