Gender in Law and Family Values: In Search of a Balance

The paper examines the current gender aspects of legislation regulating relations with the family element (mainly from the family legal space), the practice of its application by the courts. The provisions of the legal doctrine, primarily civil and civil procedure, on this issue are summarized and analyzed. Meanwhile, the author intentionally leaves civil law out of the field of research, since civil law norms are specified by family and administrative legislation and are gender neutral. The gender contexts of the institution of marriage (its heterosexual legal attitudes, the legal consequences of sex change in marriage, the problem of same-sex marriage, de facto marriage, gender prohibitions in the divorce procedure), the institute of parenthood (presumption of paternity, the influence of gender stereotypes on the legislation on the establishment of extramarital paternity, the law enforcement presumption of the mother’s preferential right to leave her young child, the rights of fathers, same-sex parenthood and its consequences), the institute of surrogacy (gender differentiation the subject composition of the program participants, controversial administrative and judicial practice in cases of the legal consequences of the use of assisted reproductive technologies). Other gender aspects of Russian family legislation are analyzed (for example, gender neutralization of norms on alimony obligations). In the argumentation of his position on these issues, the author not only relies on the analysis of legal norms, court decisions and provisions of legal doctrine, but also refers to the sociological meanings of gender practices. The author notes that the proposed approaches to the classical and modern gender contexts of family and related legislation indicate the actualization of both the problem as a whole and the need to answer questions on its individual components.

1. Bonner AT. Zakonodatelstvo ob iskusstvennom oplodotvorenii i praktika ego primeneniya nuzhdayutsya v sovershenstvovanii [The legislation on artificial insemination and the practice of its application need to be improved]. Zakon [Law]. 2015;7:134-151. (In Russ.).

2. Borovikovskiy A. Otchet sudi [The judge’s report]. Vol. 2. St. Petersburg; 1892. (In Russ.).

3. Velikaya NM, Knyazkova EA. Reproduktivnye prava zhenshchin v politicheskom diskurse sovremennoy Rossii [Women’s reproductive rights in the Political Discourse of Modern Russia]. Zhenshchina v rossiyskom obshchestve [A woman in Russian society]. 2021. Special issue. P. 25–37. (In Russ.).

4. Ilyina OYu. Primenenie analogii zakona i analogii prava pri regulirovanii otnosheniy v sfere registratsii rozhdeniya detey [Application of the analogy of law and analogy of law in the regulation of relations in the field of birth registration of children]. Vestnik Tverskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. Seriya “Pravo”[Herald of TvSU. Series: Law]. 2014;3:38-45. (In Russ.).

5. Ganicheva AE. Odnopolye pary i deti: aspekty britanskogo i amerikanskogo zakonodatelstva [Same-sex couples and children: Aspects of British and American legislation]. Sotsialno-yuridicheskaya tetrad [Social and legal notebook]. 2012;2:138-147. (In Russ.).

6. Isaeva EA. Transformatsiya instituta semi: opyt zarubezhnykh stran [Transformation of the family institution: Foreign countries experience]. Sotsialno-yuridicheskaya tetrad [Social and legal notebook]. 2013;3:110-123. (In Russ.).

7. Kosova OYu. Brak: “institut osobogo roda” ili “partnerstvo”? [Marriage: A “special kind of institution” or “partnership”?]. Gosudarstvo i Pravo [State and Law]. 2015;8:43-52. (In Russ.).

8. Lushnikov AM, Lushnikova MV, Tarusina NN. Gender v zakone [Gender in law]. Moscow: Prospekt; 2015. (In Russ.).

9. Maleina MN. Izmenenie biologicheskogo i sotsialnogo pola: perspektivy razvitiya zakonodatelstva [Changing biological and social gender: Prospects for the development of legislation]. Zhurnal Rossiyskogo Prava [Journal of Russian Law]. 2002;9(69);52-59. (In Russ.).

10. Meyer DI. Russkoe grazhdanskoe pravo [Russian civil law]. Part 2. Moscow; 1997. (In Russ.).

11. Novoselova EN. Odnopolyy “brak” – tupikovaya vetv evolyutsii semi i obshchestva [Same-sex “marriage” is a dead-end branch of the evolution of the family and society]. Vestn. Mosk. un-ta. Ser. 18: Sotsiologiya i politologiya [Bulletin of Moscow State University. Series 18, Sociology and Political Science]. 2013;4:85-103. (In Russ.).

