Cohabitational Relationships

• Author: Julien D. Payne, Marilyn A. Payne
• Pages: 38-57

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 

Cohabitational Relationships

A. INT RODUCTION

Cohabitational relat ionships involve two people who share their lives toget her

but are not married to eac h other. Cohabitational relationships may in -

volve members of the opposite se x or members of the same sex. Unmar ried

heterosexual coh abitation 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-viva nt, signicant other, mate, life pa rtner, cohabitee,

and cohabitant.

ere are various reasons w hy 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 impedi ment to marriage — as, for exa mple, 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 t hat involves traditional homema king and breadwinni ng

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 e Rights and Respons ibilities 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 B etween Adults,” onl ine: www.lcc.gc.ca .

Chapter : Cohabitational Relat ionships 

) Marriage imposes cer tain legal rig hts and obligations that one or both

parties might w ish 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 hi story cannot repeat itself if t hey avoid the marriage

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

tional trauma of t he breakdown of a relationship is not condit ioned on

whether the parties a re married. Furthermore, unm arried cohabitation

may carr y signicant economic consequences that are legally enforce-

able on the breakdown of the rel ationship.

) Changing social mores and t he weakening of religious inuences have

largely removed the stig ma that formerly attached to u nmarried co-

habitants of the opposite sex .

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

riage” that ca n be informally ter minated or legally form alized 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 t he 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 o ver at each other’s houses slip into

a cohabitational relat ionship as a matter of convenience rather tha n as

a consequence of careful ly weighing the pros and cons of mar ried and

unmarr ied cohabitation.

On  September , Statistic s Canada released data f rom the 

Census on the subject of ma rital status, common law u nions, and families.

Included in that repor t is the following:

e census enumerated , , married-couple fa milies, an increa se of

only . from . In contr ast, the number of common-l aw-couple fam-

ilies surged . to , ,, while the numbe r of lone-parent famil ies

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 fa milies rose from . to ., while t he 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 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ni ng family patterns for ye ars, the number of common-

law-couple fami lies increased  . between  and  to  ,. ey