Family courts were originally created to be a Court of Equity convened to decide matters and make orders in relation to family law, including custody of children, and could disregard certain legal requirements as long as the petitioner/plaintiff came into court with "clean hands" and the request was reasonable, "quantum meruit". Changes in laws and rules have made this distinction superfluous.

Family courts hear all cases that relate to familial and domestic relationships. Each US state and each country has a different system utilized to address family law cases including decisions regarding divorce cases.

Family courts have been accused of sentencing disparity both discriminating against women and discriminating against men.

Family courts were first established in the United States starting in the late 1910s at the behest of probation officers invested in the success of specialized domestic relations courts. Members of the National Probation Association (NPA) advanced the idea that "combining criminal nonsupport, juvenile delinquency, and divorce into a unified 'family court' would reduce jurisdictional overlap and ensure deep, rehabilitative treatment by probation officers across family-related conflicts." This idea was minimally successful and led to varied reformation of family courts throughout the 1920s and 1930s.

The original criminal nature of family courts was slowly replaced by an impliedly civil approach, starting in the 1930s with a New York law designed to treat nonsupport cases as a civil matter. The shift to civil nonsupport across the country and the addition of divorce jurisdiction led to family court dockets becoming more civil in nature. Those found in contempt in civil nonsupport cases were still incarcerated as they were in the criminal nonsupport system.

In 1933, New York established a standalone family court, "somewhat confusedly" called the Domestic Relations Court, to further remove family matters from criminal jurisdiction. However, in reality, this new family court and those that followed blended criminal and civil components, removing the constitutional protections offered by criminal procedure while still maintaining criminal-like enforcement mechanisms. In addition, New York passed the Uniform Support of Dependents Law (USDL) in order to provide a mechanism for interstate civil enforcement of family court rulings.

Later, as probation officer involvement dwindled (partially attributable to the model Family Courts Act produced by the NPA in 1959) and more family courts retained jurisdiction over divorce, the machinery of family courts began to look even more civil. However, some aspects of family court enforcement still retain their criminal roots in heavy state involvement, including incarceration as a consequence of nonpayment of child support, wage garnishment, revocation of driver's licenses, and denial of passport applications. Some family courts still use older criminal nonsupport statutes, even though protections afforded by constitutional criminal procedures are oftentimes not present. Most cases are presided over by a single judge without a jury, except in the State of Texas, where parents have a right to trial by jury. These muddy distinctions between criminal and civil proceedings within family courts have led to calls for reformation, arguing that the seemingly civil nature of family courts is a method used to circumvent criminal procedural protections while still maintaining criminal enforcement machinery.

Cases involving children are primarily dealt with under the Children Act 1989, amongst other statutes. As of April 22, 2014, there are two family courts: