cohabitation

[L. cohabitatio.]

1. The act or state of dwelling together, or in the same place with another. Feltham.

2. (Law) The living together of a man and woman in supposed sexual relationship.

That the duty of cohabitation is released by the cruelty of one of the parties is admitted.

A living arrangement in which an unmarried couple live together in a long-term relationship that resembles a marriage.

Couples cohabit rather than marrying for a variety of reasons. They may want to test their compatibility before they commit to a legal union. They may want to maintain their single status for financial reasons. In some cases, such as those involving gay or lesbian couples, or individuals already married to another person, the law does not allow them to marry. In others, the partners may feel that marriage is unnecessary. Whatever the reasons, between 1970 and 1990, the number of couples living together outside of marriage quadrupled, from 523,000 to nearly 3 million. These couples face some of the same legal issues as married people, as well as some their married friends never need to consider.

In most places, it is legal for unmarried people to live together, although some zoning laws prohibit more than three unrelated people from inhabiting a house or apartment. A few states still prohibit fornication, or sexual relations between an unmarried man and woman, but such laws are no longer enforced. Some states also prohibit sodomy, which includes sexual relations between people of the same sex. Although anti-sodomy laws are rarely enforced against consenting adults acting in the privacy of their homes, a 1986 Supreme Court case proved that such laws can be. In Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186, 106 S. Ct. 2841, 92 L. Ed. 2d 140, the Court held that private, consensual homosexual acts are not protected by the right to privacy and that laws prohibiting such conduct are constitutional.

The law traditionally has been biased in favor of marriage. Public policy supports marriage as necessary to the stability of the family, the basic societal unit. To preserve and encourage marriage, the law reserves many rights and privileges to married persons. Cohabitation carries none of those rights and privileges. It has been said that cohabitation has all the headaches of marriage without any of the benefits. Cohabiting couples have little guidance as to their legal rights in such areas as property ownership, responsibility for debts, custody, access to health care and other benefits, and survivorship.

Family law experts advise cohabiting couples to address these and other issues in a written cohabitation agreement, similar to a premarital agreement. The contract should outline how the couple will divide expenses and own property, whether they will maintain joint or separate bank accounts, and how their assets will be distributed if one partner dies or leaves the relationship. Property acquired during cohabitation, such as real estate, home furnishings, antiques, artwork, china, silver, tools, and sports equipment, may be contested if partners separate or if one of them dies. To avoid this, the agreement should clearly outline who is entitled to what.

When cohabiting couples separate, division of assets often becomes a contentious issue. In the past, courts refused to enforce agreements between unmarried couples to share income or assets, holding that such agreements were against public policy. In 1976, the California Supreme Court decided Marvin v. Marvin, 18 Cal. 3d 660, 134 Cal. Rptr. 815, 557 P.2d 106, holding that agreements between cohabiting couples to share income received during the time they live together can be legally binding and enforceable. The highly publicized suit between actor Lee Marvin and his live-in companion, Michelle Triola Marvin, was the first of a series of "palimony" suits that became more numerous during the 1980s and 1990s. The plaintiff in a palimony suit must prove that the agreement of financial support is not a meretricious agreement, that is, one made in exchange for a promise of sexual relations. Courts refuse to enforce meretricious contracts because of their similarity to contracts for prostitution.

The only way to guarantee that a valid agreement of support or division of property exists is to have it in writing. In the Marvin case, the plaintiff, who asked for $1.6 million, was awarded only $104,000. That amount was revoked by an appeals court, which found that the plaintiff had failed to show that she and the defendant had an agreement (Marvin v. Marvin, 122 Cal. App. 3d 871, 176 Cal. Rptr. 555 [Cal. Ct. App. 1981]). Conversely, when tennis star Martina Navratilova separated from live-in lover Judy Nelson in 1993, Nelson filed a $16 million palimony suit, claiming that Navratilova reneged on a promise to share whatever the couple accumulated during their relationship. A signed and videotaped 1986 cohabitation agreement supported Nelson's claim, and Navratilova settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.

Cohabiting parents may face legal difficulties if they separate without a written parenting agreement. An unmarried father must acknowledge paternity by filing an affidavit with the state legitimating his child and establishing his parental relationship. Likewise, both parents must actively participate in the raising of the child in order to have a legitimate claim to custody or visitation. By legitimating their child and being involved in the child's upbringing, unmarried parents establish their right to seek custody or visitation if the family breaks up. Legitimation is also important for inheritance purposes. If an unmarried father dies without a will, his legitimated child can freely inherit his estate (see Trimble v. Gordon, 430 U.S. 762, 97 S. Ct. 1459, 52 L. Ed. 2d 31 [1977], which held that a signed statement establishing paternity of a child born out of wedlock is adequate protection of the child's inheritance rights). Of course, the best way to guarantee the distribution of assets to children is through a written will.

Cohabiting couples may face difficulties when one of them becomes ill and requires hospitalization or long-term care. The case of Sharon Kowalski and Karen Thompson illustrates this problem. Kowalski and Thompson lived together for four years before Kowalski sustained serious head injuries in a 1983 automobile accident. She was left paralyzed and seriously brain damaged, but able to communicate. Kowalski's parents refused to allow Thompson to see her or to participate in decisions about her treatment.

In 1984, Kowalski's father was awarded guardianship of Kowalski (In re Kowalski, 382 N.W.2d 861, cert. denied, 106 S. Ct. 1467 [Minn. Ct. App. 1986]), and the family continued to frustrate Thompson's efforts to see or assist Kowalski. In 1991, Kowalski's father voluntarily gave up his guardianship for medical reasons, and a Minnesota trial court awarded guardianship to Karen Tomberlin, a family friend whom the court considered a "neutral third party." The Minnesota Court of Appeals reversed the trial court, and after a seven-year battle, Thompson was finally granted guardianship of Kowalski (In re Kowalski, 478 N.W.2d 790 [Minn. Ct. App. 1991]). The court held that Kowalski had "sufficient capacity" to express her preference as to a guardian and that she had consistently said she wanted to be with Thompson. Also, the court noted the duration of the couple's relationship as well as the fact that they had exchanged rings and named each other as insurance beneficiaries before Kowalski's accident.

Cohabiting couples can avoid such conflicts by executing certain documents, including a durable power of attorney and a medical power of attorney. A durable power of attorney grants the necessary authority to an unmarried partner to make decisions in the event of physical or mental disability of the other partner. It goes further than a general power of attorney in that it specifically allows one partner to continue making decisions even if the other partner becomes incapacitated. A medical power of attorney allows one partner to make decisions regarding medical treatment for the other. If the partners have specific instructions about funeral arrangements, these too should be put in writing. In addition, a written will or trust allows partners to specify the distribution of their property, including life insurance benefits, IRAs, and bank accounts. Partners may also name their preferred trustee or executor.

Many cohabiting heterosexual couples believe that the law will recognize their relationship as a common-law marriage with the legal protections and financial benefits of marriage. However, only Alabama, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, and Utah recognize common-law marriage. In those states, a man and woman who live together and represent themselves as married may be given common-law recognition. Once a common-law marriage has been established, it must be dissolved through divorce. Cohabiting couples who live in a state that recognizes common-law marriage and do not wish to be married should execute a statement that they are not married in order to avoid a later finding that a common-law marriage existed.

In the 1990s, a few courts began to recognize the familial ties of unmarried couples. In Braschi v. Stahl Associates, 74 N.Y.2d 201, 543 N.E.2d 49, 544 N.Y.S.2d 784 (1989), New York's highest court found that a homosexual man and his deceased life partner had constituted a family for purposes of New York City's rent control ordinance. The court found that in this case, the term family should be construed broadly and should encompass contemporary realities, including unmarried adult partners in a long-term, committed relationship that shows mutual sharing of the mundane tasks of everyday life. Similarly, in Dunphy v. Gregor, 261 N.J. Super. 110, 617 A.2d 1248 (N.J. 1992), the court found that a woman who had witnessed the events leading to her fiancé's death had standing to sue for the emotional damage she suffered as a result. Previously, suits such as this, called bystander liability suits, were limited to those who were married or had blood ties to the victim. However, the court in Dunphy found that the plaintiff met the requirement of "intimate familial relationship," noting that the plaintiff and her fiancé had lived together for several years, that there was a high degree of mutual dependence in their relationship, and that they contributed to and shared a common life.

During the 1980s and 1990s, some municipalities passed laws allowing unmarried couples, both heterosexual and homosexual, to register as domestic partners. Cities with such ordinances include Ann Arbor, Michigan; Cambridge, Massachusetts; Ithaca, New York; Laguna Beach and Los Angeles, California; and Madison, Wisconsin. The ordinances allow couples to register as domestic partners, and to dissolve their partnerships officially if they separate. Under most of these laws, couples file an affidavit stating that they are over eighteen years of age, are unmarried, and are involved in a relationship of mutual support, caring, and commitment. If they terminate the partnership, they must file a statement to that effect. The benefits of registering as domestic partners include recognition of the relationship, eligibility for discounts usually reserved to married couples, and extension of health care benefits and bereavement and sick leave for partners of municipal employees.

Two 1995 court decisions declared particular domestic partner ordinances invalid. In Lilly v. City of Minneapolis, 527 N.W. 2d 107, the Minnesota Court of Appeals struck down a Minneapolis city council resolution authorizing reimbursement to city employees for health care insurance costs for same-sex domestic partners and for blood relatives not classified as dependents under state law. The court held that the resolution was beyond the scope of the council's authority and lacked legal force. Likewise, in City of Atlanta v. McKinney, 265 Ga. 161, 454 S.E.2d 517, the Supreme Court of Georgia held that the city of Atlanta exceeded its authority when it extended employee benefits to persons who did not qualify as dependents under state law.

; parent and child.

See: gay and lesbian rights.

This article is about a living arrangement. For the situation in governmental politics, see Cohabitation (government).

Close relationships

Types of relationships Boyfriend · Bromance · Casual · Cohabitation · Concubinage · Courtesan · Domestic partnership · Family · Friendship · Girlfriend · Husband · Kinship · Marriage · Mistress (lover) · Monogamy · Non-monogamy · Pederasty · Polyamory · Polyfidelity · Polygamy · Romantic friendship · Same-sex relationship · Significant other · Soulmate · Widowhood · Wife Major relationship events Mating · Courtship · Bonding · Divorce · Infidelity · Relationship breakup · Romance · Separation · Wedding Feelings and emotions Affinity · Attachment · Compersion · Infatuation · Intimacy · Jealousy · Limerence · Love · Passion · Platonic love · Polyamory · Psychology of sexual monogamy Human practices Bride price (Dower · Dowry) · Hypergamy · Infidelity · Sexuality Relationship abuse Child abuse · Elder abuse · Infidelity · Spousal abuse · Teen dating violence

v • d • e

Cohabitation is when people live together in an emotionally and/or sexually intimate relationship. The term is most frequently applied to couples who are not married.

People may live together for a number of reasons. These may include wanting to test compatibility or to establish financial security before marrying. It may also be because they are unable to legally marry, because for example same-sex, interracial or interreligious marriages are not legal or permitted. Other reasons include living with someone before marriage in an effort to avoid divorce, a way for polygamists or polyamorists to avoid breaking the law, a way to avoid the higher income taxes paid by some two-income married couples (in the United States), negative effects on pension payments (among older people), and philosophical opposition to the institution of marriage and seeing little difference between the commitment to live together and the commitment to marriage. Some individuals also may choose cohabitation because they see their relationships as being private and personal matters, and not to be controlled by political, religious or patriarchal institutions.

Some couples prefer cohabitation because it does not legally commit them for an extended period, and because it is easier to establish and dissolve without the legal costs often associated with a divorce. In some jurisdictions cohabitation can be viewed legally as common-law marriages, either after the duration of a specified period, or the birth of the couple's child, or if the couple consider and behave accordingly as husband and wife. (This helps provide the surviving partner a legal basis for inheriting the deceased's belongings in the event of the death of their cohabiting partner.)

Today, cohabitation is a common pattern among people in the Western world, especially those who desire marriage but whose financial situation temporarily precludes it, or who wish to prepare for what married life will be like before actually getting married, or because they see no benefit or value offered by marriage. More and more couples choose to have long-term relationships without marriage, and cohabit as a permanent arrangement.

Contents 1 Opposition 2 Support 3 Cohabitation by region 3.1 Americas 3.2 Asia 3.3 Europe 3.4 Middle East 3.5 Oceania 4 See also 5 References 6 External links

Opposition

In the Western world, a man and a woman who lived together without being married were once socially shunned and persecuted and potentially prosecuted by law. In some jurisdictions, cohabitation was illegal until relatively recently. Other jurisdictions have created a Common-law marriage status when two people of the opposite sex live together for a prescribed period of time. Most jurisdictions no longer prosecute this choice.

Opposition to cohabitation comes mainly from religious groups, but also some factions of feminists as well. Opponents of cohabitation usually argue that living together in this fashion is less stable and hence harmful. According to one argument, the total and unconditional commitment of marriage strengthens a couple's bond and makes the partners feel more secure, more relaxed, and happier than those that have chosen cohabitation.^[1] Opponents of cohabitation commonly cite statistics that indicate that couples who have lived together before marriage are more likely to divorce, and that unhappiness, ill health, poverty, and domestic violence are more common in unmarried couples than in married ones.^[2] Cohabitation advocates, in turn, cite limited research that either disproves these claims or indicates that the statistical differences are due to other factors than the fact of cohabitation itself.^[3]

The feminist argument against illicit cohabitation centres on the fact that many possessive, jealous, and undeserving men can use the situation to keep an eye on the female Non-Married Presumed Obligate Significant Other (NMPOSO) and make other attacks on the autonomy and rights thereof.

Support

In some Western nations such as the United States and Great Britain divorce laws and family law give more rights toward women in terms of property rights, rights to male working labor of resource provision outside of marriage, sole parental and custody rights to children. In essence, as a legal institution, marriage is an obligation from a man to a woman to support her outside of marriage by the contractual obligations of divorce. In the United States women initiate 2/3 of all divorce.^[4] As a result some men choose to avoid what they see as the unequal commitment, responsibility, risk and obligation they would be subject to in the legal contract of marriage. The Men's and Father's Rights Movement and Men's Rights Activists hold similar views and seek equality in divorce and custody law.

Cohabitation by region

This section requires expansion.

Americas

• In Canada, 16.0% of couples were cohabiting as of 2001 (29.8.% in Quebec, and 11.7% in the other provinces).^[5]

• In Mexico, 18.7% of couples were cohabiting as of 2005.^[5] Ley de sociedad de convivencia: the Spanish name for "Cohabitation Societies Law", legislation created on November 9, 2006, by the Legislation Assembly of Mexico City to establish legal rights and duties for all those cases where two people (due to either sexual, familial or friendly reasons) are living together.

• Cohabitation in the United States is illegal in six states but a total of 4.85 million couples live together.

Asia

• In Bangladesh cohabitation after divorce is frequently punished by the salishi system of informal courts, especially in rural areas. ^[6]

• In India, cohabitation had been taboo since British rule. However, this is no longer true in big cities, but is still often found in rural areas with more conservative values. Female live-in partners have economic rights under Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005.

• In Indonesia, an Islamic penal code proposed in 2005 would have made cohabitation punishable by up to two years in prison. ^[7]

• In Japan, according to M. Iwasawa at the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, less than 3% of females between 25-29 are currently cohabiting, but more than 1 in 5 have had some experience of an unmarried partnership, including cohabitation. A more recent Iwasawa study has shown that there has been a recent emergence of non-marital cohabitation. Couples born in the 1950s cohort showed an incidence of cohabitation of 11.8%, where the 1960s and 1970s cohorts showed cohabitation rates of 30%, and 53.9% respectively. The split between urban and rural residence for people who had cohabited is indicates 68.8% were urban and 31.2% were rural. ^[8]

• In the Philippines, around 2.4 million Filipinos were cohabiting as of 2004. The 2000 census placed the percentage of cohabiting couples at 19%. The majority of individuals are between the ages of 20-24. Poverty was often the main factor in decision to cohabit.^[9]

Europe

• In Denmark, Norway and Sweden, cohabitation is very common; roughly 50% of all children are born into families of unmarried couples, whereas the same figure for several other Western European countries is roughly 10%. Many couples decide to marry later.
• In late 2005, 21% of families in Finland consisted of cohabitating couples (all age groups). Of couples with children, 18% were cohabitating^[10]. Of ages 18 and above in 2003, 13.4% were cohabitating^[11]. Generally, cohabitation amongst Finns is most common for people under 30. Legal obstacles for cohabitation were removed in 1926 in a reform of the Finnish penal code, while the phenomenon was socially accepted much later on among non-Christian Finns.
• In the UK, 25% of children are now born to cohabiting parents.
• In France, 17.5% of couples were cohabiting as of 1999.^[5]

Middle East

• The cohabitation rate in Israel is less than 3% of all couples, compared to 8%, on average, in West European countries.^[12]
• Cohabitation is illegal according to sharia law (for the countries that enforce it)^[13][14]

Oceania

• In Australia, 22% of couples were cohabiting as of 2005. See Australian Bureau of Statistics.

• In New Zealand, 18.3% of couples were cohabiting as of 2001.^[5]

See also

• Family
  • Family law
• Child
• Interpersonal relationship and Intimate relationship
  • Divorce
  • Domestic partnership
  • Free union
  • Marriage
  • Pilegesh
• Marriage gap
• Living Apart Together

References

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2006)

1. ^ Morse, Jennifer Roback. "Why Not Take Her for a Test Drive?". http://www.boundless.org/2001/departments/beyond_buddies/a0000498.html. Retrieved 2007-04-19. 
2. ^ "Are there reasons why I shouldn't move in with my boyfriend?". http://family.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/family.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=13379. Retrieved 2007-04-17. 
3. ^ "The Experts Speak.". http://www.unmarried.org/experts.html. Retrieved 2007-06-27.  Alternatives to Marriage Project.
4. ^ [1]
5. ^ ^{a b c d} Anne-Marie Ambert: Cohabitation and Marriage: How Are They Related?. The Vanier Institute of the Family, Fall 2005)
6. ^ Women and Islam in Bangladesh By Taj ul-Islam Hashmi, page 112
7. ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/world/asia-pacific/4239177.stm
8. ^ http://paa2006.princeton.edu/download.aspx?submissionId=61321
9. ^ :: GMA News.TV ::
10. ^ The Finnish population structure of 2005 at Statistics Finland (Finnish/Swedish)
11. ^ Elected MPs and candidates by family type in 2003 at Statistics Finland (English)
12. ^ [2]
13. ^ See commentary on verses ^{[Qur'an 23:1]}: Vol. 3, notes 7-1, p. 241; 2000, Islamic Publications
14. ^ Tafsir ibn Kathir 4:24

External links

• Cohabitation and Family Law in Australia

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)