Marriage as a trade: Bridging the private/private distinction

Ertman explores private law's potential to provide a metaphor that accounts for the range of intimate affiliations and counteracts the inequalities of the natural model of family, a socially constructed concept that defines what families should be. The model is often inadequate because it cannot respond to changing forms of intimate relationships as greater numbers of Americans are living in relationships that do not fit with the naturalized model, including same-sex affiliations, nonsexual unions, interracial relationships, and new parenting relations.