Cohabitational Relationships

• Author: Julien D. Payne - Marilyn A. Payne
• Pages: 39-59

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Cohabitational Relationships

A. INTRODUCTION

Cohabitational relationships involve two people who share their lives

together but are not married to e ach other. Cohabitational relationships may

involve members of the opposite sex or members of the sa me sex. Unmarried

heterosexual cohabitation is sometimes referred to as a common law rela-

tionship. Unmarr ied cohabitants go under a variety of na mes, including com-

mon law spouse, co-vivant, signicant other, mate, life partner, cohabitee,

and cohabitant.

ere are various reasons why some members of the opposite sex enter

into unmarr ied cohabitational relationships instead of m arriage. ey include

the followi ng:

) ere may be a legal impediment to marriage — as, for example, where

one of the parties has b een previously married but is not divorced.

) ere may be some religious obst acle to marriage.

) Marri age may be perceived by one or both of the parties as a patr iarchal

straitjacket that involves traditional homemaking and breadwinning

roles that fail to recog nize equality between t he sexes.

 For excellent sou rces dealing wit h the legal implic ations of unmarr ied cohabitation

in Canada , see Alberta L aw Reform Institut e, Towards Reform of the Law Relatin g to

Cohabitation outside Marriage, Report No   (Edmonton: e Instit ute, ); Ontario

Law Reform Com mission, Report o n the Rights and Respon sibilities of Cohabitants u nder

the Family Law Act ( Toronto: e Commission, ); Wi nifred H Holland & B arbroE

Stalbecker-Pountney, Cohabitation: e Law in Cana da, loose-leaf (Toronto: Ca rswell,

–). As to the poss ibility of exte nding legal ri ghts and obligations to a b roader range

of personal re lationships, see L aw Commission of Cana da, Discussion Pap er, “Recogniz-

ing and Suppor ting Close Persona l Relationships be tween Adults,” onli ne: www.lcc.gc.ca .

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) Marriage imposes certain legal rights and obligations that one or both

parties might wish to avoid. ey may have been involved in a previ-

ous marri age breakdown that carr ies emotional and economic scars and

may assume that history cannot repeat itself if t hey avoid the marriage

“trap.” Any such assumption is misplaced, however, because the emo-

tional trauma of the breakdown of a relationship is not conditioned on

whether the parties a re married. Furthermore, unmarried cohabitation

may carry signicant economic consequences that are legally enforce-

able on the breakdown of the rel ationship.

) Changing social mores and the weakening of religious inuences have

largely removed the stigma that formerly attached to unmarried co-

habitants of the opposite sex .

) Many young couples enter into unmarried cohabitation as a “trial mar-

riage” that can be informally terminated or legally formalized at some

time in the futu re. Conversion to marital status is ofte n triggered by the

anticipated birth of a c hild.

) Unmarried cohabitation may enable one or both of the parties to pre-

serve their entit lement to certain benets, such as support pay ments or

pension payments, which wou ld be lost in the event of remarriage.

) Many couples who begin sleeping over at each other’s houses slip into

a cohabitational relationship as a matter of convenience rather than as

a consequence of carefully weighing the pros and cons of married and

unmarr ied cohabitation.

On  September , Statistics Canada released data from the 

Census on the subject of marital status, common law unions, and families.

Included in that repor t is the following:

e census enumerated ,, married-couple families, an increase of

only . from . In contrast, the number of common-law-couple fam-

ilies surged . to ,,, while the number of lone-parent families

increased . to , ,.

Consequently, marr ied-couple families accounted for . of a ll cen-

sus famil ies in , down from . ve years earl ier. e proportion of

common-law-couple families rose from . to ., while the share of

lone-parent fam ilies increased slig htly from . to ..

Two decades ago, common-law-couple fa milies accounted for only .

of all census families. Married-couple families represented ., and

lone-parent fam ilies, ..

In Québec, where the prevalence of common-law-couple families has

been one of the deni ng family patterns for ye ars, the number of common-

law-couple fami lies increased  . between  and  to  ,. ey