WOMEN IN LAW FROM THE LAW & EMOTIONS PERSPECTIVE. CASE STUDY OF THE INFERTILITY TREATMENT ACT

Abstract

The status of women in law (and not only theirs) is linked to social and cultural perceptions of women’s desirable behavior. Going against well-established patterns is not indifferent in both legal and social terms. One of the primary contexts of ‘femininity’ in the law is close relationships, in which women are viewed through the ‘role’ of a mother and wife. The purpose of this paper is to determine how the cultural script of romantic love and the emotions associated with it affect perceptions of women in close relationships, such as marriage and parenthood. It assumes that the emotions of participants in legal discourse – dogmatists and those involved in the law-making process – influence the final shape of legal regulations. The cultural script that influences how women are perceived in law is romantic love. To illustrate the issue, the case study of the Infertility Treatment Act is presented in this article. This case shows that from a legal perspective, a woman is seen in indivisible roles in a close relationship of a wife (partner) and mother.