B3125 - Marriage and Family between Religious Rights and State Rights

Learning outcomes

The mystery which characterizes the relationship between the man and the woman and procreation has originally placed marriage – for every civilization – in the sphere of sacredness: bringing it back to a divine intervention in human life. Consequently, religious laws have always played an essential role in the regulation of this field. In the West, the almost exclusive monopoly exercised by Canon law began to erode only with the advent of modern age. In fact, the States claimed to legislate autonomously on what was considered the basic unit of society: the family founded on marriage. The model they initially elaborated and that, at its first appearance, they still shaped on the provisions traced back to the creatural divine plan, has progressively differentiated from it, until it led to a radical disconnection which appears unbridgeable today. But yet, religious laws can’t be ignored, since they still incisively affect or claim to affect individual choices, rising issues which cannot be answered by simply relegating them to irrelevance. On the contrary, their knowledge, even more at the present time, in a world increasingly globalized and crossed by incessant migrations, has become fundamental and undelayable. It can’t be limited, as usual, to the laws of the three great monotheisms, but it has to include, instead, various religious experiences whose presence is widespread in our everyday life. They constitute an essential subject of study for the jurist. In fact, the challenge posed by the themes of marriage, family and procreation to the national and supranational laws (the term ‘national’ used in the denomination of the course is, albeit evocative of the meaning, obviously partial) is, precisely for its anthropological contents, absolutely crucial. To face it adequately both in the legislative phase and in the application one, a knowledge of religious-based laws – which is not superficial and extemporaneous, but scientific and critically set – represents an indispensable precondition in this subject. The course aims to make students aware of this growing complexity on the one hand: and to make them capable, on the other hand, to manage it, as jurists, in the different areas of interest. The analytical explanation of the fundamental cognitive coordinates of the various religious legal systems and their constituent elements are followed by the synthetic reconstruction of their interrelationship. The practical and casuistic approach adopted accompanies the students methodologically and helps them identify the contexts where the intersection of marriage and family rights is more penetrating and presents more significant coordination difficulties. Therefore the students – guided in their learning path also through the examination of real cases – are made capable of applying the acquired knowledge. In this way, they develop the ability to identify emerging problems, prevent and resolve possible conflicts, and also think about legal solutions adapted to different circumstances of a personal, environmental and social nature.

Course contents

The course will develop the contents reported below, divided into thematic areas and modules.

 

The following subjects will be covered in Module 1:

I. Introduction: marriage in the legal dimension

• The different perspectives of secular and religious laws on family
• Evolution and deconstruction of marriage in State legal systems
• The specificity of religious traditions regarding marriage
• Common factors and elements of discontinuity in the approach by religious-based laws
• State and religious marriage: points of contact and limits

II. The different concepts of marriage in religious-based laws

• The foedus coniugalis in light of Canon Law
• (following) The marriage nullity trial
• Weddings in Orthodox and Protestant Christianity
• The approach of Jewish Law to the wedlock
• The spouses according to Muslim Law
• The family in the experiences of Eastern religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism
• ‘New religious denominations’ and family relationships

 

The following subjects will be covered in Module 2:

III. The State in front of religious marriages

• Religious freedom in marriage and family
• The relevance of confessional jurisdictions in State legal systems
• The approach to the ‘Concordat marriage’ and its evolution
• (following) The validation of ecclesiastical rulings on marriage nullity
• Marriage in the agreements with religious denominations and in the so-called ‘law on admitted cults’
• The different regulations in Europe

 

The following subjects will be covered in Module 3:

IV. The most relevant emerging issues: concrete problems and points of comparison

• Interreligious marriages
• Filiation, adoption and parental responsibility in religious-based laws
• (following) Religious education
• Forced marriages and early marriages
• De facto unions, civil unions and same-sex unions
• Divorceability in civil marriage and in religious marriage
• Polygamy and Private International Law problems

 

Students who attend the lessons will be offered the opportunity to carry out an in-depth work on a subject of their choice, with the help of the Professors. During the lessons, attending students will be informed about the reduction of the program (and of the parts of the handbooks) that they will have to study.

For the integration of 1, 2, 3, credits, students must contact the Professors by e-mail to define a custom program.

Erasmus students must contact the Professors by e-mail to define a custom program.

Readings/Bibliography

G. BONI, A. ZANOTTI (eds.), Matrimonio e famiglia tra diritti religiosi e diritti secolari, Zanichelli Editore, Bologna, 2024.

 

During the lessons, the Professors will supply and recommend teaching aids and further learning material, following students’ specific requests and interests. The material will be gradually uploaded on the Professors’ website and made available to students.

Students who attend the lessons will be offered the opportunity to carry out an in-depth work on a subject of their choice, with the help of the Professors. During the lessons, attending students will be informed about the reduction of the program (and of the parts of the handbooks) that they will have to study.

