Living Apart Together, Women, and Family Law

Authors

Cynthia Grant Bowman, Cornell Law School

Abstract

"Living Apart Together, " or "LAT, " describes an intimate relationship in which a committed unmarried couple live in separate residences. This Article discusses whether this lifestyle is particularly attractive to women today. After exploring information available about women and LAT in secondary literature from other parts of the world, the author presents new empirical data about LATs in the United States, based on two surveys and a series of qualitative interviews from 2016 and 2017. She examines whether the women respondents and interviewees offer different reasons for living apart than the men do and discusses whether they choose LAT in order to avoid an inequitable division of domestic labor and to preserve their economic independence. The caretaking, both physical and emotional, exchanged by LAT partners is also important to the question whether they represent a new family form and what legal treatment should be given to them. Based on results of the surveys and interviews, she suggests a number of reforms to the family law treatment of such couples, narrowly tailored to the functions they provide both for each other and for society.

Disciplines

Law | Law and Gender

Recommended Citation

Cynthia G. Bowman, Living Apart Together, Women, and Family Law, 24 Cardozo J. Equal Rts. & Soc. Just. 47 (2017).
Available at: https://larc.cardozo.yu.edu/cardozoersj/vol24/iss1/4