The law governing family relationships has changed dramatically in much of the world. One is tempted to review and compare details. However, here one might put the available space to better use than in discussing issues such as the minimum marriageable age in various systems, definitions of prohibited incest for eligibility to marry, or grounds for divorce.

Even more so when Mary Ann Glendon, in her 2006 introduction to the family law volume of the International Encyclopedia of Comparative Law, brings worldwide family law developments up-to-date in succinct detail and with her usual insight. The objective here is different: readers are invited to think beyond family law as they knew it.

After millennia of enduring similar conditions, the industrialized world has overcome in just a few centuries ...