I guess it depends on which sense of “legitimate” you’re using. In emotional terms, or terms of commitment, sure, it’s as legitimate as anything else anybody feels. In a whole lot of locations, it’s not going to be legitimate in the legal sense. But it’s the social sense that’s really the thorny question.
Should people who shack up long-term be treated socially like a legally married couple? Yes, I think (and so do all the etiquette mavens) they should. Should such couples be free to refer to one another as their spouse, which seems to be the preferred nomenclature among the ones I know? I got no problem with that, or even with them referring to one another as their husband or wife. But I find such couples referring to themselves as married with no further elaboration to be sort of misleading, because that implies that they have indeed gone through the legalities or religiosities. And they know it implies that, so it kind of smacks of deliberate deception. I’m a big fan of the phrase “married in every way that matters,” because it sums up the commitment and how you view one another, but also makes it clear you’ve skipped the ceremonies.
I especially don’t like couples who have chosen to skip the ceremonies talking about how long they’ve been married. That really rather chaps my ass for reasons I can’t quite articulate. I think it’s that when you view marriage in the way WhyNot describes so nicely, it’s a process rather than an event. It’s usually a long process with no clearly defined beginning or end, so you really can’t put a date on it. That bothers me anyway, and when you combine it with the false implications of just using the word married, it’s a double whammy of annoyance.
I’m wondering what people mean by ceremonies… Do they consider just signing the legal document (license, paper, whatever applies in the jurisdiction) in front of the required people (again, by location) so that they’re legally married, a ceremony?
Or do they reserve that for the bigger or smaller congretation of friends and family celebrating the union?
Because my parents skipped the second ceremony, but they’ve been legally married for about 27 years. They just got together with friends, one who was a peace judge (juez de paz) and could legally marry them, and they signed the paper. No fuss, no wedding, no reception. They’re the only couple in that group (3 couples) who are still married.
And lucky for me, since my mom did that, there is no expectation of a big thing for me. I told her I would just one day come up and say “So-and-so’s my husband.”. Her reply: “I did it, can’t fault you.”
In most of Canada, living together for a certain length of time as though married – “common-law marriage” – provides the same legal status as a wedding ceremony. (As a matter of fact, same-sex couples were recognized as common-law spouses in 1999, a few years before they won the right to be issued marriage licences.)
In Quebec, there is no common law and therefore no common-law marriage. Essentially, there is the condition of being “de facto partners” (conjoints de fait), but it doesn’t mean you’re married – any benefit has to be explicitly specified as applying to de facto partners as well. (As far as I know, the federal government will treat you as common-law spouses.)
We also have civil unions, which were originally created to accommodate same-sex couples (although anyone could get one); now that we have same-sex marriage they’re basically a sort of marriage lite.
Ironically, Quebec has the country’s highest rates of shacking up, and there’s currently a major court case about splitting up a very wealthy de facto couple’s property. It’s been suggested that Quebec should just go ahead and create a coherent, single of de facto partners with all the benefits of marriage.
I think most sensible people are fine with the Justice of the Peace version of the “ceremony”. There are some who say you can’t be really wed unless it’s in Their Own Church Denomination but that’s not that common.
This isn’t quite right, matt. It varies considerably from province to province, depending on the statute law. In most provinces, living together triggers a lot of legal rights and obligations, but it’s not the same as marriage in several ways.
First, there’s usually no automatic right to property division upon the break-up of the relationship. In the common law provinces, one party can normally rely upon the law of trusts to achieve some property division, but it is not nearly as certain as in the case of a married couple, where the rights are set out in statute. Some family lawyers I’ve spoken to on this issue have estimated that the property division is not as equitable as under the matrimonial property regimes.
Then there’s wills and estates, including intestacy. Some provinces don’t treat a common law partner in the same way as the widow/widower of the deceased, in things like the administration of the estate and the division of property.
Plus, the marriage relationship lasts until death or divorce. Common law relationships normally end when the couple breaks up.
There are exceptions to this pattern. Saskatchewan and Manitoba treat common law couples in the same way as married couples for most purposes, for matters within their jurisdiction.
I’m not sure how consistent the federal government is on treating common law couples compared to married couples - don’t know if they treat them exactly alike for all purposes.
