The non-marriage union in private international law

• Author: Winston Anderson
• Position: L.L.B (U.W.I), Ph.D (Cantab); Barrister; Lecturer, University of the West Indies; Visiting Fellow, University of Western Australia
• Pages: 366-402

TH E NON-M AR RIA GE UNIO N I N PRIV ATE

INT ER NA TIO NA L LAW

By

Win ston Anderson*

1. I NT RO DU CT ION

Le gis lati ve rec ogn itio n of th e non-marriag e union, as an

alternativ e to the co nventional Ch ristian marr iage of western

societie s,1 is steadily on the increase. A rgum ents that such unions are

inh eren tly con trar y to p ubli c policy, in tha t they underm ine the

inst ituti on o f marriage, are being rejected in favo ur o f the proposition

that regu lation o f the rights and oblig atio ns of de fa ct o spou ses is

ne ces sary in order to a voi d e xplo itation of one b y th e other.2 More

L.L .B (U.W .I), Ph.D (Cantab); Barrister; Lecturer, Univer sity o f the West

Indies; Visi ting Fello w, Univ ersity of Western Australia. I wis h to thank

Mi ss A. Gardiner, one of the students in my 1995 /6 U .W. I. Private

International Law class, for pr oof-reading an earlier draft of this paper.

The clas sical statement o f the signifi cance and definition o f the Christian

marriage is attributed to Lord P enzance, the Judge Ordinary, who stated, in

Hy de v. H yde and Woodma nsee ( 1866 ) L.R. 1 P. & D. 130 at 133, that:

"Marriage has been we ll said to be som ething more than a

contract, either religious or civil - to be an Institution. It creates

mutual righ ts and oblig ations, as all contracts do, but beyo nd that

it conf ers a status. The posi tion or status o f’husband' and ‘wif e’ is

a recognized one throughout Christendom: the laws of all Christian

nation s throw about that status a variety of legal inci dents during

the live s o f the parties, and ind uce definit e rights upon their

offsprin g. What, then, is the nature o f this institution... I conc eive

that m arriage, as un derstood in Ch ristendom ma y for this pu rpose

be d efined as the vol untary uni on fo r life o f one man and one

woman, to the exc lusion of all oth ers f (Italics added).

See , generally , N ew South Wa les L aw Reform Co mmissio n's Summa ry o f

Issue s Paper: De F acto Rela tionships, 1981, pp. 8-10 , quoted in H.A . Finlay

and R.J. Bailey-Harr is, Fami ly L aw in Au strali a, (4th ed ., 1989 )

(Butterwo rths), p. 375-3 76.

366

The N on-Marr iage Union 367

and more c oun trie s are coming to accep t that the intermingling of

financial an d pe rsonal affairs of parties to a stable de fa ct o

rel atio nsh ip prov ides a legitimate basis for society to intervene to

ensure equity and fairnes s in decisio ns concern ing such m atters as

div isio n of prope rty, maintenance , care an d c ustody of the parties’

child ren, and succe ssio n.3 Th e incidence o f such unions is expected

to increas e with the co ntin ued affirma tion of th e accep tability o f

alte rnative life sty le ch oices.

As w ith conventional marriages, th e factual circum stances o f non-

ma rriage unions will inev itab ly have a different impa ct unde r the

var ious legal sys tem s, giv ing ris e to questio ns as to w hether rig hts

and du ties crea ted in one ju risd ict ion are cog nizable in another.

Unlike the tradition al fam ily arrangement, how ever, neith er

leg isla tio n givi ng legal reco gnition to such unions nor the comm on

law has yet p aid any, or any ade quate, attent ion to th e private

international law implication s. In dividual legislatu res app ear to have

been intent on rem edying pe rceiv ed social problems w ithin thei r own

particular ju ris dic tions wit hout givin g co nsid eration to the

transnatio nal law context.4

The purp ose of this pap er is to expl ore the likely reaction of

private international law to the non-marriage union. First, there is the

que stio n o f d efi nin g, in a trans natio nal context, wh at prec isely is

me ant by a non-ma iriage union . Th is is n ot an easy ta sk, since

releva nt le gislatio n differs con siderably amo ng various countries.

Rele vant pr ovisions are cited below.

See, e.g.t the precursor to the Barbados legislation, The Report o f the Na tional

Com mission on the Stat us o f Women in Ba rbado s (V ol. I). T he Com mission

held sev eral he arings and receive d numero us reports con cerning the s ocio

eco nom ic posit ion o f w omen in Barbados. N ote espec ially the c omments,

obser vations and conc lusion s at pp. 5 5-56, 87.

368 Caribbe an Law Review

Secondly, th ere is the p rob lem concerning the union 's internatio nal

legitimacy: is it to be legally cogn izabl e only with in th e juri sdi ction

where it was created or within the juris prud enc e o f other cou ntries as

well. In oth er words, is the non-marriage union en titled to some kind

of international a cce ptab ility com parable to the Christian ma rriage?

If this que stio n is answ ered in the añ fmative, then, by necessar y

im plication, it becomes imperative to make som e preliminary

observations on th e likely content of the substantive co nflict rules. In

particular , con nec ting factors for ju ris dic tio n; gov erning la w and

rec og nition o f foreign orders wou ld n eed to be explicated. Thirdly,

the re is th e issue o f the relationsh ip b etw een the conve ntional

ma rriage and t he union. Factual overlapping o f fam ily patt erns will

be seen to manda te the identification o f a method of ratio nal izin g the

mu tua l relat ionship o f these forms o f personal asso ciations.

2. ID ENT IFY IN G TH E N ON -MARR IAGE UN ION

Un doubtedly, proble ms o f definition be devil t his area. How eve r, it

may, in general, be taken t hat a non-m arr iage union describes the

lim ited status granted by legi slation to a m an an d woman who, not

being m ar rie d to eac h other, have nonetheless coh abited in a

relati on shi p o f som e pe rmane nce . Several comm ents arise on this

wording .

(i) T erm ino logy

The re is clea rly a prob lem of terminolog y since the non-marriage

un ion is kno wn by vario us app ellations. In the Ca nad ian case of