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Unlike homosexual men, lesbians have seldom been subject to legal action. For the most part, lesbianism bas been treated as a physical and emotional impossibility by lawmakers seeking to control other forms of "immoral" or "deviant" behaviour. A significant exception to this silence on lesbianism is in the area of family law. Judicial attitudes toward lesbians are revealed in the treatment meted out to wives in divorce proceedings and to mothers in custody applications. This article examines the reported cases in Canada during the past two decades in which lesbianism was a factor in either divorce proceedings or custody applications. Historical background on divorce and child custody law is provided to demonstrate changes that have occurred in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The research indicates that despite a "liberalizing" trend during the past fifteen years, lesbian mothers continue to face discrimination in family and divorce courts. Furthermore, the author suggests that this discriminatory treatment has hot been limited to lesbians, but in some instances has been applied to all women who fail to adopt traditional female roles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]