S3 E3: Uncoupling the Benefits of Marriage
From health care to taxes, numerous financial benefits are still tied to whether you are married — even as the marriage rate is declining. UVA Law professor Naomi Cahn discusses how uncoupling benefits from marriage can be more equitable.
How To Listen
Show Notes: Uncoupling the Benefits of Marriage
Naomi R. Cahn
Naomi Cahn is an expert in family law, trusts and estates, feminist jurisprudence, reproductive technology, and aging and the law. Prior to joining the University of Virginia faculty in 2020, she taught at George Washington Law School, where she twice served as associate dean. She is the director of UVA Law’s Family Law Center.
Cahn is a co-author of casebooks in both family law and trusts and estates, and she has written numerous articles exploring the intersections among family law, trusts and estates, and feminist theory, as well as essays concerning the connections between gender and international law. In addition, she is the author or editor of books written for both academic and trade publishers. Her books include “Red Families v. Blue Families” (with Professor June Carbone): “Homeward Bound” (with Amy Ziettlow); and “Unequal Family Lives” (co-edited with UVA professor Brad Wilcox and others).
Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and New Yorker, and she has appeared on numerous media outlets, including NPR and MSNBC. She is also a senior contributor to the Forbes Leadership Channel, for which she regularly writes posts on gender equity.
In 2017, Cahn won the Harry Krause Lifetime Achievement in Family Law Award from the University of Illinois College of Law. She has worked with the Uniform Law Commission as a reporter for two drafting committees. In addition to her work with the commission, Cahn is a member of the American Law Institute, an elected fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, associate editor of the ACTEC Law Journal and a member of the American Bar Foundation, among other commitments. She serves on the editorial board of the Family Court Review. In addition, she has chaired and been on the steering committee for some of the major Association of American Law Schools sections, such as Women in Legal Education, Family & Juvenile Law, Aging and Africa. From 2002-04, Cahn researched gender-based violence while on leave and living in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Prior to turning to academia, Cahn practiced with Hogan Lovells in Washington, D.C., and with Community Legal Services in Philadelphia.
Listening to the Show
- “Uncoupling,” by Naomi Cahn and June Carbone
- “How Is the Widening Education Gap Between Men and Women Affecting Marriage?” (Institute for Family Studies)
- “Married Couples Are No Longer a Majority, Census Finds” (The New York Times)
- “The Reversal of the College Marriage Gap” (Pew Research)
- United States v. Windsor
- Muller v. Oregon
- Family wage
- “The Historical Problem of the Family Wage: The Ford Motor Company and the Five Dollar Day”
- The New Deal
- Bureau of Labor Statistics report on employee benefits (March 2020)
- Loving v. Virginia
- Obergefell v. Hodges