Abstract
This article offers a feminist perspective on contract theories in law,economics and law-and-economics. It identifies masculine traits presentcontract theories in all three disciplines. It then describes andassesses some developments that appear to be ‘feminising’: Therecognition of the importance of social norms in contract theory andtheories of contract as relationship. The article's main claim is that amasculine model of decision-making persists even within the less overtlymasculine models of contract. The problem of sexually transmitted debtresulting from a surety contract is analysed in detail as a specificexample supporting the article's general argument. The article concludesthat the way forward is to be found in a recognition of other ways ofmaking decisions.
REFERENCES
Bem, S.L., The Lenses of Gender: Transforming the Debate on Sexual Inequality (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1993).
Calabresi, G., The Cost of Accidents: A Legal and Economic Analysis (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970).
Chodorow, N.J., The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender (Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 1978), 264 pp.
Coase, R.H., “The Problem of Social Cost”, Journal of Law and Economics 3 (1969), 1-8.
Crawford, V.P., “Long-Term Relationships Governed by Short-Term Contracts”, American Economic Review 78 (1988), 485-499.
Eisenberg, M.A., “Contracts and Relationships”, in The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics and the Law, ed. P. Newman (London, Basingstoke and New York: Macmillan, 1998).
Fehlberg, B., Sexually Transmitted Debt (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 310 pp.
Feinman, J., “The Significance of Contract Theory”, U. Cin. L. Rev. 58 (1990), 1283 (cited in S. Wheeler and J. Shaw, Contract Law: Cases, Materials and Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994)).
Frug, M.J., Postmodern Legal Feminism (New York and London: Routledge, 1992), 214 pp.
Gilligan, C., In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development (Cambridge MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1982), 184 pp.
Gretton, G., “Sexually Transmitted Debt”, Scots Law Times (1997), 195-197.
MacKenzie, R., “Beauty and the Beastly Bank:What Should Equity's FairyWand Do?”, in Feminist Perspectives in the Foundational Subjects of Law, ed. A. Bottomley (London, Cavendish, 1996), 149-171.
MacNeil, I., The New Social Contract (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1980).
Marshall, A., Principles of Economics (London and New York: Macmillan, 1890), 823 pp.
Nelson, J., Feminism, Objectivity and Economics (London and New York: Routledge, 1996), 174 pp.
Posner, R.A., Economic Analysis of Law (Boston and London: Little Brown, 1972), 722 pp.
Salanie, B., The Economics of Contracts (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: MIT Press, 1997), 223 pp.
Scott Bierman, H. and Fernandez, L.F., Game Theory with Economic Applications (Reading MA: Addison Wesley, 1998), 450 pp.
Sent, E., “Sargent versus Simon: Bounded Rationality Unbound”, Cambridge Journal of Economics 21 (1997), 332.
Ussher, J., Women's Madness: Misogyny or Mental Illness? (New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, Tokyo, and Singapore: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991).
Wheeler, S. and Shaw, J., Contract Law: Cases, Materials and Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 919 pp.
Wong, S., “Constructive Trusts Over the Family Home: Lessons to be Learned from Other Commonwealth Jurisdictions?”, Legal Studies 18 (1998), 369-390.
Young, P., “The Evolution of Conventions”, Econometrica 61 (1993), 57-84.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Belcher, A. A Feminist Perspective on Contract Theories from Law and Economics. Feminist Legal Studies 8, 29–46 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009259224436
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009259224436