Cohabitational Relationships

• Author: Julien D. Payne, Marilyn A. Payne
• Pages: 37-55

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Cohabitational Relationships

A. INTRODUCTION

Cohabitational rel ationships involve two people who share their lives toget h-

er but are not married to ea ch other. Cohabitational relat ionships may in-

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

heterosexua l cohabitation is someti mes referred to as a common-l aw re-

lationship. Unmar ried cohabitants go under a var iety of names, including

common-law spouse , co-vivant, sig nicant othe r, mate, life partne r, cohab-

itee, and cohabitant.

ere are various reas ons why some members of the opposite sex enter

into unmarr ied cohabitational rel ationships instead of mar riage. ey in-

clude the following :

) ere may be a legal imped iment to marriage —as, for e xample, where

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

) ere may be some religiou s obstacle to marriage.

) Marriage m ay be perceived by one or both of the parties as a patri archal

straitjacket t hat involves traditional homema king and breadwinn ing

roles that fail to recog nize equality betwe en the sexes.

 For excellent sou rces dealing with t he legal implication s of unmarried coh abitation

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

Cohabitation Outside Marriage, R eport No  (Edmonton : e Institute, ); Ont ario

Law Reform Comm ission, Report on e Rights and Resp onsibilities of Cohabitants under

the Family Law Act ( Toronto: e Commission, ); Wini fred H Holland & Bar broE

Stalbecker-Pountney, Cohabitation: e Law in Canada, looseleaf (Toronto: Carswel l,

–). As to the possi bility of extend ing legal rights a nd obligations to a broader ra nge

of personal rel ationships, see Law Com mission of Canada , Discussion Paper, “Reco gniz-

ing and Support ing Close Personal Re lationships Bet ween Adults,” online: w ww.lcc.gc.ca.

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) Marria ge imposes certain lega l rights and obligations t hat one or both

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

ous marr iage breakdown that car ries emotional and economic scars and

may assume that history cannot repeat itself if they avoid the marriage

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

tional traum a of the breakdown of a rel ationship is not conditioned on

whether the parties a re married. Furthermore, u nmarried coha bitation

may carr y signicant economic cons equences that are legally e nforce-

able on the breakdown of t he relationship.

) Changing soci al mores and the weakeni ng of religious inuences have

largely removed the st igma that formerly attached to unmarr ied co-

habitants of the opposite sex.

) Many young couples enter into unmarr ied cohabitation as a “tria l mar-

riage” that ca n be informal ly terminated or legal ly formaliz ed at some

time in the future. Conversion to marita l status is often triggered by the

anticipated birth of a c hild.

) Unmarrie d cohabitation may enable one or both of the pa rties to pre-

serve their entitlement to cer tain benets, such as support payments 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 rel ationship as a matter of convenience r ather than as a

consequence of carefu lly weighing the pros a nd cons of marital a nd un-

married coh abitation.

On  September , Statistics Canada released data from the 

Census on the subject of marita l status, common-law unions, and famil ies.

Included in that repor t is the following:

e census enumerated ,, mar ried-couple fami lies, an increase of

only . from . In contra st, the number of common-law-couple f am-

ilies surged . to , ,, while the number of lone -parent famil ies

increased . to , ,.

Consequently, marr ied-couple families accounted for . of all cen -

sus famil ies in , down from . ve years earlier. e proport ion of

common-law-couple fa milies rose from . to ., while t he share of

lone-parent fam ilies increased slight ly from . to ..

Two decades ago, common-law-couple fam ilies accounted for only .

of all census f amilies. Mar ried-couple fami lies represented ., and

lone-parent fam ilies, ..

In Quebec, where the pre valence of common-law-couple f amilies has

been one of the dening family patterns for years, the number of common-

law-couple fami lies increased . between   and  to ,. ey