Focus and Scope
Plural Family Law Review (PFL) focuses on the intersection between family law and legal pluralism in contemporary religious, customary, and multi-cultural societies. It aims to advance innovative, comparative, and interdisciplinary research that connects religious jurisprudence, customary law, indigenous traditions, and state codification with real-world family life, positioning legal pluralism as a living and transformative framework for addressing contemporary challenges in marriage, divorce, parenthood, custody, inheritance, gender justice, and family welfare.
It covers a range of subjects, including in-depth studies of:
-
Theoretical and Methodological Foundations of Plural Family Law – Classical and contemporary theories of legal pluralism (Griffiths, Merry, Tamanaha, Twining), the semi-autonomous social field in family matters, and decolonial, comparative, socio-legal, ethnographic, and empirical methodologies for plural family law inquiry.
-
Religious Family Law in Plural Legal Orders – The interaction of Islamic, Hindu, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, and Parsi family law traditions with state codification, including KHI Indonesia, Mudawwana Morocco, Hindu Code Bills India, madhhab plurality, and multi-religious systems in Lebanon, Israel, Sri Lanka, and South Asia.
-
Customary, Indigenous, and Non-State Family Law – Family law operating beyond or alongside state law, including adat traditions in Southeast Asia, customary systems in sub-Saharan Africa, indigenous and tribal law in the Americas and the Pacific, and religious tribunals in Western diasporas such as Sharia councils, Bet Din, and Catholic tribunals.
-
Gender, Children, and Vulnerability Across Plural Legal Orders – Protection of women, children, and vulnerable groups within plural systems, covering domestic violence, mahr, nafaqah, divorce rights, ḥaḍānah, kafālah, child welfare, the best interests of the child, and the agency of vulnerable parties in navigating multiple forums.
-
Inheritance, Property, and Jurisdictional Conflicts – Normative conflicts in inheritance and property across farāʾiḍ, matrilineal and patrilineal customary inheritance, hybrid systems, harta bersama, wasiat wajibah, and forum shopping among religious, customary, and civil courts.
-
Reform, Codification, and Policy of Plural Family Law – State efforts to codify plural traditions and reform family courts, including Tunisia's Code of Personal Status, Morocco's Mudawwana, Indonesia's KHI, Malaysia's Islamic Family Law Enactments, the Uniform Civil Code debate in India, and the digitalization of family justice.
