[stickyricky]

The "vice" is society's expectations for women. The court can empower that vice by giving women preferential custodial rights. Or it can temper that vice by analyzing the attributes of a specific relationship and recognizing custodial rights accordingly.

[pizza234]

While courts have an orientation based on social expectations, they definitely do "analyze the attributes of a specific relationship and recognize custodial rights accordingly".

IANAL, but I do have familiarity with the subject, and if you read a common law book, you'll see how the courts think.

Now, to be fair, in a way, we could say that courts don't give precedence to a parent based on the sex (this is made explicit in the law of a certain country I've examined)... but they could give it based on the hair count :-)

But again, courts definitely take into account many factor in the cases.