Custody investigations by social workers of the home circumstances of children soon to be the subject of a custody order in a divorce case usually provide psychological and socioeconomic data about the family and other adults interested in the children's welfare. Reports of such investigations are used by judges in arriving at decisions about custody. The author's research has led him to conclude, however, that such institutionalized custody investigations can be defended only if they help spouses to resolve disputes that otherwise would be tried. Further, he suggests that safeguards be instituted to protect spouses from inaccurate and biased reporting.

This essay argues for the need to study the legal history of the American family. It does so by combining a critique of secondary literature in family and legal history with examples from nineteenth-century domestic relations law. These examples, drawn from family law doctrines on seduction under the cover of a marriage promise, runaway marriages, and bastardy, are used to indicate the benefits of adding a sociocultural dimension to legal history and legal and institutional dimensions to family history. Three main themes in the history of nineteenth-century domestic relations law are developed to make these points: the law's particular fabric of issues, its distribution of authorship, and its chronological development, These themes suggest why a full understanding of the legal history of the American family requires crossing the boundaries between legal and family history.

This article examines the administration of the poor laws in six southern states from 1800 to 1860. Although southerners were influenced to some degree by developments in northeastern communities, the unique features of antebellum southern life caused poor relief to assume a distinct character. Poverty was simply not perceived as a major concern in the South. Consequently, southerners were less inclined to stigmatize paupers, or to adopt a systematic policy of institutionalizing dependents. They relied heavily on such traditional practices as outrelief and apprenticeship. This approach harmonized with the southern preference for a legal system which encouraged informal solution of social problems at the local level.