Includes bibliographical references (p. 397-401) and index.

A historical overview -- A contemporary overview -- What is a "fit" mother or father? : an "unfit" mother or father? : who decides? -- Do "good enough" mothers still lose custody of their children in North America today? : the results of an original study -- The "sexual" mother : Anna Karenina today -- The "uppity" mother -- The lesbian mother -- The mother married to a violent man -- Paternal brainwashing -- The "voluntarily" noncustodial mother -- The price of battle : mothers encounter the psychological and economic law -- The mother-lawyer relationship -- The mother-judge and father-judge relationships -- Court-enabled incest in the 1980s and 1990s -- Court-enabled incest in the twenty-first century -- Legal torture from 1986 to 2010 -- The international custody situation -- The fathers' supremacist movement from the 1980s to 2010 -- Contemporary legal trends, part I : joint custody, mediation, incest, and parental alienation -- Contemporary legal trends, part II : mental illness, gay and lesbian custody surrogacy, and the primary caretaker -- Mothers' wisdom : philosophical perspectives on having and losing children -- Mothers' voices, written on the wind : what is a custody battle really about? -- What to expect when you're expecting a divorce : an interview with divorce lawyer, Susan L. Bender.