What is a Family? – The Right to Marry or to Become a Parent

The aim is to conduct a series of comparative studies focusing on the change of approach regarding marriage, family, kinship and parenting, from a legal, theological and historical perspective. Tensions between the rights of the autonomous individual and the collective, as well as society's role as the protector of children, and ethical, religious or sexual minorities, are studied.

The results are published, inter alia, in a bilingual antology focusing on cultural tensions within the family, with Sweden and Turkey as examples, (Jänterä-Jareborg, Singer, Schlytter; Iustus 2010), Caroline Sörgjerd's doctoral thesis (2011): Reconstructing Marriage in a ChangingLegal and Societel Landscape: Challenges of New Cohabitation Models in Sweden, and in numerous articles and book chapters concerning same-sex marriage, same-sex couples and single persons' right to assisted reproduction, etc.

The project has expanded to include questions about surrogacy. A comprehensive study of the changing views concerning children born outside marriage is under progress. 

Participating researchers: Maarit Jänterä-Jareborg, Anna Singer, Caroline Sörgjerd