Stephen Cretney was a practising solicitor in the City of London from his graduation until 1965. He then taught at the Kenya and Southampton before becoming Quarrell Fellow and Tutor in Law at Exeter College, Oxford. Between 1978 and 1984 he served as a Law Commissioner before becoming Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Law at Bristol University. Since 1993 he has been Senior Research Fellow at All Souls' College, Oxford. He has served on a number of Government Committees.

• Preface ; Table of Cases ; Table of UK Statutes ; Introduction ; 1. The Law Commission: New Dawns and False Dawns ; 2. Putting Asunder and Coming Together: Church, State and the 1969 divorce reforms ; 3. The Forfeiture Act 1982: A Case Study of the Private Member's Bill as an Instrument of Law Reform ; 4. 'Disgusted, Buckingham Palace ...': Divorce, Indecency and the Press, 1926 ; 5. Marriage Saving and the Early Days of Conciliation: the role of Claud Mullins ; 6. Tell me the old, old story - the Denning Report fifty years on ; 7. 'What will the women want next?' The struggle for power within the family, 1925-1975 ; 8. Adoption - From Contract to Status? ; 9. The State as a Parent: the Children Act 1948 ; 10. Dividing Family Property on Death: Approaches to Reform of Intestacy ; Index

Cretney's book will not only be essential to all those who want to think about family law rather than just to practise it. It will also be valuable to lawyers in other fields, in particular because of the light which it casts upon the extraordinary way in which laws are made: on the pressures, the tactics, the conflicts, the misunderstandings and the expediencies which underlie much legislation. And its value will extend well beyond the law to students of the social changes which those in family law reflect. .../ ... Cretney has produced a work on a century of family law, which will be consulted for centuries.