Family law is again in turmoil, and the Principles are an ambitious and sometimes inspired effort to increase clarity and fairness. This turmoil can be attributed to two major factors. First, to paraphrase Professor June Carbone, family law is ground zero in the gender wars. Second, family law is reeling from the upheavals of globalization. These factors provide the backdrop against which the dilemmas addressed in Chapter 7 pertaining to agreements play out.

As the introductory quotation from the Principles suggests, Chapter 7 focuses on a particularly intriguing tension between commercial contracts and premarital agreements. This tension is grounded in the broader tension between American views on freedom of contract and autonomy in general, on the one hand, and on freedom of contract and autonomy in the specific context of the family, on the other. While the emphasis on freedom of contract may be peculiarly American, tension between legal regimes and private contractual regimes governing the family is quite common from an international perspective. As it is in the United States, the tension between competing regimes in other countries reflects deep cultural tensions.