Intimate Lies and the Law
Jill Elaine Hasday
Abstract
Suppose you discovered one day that the foundations of your life were shakier than you ever imagined. An intimate relationship that you thought was grounded in trust actually depended on deception. After the initial shock and sadness, you might wonder whether the law will help you secure redress for your injuries. But most deceived intimates get no help from the courts, even when they have endured significant financial, physical, or emotional harm. Why not? Deception within intimate relationships can cause severe—even life-altering—damage. But the law has shielded this persistent and pervasive ... More
Suppose you discovered one day that the foundations of your life were shakier than you ever imagined. An intimate relationship that you thought was grounded in trust actually depended on deception. After the initial shock and sadness, you might wonder whether the law will help you secure redress for your injuries. But most deceived intimates get no help from the courts, even when they have endured significant financial, physical, or emotional harm. Why not? Deception within intimate relationships can cause severe—even life-altering—damage. But the law has shielded this persistent and pervasive source of injury, routinely denying deceived intimates access to the remedies that are available for deceit in other contexts. This is the first book that systematically examines deception in sexual, marital, and familial relationships and uncovers the hidden body of law that governs such deceit. It argues that the law has placed too much emphasis on protecting intimate deceivers and too little importance on helping the people they deceive. The law can and should do more to recognize, prevent, and redress the injuries that intimate deception can inflict, giving deceived intimates access to the same remedies they would have if equivalently deceived outside of intimacy, countering incentives to deceive, and thwarting duplicitous intimates from carrying out their plans. Entering an intimate relationship—or being duped into one—should not mean losing the law’s protection from deceit.
Keywords:
intimate,
intimacy,
deception,
misrepresentation,
fraud,
marriage,
sex,
romance,
family,
infidelity
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2019 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780190905941 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: July 2019 |
DOI:10.1093/oso/9780190905941.001.0001 |
