Love's Promises

“Ertman’s book will help lawyers, policymakers, and families better navigate the current landscape—and offers a vital reminder that we’re all on the same map.”
—Dana Rudolph, Women’s Review of Books

“At a time of dramatic transformations in Americans’ family lives, Love’s Promises offers unique insights into how to manage diverse intimate arrangements. Blending vivid personal memoir with legal analysis, Ertman makes a compelling case for why, when, and how contracts can enhance loving relationships. A pioneering book that should be read by all those concerned with current and future families.”
—Viviana A. Zelizer, Lloyd Cotsen ’50 Professor of Sociology at Princeton University, and author of The Purchase of Intimacy and Economic Lives

“Love’s Promises is a skillful melding of law and intimate relationships. Increasingly these interrelationships exist outside of marriage, in part because of the reluctance of our state governments to extend the legal protections of marriage to the unconventional relationships that have become so common. Ertman shows that private contracts can go far to substitute for formal marriage, because judges are far more willing, in the name of free choice, to give private contractual arrangements the stamp of legality than legislatures are to update their marriage codes.” 
—Judge Richard A. Posner, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit and author of Sex and Reason

“Love’s Promises is the North Star for ‘Plan B’ parenting. In sharing her experiences as a mother, and expertise as a lawyer, Ertman charts a course to parenthood protected by the letter and the loving care of the law.”
—The Reverend Dr. Susan Newman Moore, pastor, counselor, and author

“Readers will delight in basking in the company of  Ertman’s utterly original, provocative mind, work, and self.”
—Judith Stacey, Professor Emerita of Social and Cultural Analysis and Sociology at New York University, author of Unhitched and In the Name of the Family

“A unique and refreshing take on age-old topics of law, love, and intimacy. Nobody with a family will want to miss this.”
—Jennifer Levi, Transgender Rights Project Director, GLAD

“Anybody practicing or teaching in the fields of family law and contracts could benefit greatly by reading and thinking about Love’s Promises.”
—Art Leonard, New York Law School

“Makes families’ challenging circumstances much easier by giving us language and a way to organize our complex lives. Love’s Promises fuses the personal and political to protect ourselves and those we love.”
—Kate Kendell, Executive Director, National Center for Lesbian Rights