This paper was prepared for the 'Contractualisation of Family Law' section of the International Academy of Family Law's XIXth International Congress of Comparative Law in July 2014. The aim of the project is to assess the extent to which family law in various jurisdictions permits ‘private ordering’ by the parties to family relationships, as opposed to imposing a status-based set of rules to govern those relationships. The project covers substantive and procedural law relating to both adults and children, and this paper is the contribution from England and Wales. The paper’s substantive text was completed in December 2013, and the questionnaire to which it responds was prepared by Professor Frederik Swennen.