A woman as a subject of legal relations with a family element: touches to a modern portrait

The article examines the most significant aspects of the legal status of a Russian woman as a subject of legal relations with a family element - mainly in the family legal sphere. Attention is drawn to regulatory and legal solutions that provide both a gender-neutral deployment of legal relations and a special one due to objective differences between a woman and a man - on the basis of providing her with a number of advantages. In the institution of marriage, this is most clearly manifested in the discourse on polygamy, in the restriction of a man's legal capacity to divorce during his wife's pregnancy and a year after the birth of a child, in the denial of the need for legal protection of the interests of the actual spouses (as a rule, women). The article analyzes, in the context of ensuring the rights and interests of women, the legal presumption of paternity in marriage and the law enforcement presumption of the mother's pre-emptive right to leave a minor child with her. The current rule of making a fictitious record of paternity is criticized. Attention is drawn to the need to adjust alimony legal relations between spouses (ex-spouses) - both towards gender neutralization and expanding the grounds for supporting a woman in a difficult life situation. The excessively liberal content of the construction of the marriage contract, which does not guarantee the protection of the interests of the weak side of matrimony (as a rule, women), is questioned. Regulatory and law enforcement decisions in the field of surrogacy are criticized, and options for their adjustment are proposed.