The plural of custody; multiple instances or arrangements of guardianship, care, or legal protection.
From 'custody' (the state of being guarded or kept), which comes from Latin 'custodia.' The '-ies' plural reflects how nouns ending in '-y' change to '-ies' in standard English morphology.
In family law, 'joint custodies' and 'sole custodies' are legal arrangements that fundamentally changed how courts think about children's welfare—it shifted from viewing custody as ownership to viewing it as shared responsibility.
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