12. Pokrovskiy IA. Osnovnye problemy grazhdanskogo prava [The main issues of civil law]. Moscow; 1998. (In Russ.).

13. Pushkareva NL. Zhenshchiny v russkoy seme: traditsii i sovremennost [Women in the Russian family: Traditions and modernity]. In: Tishkov VA, editor. Semya, gender, kultura: materialy mezhdunarodnykh konferentsiy 1994 i 1995 gg. [Family, gender, culture: Procs. of international conferences held in 1994 and 1995]. Moscow; 1997. P. 177–189. (In Russ.).

14. Rabets AM. Prezumptsiya ottsovstva muzha materi v semeynom prave Rossiyskoy Federatsii [Presumption of paternity of the mother’s husband in the family law of the Russian Federation]. Semeynoe i zhilishchnoe pravo [Family and housing law]. 2016;2:20-23. (In Russ.).

15. Sychenko EV. “Zakonnaya” diskriminatsiya: zapret primeneniya truda zhenshchin na nekotorykh vidakh rabot [“Legitimate”discrimination: Prohibition of the use of women’s labor in certain types of work]. Trudovoe pravo v Rossii i za rubezhom [Labor law in Russia and abroad]. 2017;4:59-62. (In Russ.).

16. Tarusina NN. Brak po rossiyskomu semeynomu pravu [Marriage under Russian family law]. Moscow: Prospekt; 2010. (In Russ.).

17. Tarusina NN. Zakonodatelstvo o brake i seme: bolee sta let dvizheniya po spiralyam rossiyskoy istorii [Legislation on marriage and family: More than a hundred years of movement in the spirals of Russian history]. Sotsialno-yuridicheskaya tetrad [Social and legal notebook]. 2017;7:5-45. (In Russ.).

18. Tarusina NN. Neskolko tezisov o “prave roditsya” [Some Statements Concerning the “Right to be Born”]. Lex russica. 2021;(5):52-62. (In Russ.).

19. Tarusina NN. O novom kontsepte braka, ili “pyatoy kolonne” v brachnom prostranstve [About the new concept of marriage, or the “fifth column” in the marriage space]. Vestnik Yaroslavskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. Seriya: Gumanitarnye nauki [P.G. Demidov Yaroslavl State University Bulletin. Series: Humanities]. 2014;2(28):48-52. (In Russ.).

20. Tarusina NN. O sudebnom usmotrenii: zametki semeynoveda [On judicial discretion: A family specialist notes]. Yaroslavl; 2011. (In Russ.).

21. Tarusina NN. Ob aktualnykh pravovykh pozitsiyakh Konstitutsionnogo i Verkhovnogo Sudov RF po delam iz lichnykh semeynykh pravootnosheniy [On the current legal positions of the Constitutional and Supreme Courts of the Russian Federation in cases of personal family relations]. Sudya [Judge]. 2021;6:13-19. (In Russ.).

22. Tarusina NN. Semya kak obshchepravovaya konstruktsiya [Family as a General Legal Structure]. Lex russica. 2020;(4):21-33. (In Russ.).

23. Tarusina NN. Sudebnaya praktika po semeynym delam: problemy usmotreniya na grani pravotvorchestva [Court Practice in Family Disputes: Problems of Discretion on the Verge of Law-Making]. Lex russica. 2019;(5):40-48. (In Russ.).

24. Tarusina NN, Sochneva OI. Prava detey [Children’s rights]. Moscow: Prospekt; 2018. (In Russ.).

25. Trofimets IA. Aktualnye voprosy zaklyucheniya i prekrashcheniya braka na postsovetskom prostranstve [Topical issues of marriage and termination in the post-Soviet space]. Moscow: Yurlitinform; 2012. (In Russ.).

26. Shershenevich GF. Uchebnik russkogo grazhdanskogo prava [A textbook on Russian civil law]. Kazan; 1905. (In Russ.).

27. Shchelkin AG. “Gendernaya revolyutsiya”: oborotnaya storona medali. Glazami zapadnykh avtorov [“Gender Revolution”: The flip side of the coin. Through the eyes of Western authors]. Teleskop [Telescope]. 2019;4(136):15-22. (In Russ.).

28. Shchelkin AG. Legalizatsiya odnopolykh brakov: k voprosu o sotsialno-tsivilizatsionnykh posledstviyakh [Legalization of same-sex marriage: On the issue of social and civilizational consequences]. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological research]. 2019;11:152-160. (In Russ.).

29. Shchelkin AG. Netraditsionnaya seksualnost (opyt sotsiologicheskogo issledovaniya) [Non-traditional sexuality (experience of sociological research)]. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological research]. 2013;6(350):125-136. (In Russ.).

30. Tarusina N, Isaeva E. Equalization of legal status with respect to gender. Russian Law Journal. 2016;4(3):74–93.

31. Tarusina N, Isaeva E. Russian family law legislation revolution, counter-revolution, evolution. BRICS Law Journal. 2017;4(4):65-92.