Regulating Family Law in Federations: The Impact of De/Centralization, Religion, and International Treaties on Abortion and Child Marriage Policies

There has been little study of the effects of federalism on the regulation and reform of family law (FL). This article addresses that gap by identifying variables that affect two aspects of FL: child marriage and abortion. The underlying research question is what conditions make it easier to reform discriminatory FL in one federation compared to another. FL involves multiple rules governing marriage, divorce, custody, adoption, and often inheritance and family property use. Many gender scholars also include reproductive self-determination, specifically abortion. FL rules also have multiple elements: e.g., marriage regulations govern age, “race,” sex, domicile, etc., that often differ across constituent units. The main variable examined is the extent of centralization, because the dominant pattern of regulation in these cases is centralized legislation and decentralized implementation. The other two variables explored are religion and international norms-building and their effects on FL regulation and reform.