Family Values under the Auspices of Law: The New in Tradition and Tradition in the New

Abstract

The paper analyzes prerequisites for the formation, content, types, methods of ensuring and protecting traditional family values that have been consolidated at the constitutional level with their subsequent implementation in the principles of family legislation, as well as in its key institutions and structures, namely: marriage, family, parenthood, childhood. Within each of them, the author determines gaps, unsettled relations, as well as decisions that do not meet the meaning of the latest constitutional amendments. The paper provides an assessment of typical and atypical doctrinal approaches to the diversity of significant family values, in particular the idea of auxiliary (peripheral) elements, including elements that are located in the «gray zone». Particular attention is paid to the compliance of the normative-legal structure of marriage and the family union related to it (actual marriage), parenthood, and the status of the child. The latter, taking into account the constitutional provision on the need to educate children in respect for elders, explicitly requires the addition of its content with elements of their duty (duties) under family law. It is suggested that there is a need to return to the idea of judicial specialization in family cases based on the actualization of attention to family problems, the state’s attitude to system protection and protection of its interests. The paper examines the problems of implementing the principle of family autonomy, protecting its sovereignty from arbitrary interference, ensuring the possibility of self-regulation, and emphasizes the need to maintain harmony between the independence of the family union and public control (prevention of deviant family development and response to factors and actions that destroy it).