Teaching methods

The course will develop through lectures, seminars and meetings with experts.

The course participates in the project on the innovation in teaching of the University. With the adoption of the blended learning teaching mode, in addition to the classroom lessons, part of the teaching activity – equal to 33% of the overall duration of the course – is provided online. 

Lectures will be given in the IInd semester. As a consequence, students obtaining their attendance certificate in the current academic year are allowed to take their exam only from the month of May. The exam program coincides with the course contents.

Students will be informed about dates and times of the seminars and the meetings with experts during the lectures or through notices, also on the Department of Legal Studies website.

The Professors use slides (or other supplementary material) that will be made available to students on the Virtuale (Virtual Learning Environment) platform.

Students who attend the course will be invited to actively take part in the analysis of the themes studied in class: students will also be given the opportunity to prepare – with the assistance of the Professors – a written paper about specific issues they are particularly interested in, which will be previously corrected and discussed together, and then evaluated during the final exam, thus concurring to the overall assessment. For this purpose, one or more practice sessions will be held in classroom or online, in parallel to lessons, in which methods for searching for sources and bibliographic materials, and for the formal writing, structuring and drafting of juridical texts will be explained: on this occasion, students will be given time for questions, requests for clarification and further information.

A service of teaching tutorship is provided to students who need clarification about the content of the course and the exam. Students who want to ask for its operating modes have to contact the teachers by e-mail in order to receive communications.

Assessment methods

Only students who have already taken the exams of Constitutional law and Private law are admitted to the final exam.

The verification of learning outcomes consists in an exclusively oral final exam, which will explore the acquisition of the required knowledge and skills through an oral examination sustained with the Professors.

The exam will cover the issues described in the “Course contents” section. The examination entails the assignment of a grade.

Through such exam, the knowledge learned and the critical and methodological skills acquired by the student will be assessed. In addition to the possession of a mastery of expression and of an appropriate technical language, the student will also have to prove to be able to move confidently within the system of the legal sources on the matter, to have a clear perception of the received information and to have understood and adequately deepened the themes that were addressed in class and explained in the reference textbooks, which will have to be described and argued properly. Learning such skills is easier during the course, the attendance of which is recommended in order to improve the learning process and therefore the student’s performance during the exam.

 

Namely, about the oral exam:

As already mentioned, the aim of the oral exam is to assess the actual achievement of the learning outcomes: therefore, both the knowledge of the relevant legal issues and the student’s capability to apply it in order to realize the required logical-deductive connections will be taken into account. 

By way of a mere example, the assignment of the final grade will be based on the following criteria:

Sufficient knowledge of a very small number of the topics addressed during the course and analytical skills that only emerge through extensive support by the interviewer, with the use of a language that is not incorrect but is not completely accurate either → 18-19;

Fairly good knowledge of a limited number of the topics addressed during the course and analytical skills that are autonomous only on purely executive issues, with the use of a correct but not fully confident and exhaustive language → 20-24;

Good knowledge of a wide number of the topics addressed during the course and capability to develop autonomous analytical skills, with an efficient and confident use of a technically specific language → 25-29;

Extensive and substantially exhaustive knowledge of the whole program addressed during the course, capability to develop very good legal reasonings and to critically analyze and connect different topics, with a fully confident use of a technically specific language that shows a mature ability to develop original reflections → 30-30L.

The students who attend the course will also be given the opportunity to prepare – with the assistance of the teachers – a paper about specific issues they’re particularly interested in, which will be evaluated during the final exam and will concur to the overall assessment.

Students with learning disorders and/or temporary or permanent disabilities: please contact the office responsible (https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en/for-students) as soon as possible so that they can propose acceptable adjustments. The request for adaptation must be submitted in advance (15 days before the exam date) to the lecturer, who will assess the appropriateness of the adjustments, taking into account the teaching objectives.

Students have to book the final exam on the web application AlmaEsami.

 

Thesis

For the assignment of thesis the student must go to the reception of the teachers to discuss and decide the theme.

Teaching tools

During the lessons, the Professors will supply and recommend texts and further learning material to complete the preparation.

Students will be informed about dates and times of the seminars and the meetings with experts during the lectures and through notices on the Department of Legal Studies website.

The Professors use slides that will be made available to students on the Virtuale (Virtual Learning Environment) platform in order to help them understanding the issues and the institutes explained during the lessons.

Students who need compensatory tools for reasons of disability or Specific Learning Disabilities (SLD) will communicate to the teachers their needs so as to be directed to the dedicated person and arrange on the adoption of the most appropriate measures.

The collaborators of the Chair and the Professors receive the students on the same day.

A service of teaching tutorship is provided to students who need clarification about the content of the course and the exam. Students who want to ask for its operating modes have to contact the teachers by e-mail in order to receive communications.

Office hours

See the website of Geraldina Boni

See the website of Alberto Tomer

See the website of