From Father's Property to Children's Rights [Paperback]

Mary Ann Mason (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 1996 | ISBN-10: 0231080476 | ISBN-13: 978-0231080477 0

-- Judith Wallerstein

Editorial Reviews

Review

<P>Shows that attention to child welfare today is not as consistent as we might assume. [Mason's] evidence reveals a system struggling to find a clear path through conflicting political and social interests while the best interests of the child are often ignored.... But what are the best interests of the child? How should courts proceed when children's interests conflict with those of their parents or even of the state?... Such questions become intractable in a society that has lost all consensus on what family, parenthood, and childhood mean. Mason has no easy answers, but her history of custody law holds a mirror up to a society that sorely needs to look honestly at its treatment of children.</P> (Boston Book Review )

About the Author

<P>Mary Ann Mason is Associate Professor of Law and Social Welfare at the School of Social Welfare, University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of <I>The Equality Trap</I>, coauthor of <I>Why Kids Lie</I>, and coeditor of <I>Debating Children's Lives: Current Controversies on Children and Adolescents</I>.</P>

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Columbia University Press (April 15, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0231080476
• ISBN-13: 978-0231080477
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #793,202 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars custody tends to be economically based, January 24, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: From Father's Property to Children's Rights: The History of Child Custody in the United States (Hardcover)

This book is fair and comprehensive and, thankfully, free of feminist cant and propoganda. I learned much even though I know the material fairly well. My major insight was that custody has always been based on finding someone who will support the child, indentured servant or divorced wife and protect the State from having to pay. The change from father custody to mother custody has forced the State to become increasingly effective at requiring the parent with money to give the money to the other parent, allowing custody to be given to the less economically viable parent.

5 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Research & Flawed Conclusions, May 27, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: From Father's Property to Children's Rights: The History of Child Custody in the United States (Hardcover)

Mason covers the history of legal custody with the exacting detail of a trained scholar. However, her conclusion that the "best interest of the child," is best served without regard for the best best interest of the parent will give an entire new generation of judiciary the opportunity to vacate parent's civil rights in favor of their children and the state.

Her idea of giving each child in a divorce their own legal representation will most certainly serve the best interests of attorneys everywhere, while leaving middle-class parents pennyless in their pursuit of justice.

For legal education and precedent this book rates a 10. For the long-term health of civilization, it deserves a 0.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Worthy subject, significant omissions, January 17, 2011

By 

aklyric - See all my reviews

This review is from: From Father's Property to Children's Rights (Paperback)

I am pleased to see an author take on the Herculean task of writing about the history and progression of custody. Overall, I believe Mason did a fairly good job of collecting historical facts, assessing trends, regarding patterns and their outliers, and cultivating the amalgam into a fairly well-rounded study. It was frustrating, however, to encounter multiple instances of unsupported opinion stated as fact. In addition, this work ignores the contemporary elephant in the room: the widespread use of pseudo-scientific theories to gain leverage in custody hearings, and the commiserate degree to which the integration of social sciences into the arena of family law has led to the financial destruction of families required to fund its intrusion. Mason hints at the degree to which family court jurisprudence is a socially driven construct, but there is so much more ground to cover. Finally, I would like to have seen the author tackle family court's greatest failing: the nearly absolute lack of accountability towards the citizens it purports to serve in tandem with the wholesale lack of regulation from the judicial gatekeepers entrusted with monitoring its behavior. Readers interested in contemporary family court phenomenon would be better directed to read Dr. Hannah's "Domestic Violence, Abuse, and Child Custody" (2010).