Cohabitational Relationships

• Author: Julien D. Payne/Marilyn A. Payne
• Pages: 23-33

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Cohabitational Relationships

A. INTRODUCTION

Cohabitational relationships involve two people who share their lives together

but are not married to each other. Cohabitational relationships may involve

members of the opposite sex or members of the same sex. Unmarried

cohabitants go under a variety of names, including common law spouse,

co-vivant, signicant other, mate, life partner, cohabitee, and cohabitant.

There are various reasons why some members of the opposite sex enter

into unmarried cohabitational relationships instead of marriage:

1) There may be a legal impediment to marriage, as, for example, where

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

common law spouses are not in any hurry to terminate their previous

marriage. The co-existence of the marriage and of the common law rela-

tionship constitutes an “insurance policy” against returning to a mar-

riage that is not working on the one hand or “jumping from the frying

pan into the re” on the other.

2) There may be a religious obstacle to marriage.

3) Marriage may be perceived by one or both of the parties as a patriarchal

straitjacket that involves traditional homemaking and bread-winning

roles that fail to recognize equality between the sexes.

4) Marriage imposes certain legal rights and obligations that one or

both parties might wish to avoid. They may have been involved in a