Albertina Antognini

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Courses

Scholarly Contributions

Chapters

• Antognini, A. (2020). Rewritten Opinion, Michael H. v. Gerald D.. In Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Family Law Opinions(p. 15). Cambridge University Press. doi:https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108556989

Journals/Publications

• Antognini, A. (2021). Nonmarital Contracts. Stanford Law Review, 73, 107.
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  Abstract. Marriage has long been a recognized limit on the right to contract. Wives were once prevented from contracting entirely, and now gender-neutral rules prevent spouses from contracting over matters that are considered integral to the marital relationship. Outside of marriage, then, scholars have generally assumed that individuals experience no similar impediments in exercising their rights to contract. In fact, the right to contract has been widely understood as an effective means of providing unmarried couples access to legal rights they otherwise lack. But there has yet to be any assessment of how such contracts actually fare outside of marriage.This Article provides that assessment. It considers how the right to contract is construed across intimate relationships. After canvassing the body of cases addressing express contracts in the context of nonmarital relationships, it shows that — contrary to conventional wisdom — courts routinely invalidate express agreements between unmarried couples. In particular, it argues that courts restrict the right to contract outside of marriage in precisely the same ways it is restricted within marriage. Contract doctrine thereby does the work of status, insofar as it limits access to property on the basis of the relationship and refuses to recognize services rendered, like homemaking or child-rearing. Contract, however, functions more expansively and less visibly than status because these restrictions apply beyond marriage and other formal relationships to impact individuals in nonmarital relationships.This inquiry matters now more than ever. At a time when the number of individuals marrying is remarkably low and there are no ex ante rules regulating the rights of nonmarital couples, it is imperative to analyze whether contract is a viable legal option. This Article shows that the right to contract is limited outside of marriage and, as currently constituted, provides at best an incomplete resolution to the problem of what rights individuals ought to have in a nonmarital relationship.
• Antognini, A. (2020). Perspectives on Nonmarital Relationships. Family Court Review, 58(1), 3.
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  Introduction to a series of essays emerging from a conference I co-organized on the topic of legal responses to nonmarriage.
• Antognini, A. (2020). Nonmarital Coverture. Boston University Law Review, 99(2139), 72.
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  How and why do courts distribute property between unmarried couples when they separate? This Article offers an answer: they follow the rules laid out by coverture. Coverture is a regime, long considered defunct, that defined the appropriate roles husbands and wives occupied in marriage. This Article shows that courts both rely on and perpetuate central features of coverture in contemporary nonmarital cases: courts continue to define the roles individuals ought to occupy within marriage in the nonmarital realm, and they deny the individual who engaged in homemaking services access to property. Coverture thus helps to explain why the provision of services is presumed gratuitous and to contextualize a state of affairs in which the individual who acted as a “wife” remains impoverished.Beyond presenting a more complete descriptive account of the cases, revealing the role coverture plays has a number of implications. Addressing its presence directly helps to question some of the accepted rationales underlying family law—like the oft-cited goal of privatizing support—and provides a new vantage point from which to revisit the debate on whether to remunerate housework. In particular, these cases show that the choice individuals face is not whether to remain at home or go to work but rather whether to marry or not. Moreover, the rules formulated in this context impact lower-income earners, as opposed to higher-income earners, given that the latter typically marry. As such, this Article identifies a different set of consequences that emerges from not recognizing the value of housework in a nonmarital relationship.

Others

• Antognini, A. (2022, July). Comments on the Uniform Law Commission Uniform Cohabitants' Economic Remedies Draft Act. Uniform Law Commission.
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  The Uniform Cohabitants’ Economic Remedies Act (UCERA) provides states with comprehensive and uniform guidance on questions concerning cohabitants’ property interests and other obligations based on their relationship. UCERA is an enabling act that does not create any special status for cohabitants; it enables cohabitants to exercise the usual rights of individual citizens of a state to contract with others and to bring equitable claims against others in appropriate circumstances. The act affirms the capacity of each cohabitant to contract with the other and to claim a contract-based or equitable remedy against the other with respect to “contributions to the relationship” without regard to any intimate relationship that exists between them and without subjecting them to hurdles that would not be imposed on litigants of similar claims. The act ensures that the nature of the relationship of the parties is not a bar to capacity to contract. At the same time, the act recognizes the value of non-sexual services, activities, and efforts of a party to the relationship as a basis for contractual and equitable claims.
• Antognini, A. (2020, May). Reflections on Family Law. Jotwell. https://family.jotwell.com/reflections-on-family-law/
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  I contributed a Jotwell 1,400 word post (as an editor for the Family Law section), reviewing Jia Tolentino's book, Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion.