Three Different Legal Attitudes Towards Non-Marital Cohabitation in Europe

Abstract

The rising number of people “just living together”, people who are neither married nor in registered partnerships, clearly demonstrates that non-marital unions can no longer be ignored. To obtain an accurate picture of the situation of non-marital partners it was essential to conduct comparative research of multiple legal orders. This analysis threw a new light (at least from the Polish standpoint) on possible solutions to the problem of the regulation of legal aspects of “living together”. It appears that three different legal attitudes towards non-marital cohabitation may be distinguished in Europe. Firstly, there are legal orders in which by virtue of an explicit reference by the legislator – the regulations on marriage are applied to cohabitation (quasi-marriage cohabitation). Secondly, there also exist countries in which a law was adopted regulating selected aspects of actual cohabitation (implied model of cohabitation). And thirdly, there are legal orders in which any cohabitant-oriented legal regime exists.