Intimate Lies and the Law

Jill Elaine Hasday's <em>Intimate Lies and the Law</em> won the Scribes Book Award from the American Society of Legal Writers for the best work of legal scholarship published during the previous year and the Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award for Family and Relationships. <p/>Intimacy and deception are often entangled. People deceive to lure someone into a relationship or to keep her there to drain an intimate's bank account or to use her to acquire government benefits to control an intimate or to resist domination or to capture myriad other advantages. No subject is<br>immune from deception in dating sex marriage and family life. Intimates can lie or otherwise intentionally mislead each other about anything and everything. <p/>Suppose you discover that an intimate has deceived you and inflicted severe-even life-altering-financial physical or emotional harm. After the initial shock and sadness you might wonder whether the law will help you secure redress. But the legal system refuses to help most people deceived within<br>an intimate relationship. Courts and legislatures have shielded this persistent and pervasive source of injury routinely denying deceived intimates access to the remedies that are available for deceit in other contexts. <p/><em>Intimate Lies and the Law</em> is the first book that systematically examines deception in intimate relationships and uncovers the hidden body of law governing this duplicity. Hasday argues that the law has placed too much emphasis on protecting intimate deceivers and too little importance on helping the<br>people they deceive. The law can and should do more to recognize prevent and redress the injuries that intimate deception can inflict.<br>