Although common law marriage was abolished in the UK in 1753, the myth persists. More than half of cohabiting couples think they currently have the same rights as a married couple after living together and that they will have to share their cash and house fairly after a breakup. But as the English law stands at present, they are seriously mistaken.
The Law Commission has recently suggested that people who live together should get some legal protection if they split up, a bit like a divorce. Cohabiting couples should be able to make a financial claim on each other if they break up after two years together or having a child.
Some will doubtless argue that such provision will weaken the institution of marriage, but like it or not, the fact is that marriage has been seriously weakened over the last 50 years anyway, not necessarily by legislation, but by millions of individuals making the decision not to marry. (Ironically, perhaps part of the reason behind that decision for some may be the legal rights given to married couples.) More than two million unmarried couples live together in England and Wales. An significant milestone was reached in 2003 when in Wales and parts of the North East, over 50% of the children born were born outside of marriage. The UK Government’s Actuary’s Department predicts that by 2011 the number of couples who get married will be in the minority.
Give the number of unmarried couples and the consequent number of unmarried couples likely to split up, it is important for the Government to address the issue of legal rights for these people. But what I find particularly interesting is the problem facing those who are given the task of defining a couple who are not married. The suggested definition above of having lived together for two years or of having produced a child is far from satisfactory.
To suggest that cohabitation is an adequate definition ignores some facts. Not all people who live together are a couples (lots of people take in lodgers), and the lack of cohabitation is not necessarily a sign of the lack of a significant loving relationship. There are plenty of loving relationships that survive the strain of one partner living or working away for some time. I recently came across a woman who described herself as having a loving relationship with a man for six years. She had two children by him, but she never lived with him, hardly ever literally slept with him, and only had occasional sex in the afternoon.
There are also problems about trying to define the couple in terms of how long they have been together. How long does a relationship have to be in order to qualify? And does intended permanence count? Are a couple who have known each other for a week and who decide to marry more of a couple who than two people who have been together a year. What about the couple who have been together for 50 years but who have had no meaningful relationship for the past 20 years and who now despise each other deeply?
It seems to me that there have to be at least three factors that are important in any realistic definition of a couple outside of marriage. First, regardless of the actual length of the relationship, there has to be a commitment to the longevity of the relationship. Secondly, the relationship in question has to be the prime relationship for both adult partners. Thirdly, there has to be a genuine desire in both partners to maintain a high degree of sexual exclusivity. These factors do not require an arbitrary length of cohabitation, they differentiate between casual sexual playmates and a committed pair, and they allow for occasional sexual lapses. However, although I find them useful in helping me reach my own definition, I really wouldn’t want to be the lawyer tasked with incorporating them into draft legislation.
I’m biting my tongue hard on this one. As a humanist I’m constantly reminded that there are many ways that people choose to live their lives. It really is a case of each to their own and making the best of the circumstances and options presented to them.
I have to admit that the term ‘committed relationship’ is one that sticks in my craw as way back when I met a number relationship psychotherapists who constantly used the term to keep informing me that my kind of intimate relationship didn’t really count in their world and seemed to be used by them as seemingly a euphemism for their preference for dealing with clients expressing heterosexual norms.
Obviously definitions of relationship norms will be decided by the dominant culture and class in any society or just my the most vocal and influential law making voices.Many relationships will fall outside of those legal definitions. It doesn’t always mean that they are less committed or less fulfilling. Just different.
emsquared
Hi, thanks for your comments. I am left feeling that I have not communicated what I wanted to say.
I was not thinking about legal definitions at all, but just pragmatic, practical definitions. Sometimes there is a need to be able to know what is and isn’t a couple - in my case, as I was doing work on couple therapy for my master’s dissertation I needed to define my terms. I wanted to make the point (one that you too made) that traditional definitions were too rigid and didn’t work when faced with the reality of life these days.
I accept that as it is written it looks biased towards heterosexuality, and I deeply regret that. In the longer version of this in my dissertation it is more explicitly inclusive of all types of sexuality. I can see too that ‘committed relationship’ and ’sexual fidelity’ may still be too restrictive for some couples. I apologise if I have caused offence.
If, and it seems you are, rejecting my attempts to move towards a definition, it is interesting to contemplate how you would define a couple. I accept that you may feel there is no need for such a definition, and while I can have some sympathy with that point philosophically, the fact is that occasionally it is useful to be able to define it for practical reasons.
In my opinion being a “couple” or in a relationship (and it could involve a number of people not just two) is up to the people involved in it to decide. I don’t think anyone outside of that has a role to play at all or should have an opinion. The way the couple operates and what is involved emotionally and physically is entirely up to them - no sex, no children, not living together, seeing other people - does not in my opinion make a couple any less a couple if they feel they are.
Obviously if other people are to be involved (legally for instance) then the requirement does arise for labelling and categorising. Personally I would not want any legal protection or any involvement from outside persons/agencies in any relationship I had and choose not to marry partly on that basis. If I choose to be with someone, on whatever basis I choose, then I do not expect the law or anyone else to be involved at all and I intensely dislike the idea that anyone else would try to label or categorise my relationship or be involved in any way in sorting anything out if it broke down.
And yes, I too get very annoyed sometimes at the continued lack of acceptance of any non-standard relationship as valid and equal to the standard heterosexual monogamous type.
Well we all come from different viewpoints and life experiences I guess. I’m certainly not rejecting your need to have a reference point for what defines a couple.
I can accept your definition as the ideal benchmark for those that need those definitions and yet I may still find that the people in those relationships neither love or feel loved within them.
For me It’s how people feel not what people do or what social convention they adhere to that is my personal preference in the story book of human relationships.
Definitions of coupledom can, I feel sometimes be similar to definitions of family and are entirely social constructs that frequently come pre-loaded with certain value judgements.
They can tick all the boxes but not fulfill the human needs of the people living in them.