Difference between revisions of "Family Relationships"

People in virtually any kind of relationship can find themselves having a problem involving family law. Some people are married, others have lived together long enough to qualify as spouses without being married, others are in shorter relationships, perhaps lasting for only one night, which produce children. Family law isn't just about relationships between spouses or parents, it also concerns the relationships between grandchildren and grandparents, between nieces and nephews and aunts and uncles, and between children and other adults with significant roles in their lives

==Introduction==

The rules about marriage, separation and divorce are fairly straightforward, despite some fairly common misunderstandings.

Assuming that the parties have a valid marriage, they have entered into a new relationship with emotional, social and legal aspects. These different aspects of married life are often intertwined. For example, spouses are entitled to consort with one another and to enjoy the benefits of what are quaintly called conjugal rights; these are legally enforceable rights under the common law (well, the older common law) and, at the same time, they're also clearly emotional and social rights.

The law about marriage has changed enormously over the last three centuries, and marriage once had a much more important legal significance than it does today. Before about 1890, a married couple were legally considered to be one person. A husband took ownership of all of his wife's property on marriage and could use his wife's assets as collateral for loans. His wife, one the other hand, lost the ability to hold a bank account in her own name, sell her property without her husband's consent, or start a law suit or run a business in her own name. Women who hadn't married, on the other hand, could own property in their own names, have bank accounts, sue and be sued, and run a business.

===Divorce===

Divorce is the legal dissolution of a valid marriage. To obtain a divorce, one spouse must sue the other in the Supreme Court of British Columbia, and at least one of the spouses must have been "ordinarily resident" in British Columbia for the preceeding year. In order to qualify for a divorce order, the application must be based on one of three grounds:

It is possible to oppose an application for a divorce order, although this rarely happens. In general, once one of the grounds for divorce has been established, the courts will allow the divorce application, despite the objections of the other spouse.

For the purposes of the provincial Family Relations Act, you are in a common-law relationship if you and your partner have lived together as a couple for at least two years. To be clear, the Family Relations Act doesn't actually talk about common-law relationships, it talks about "spouses" and who qualifies as a spouse, and the rights and obligations involved in being a spouse. Under the act, spouses are defined as people who have lived together for two or more years in a marriage-like relationship.

Under the Family Relations Act, people who meet the definition of spouse or parent may have certain responsibilities, like the obligation to pay child support, and certain rights, like the right to apply for spousal support or the right to be involved in the parenting of a child. Parents and spouses can be of the same or opposite genders.

When married people break up, they are usually concerned about things like spousal support, the division of the family assets, and how the children will be looked after. Common-law couples and other unmarried couples share many of the same problems. From a legal perspective, the difference between married and unmarried couples is about which laws apply and sometimes how they apply.

For couples who have not married, the key issue is whether or not they qualify as spouses under the Family Relations Act because spouses have a broader range of rights and obligations than people who merely qualify as parents. This can be a bit difficult to figure out as it's not always clear how long a couple has lived together, or whether they were a couple for the whole time they lived together, and the act doesn't say what "marriage-like relationship" means. For a more complete discussion of this issue, see the Unmarried Couples > Common-Law Relationships chapter.

Unmarried couples can do all of the things married couples can. They can live together, they can have a child together, they can buy a house together, and they can have a relationship that last for decades and looks, in all respects, exactly like a married relationship. Why is there a difference in the way the law treats unmarried couples?

These are the legal rights available to people who are married and common-law spouses, and to people who are neither married nor common-law but have a child together:

The Alternatives to Marriage Project is an interesting American organization seeking equality for unmarried couples, including straight and same-sex couples, with married couples. It takes the view that people who chose not to marry or cannot marry deserve equal rights and equal protection under the law as married couples. Their website offers a broad array of information for unmarried couples, visit it at www.unmarried.org.

A lot of people seem to have a lot of misconceptions about what being common-law actually involves and how you become common-law. Part of this, I'm sure, comes from television and movies; others are urban myths that get spread during a few pints at the pub. This segment addresses a few of the most common of these mythunderstandings. Sorry about the pun.

It is not true that a common-law couple are automatically married once they've lived together for a certain amount of time, nor is there any such thing as a "common-law marriage." You can have lived together for twenty years and still not be legally married; a common-law couple is never married unless there is an actual marriage ceremony performed by someone licenced to perform marriages.

A couple becomes common-law when they qualify as a "spouse" under whatever legislative scheme applies; for most federal laws the couple must have lived together for at least one year, and for most provincial laws the couple must have lived together for at least two years. There's no application to make and no one to apply to. It's all about meeting the defition of "spouse."

It is not true that you become common-law spouses simply by living with someone for long enough. You must be living together in a marriage-like relationship to become a common-law couple; mere roommates will not become common-law spouses by accident. There wouldn't be any frat houses if this wasn't the case.

Likewise, a couple won't become common-law spouses if they have a child. They must still live together for long enough to meet the definition of "spouse."

There is no such thing as a "legal separation" in British Columbia, nor is it possible to be "legally separated." Whether you're in a common-law relationship, a marriage or you're just dating, you are separated the moment you decide that the relationship is over. That's it, there's no magic to it. When you or your partner leaves, boom, you're separated. To be completely clear:

To separate, you just need to decide that your relationship is over and say so.

Common-law spouses do not need to be divorced. Once you've decided to separate, the relationship is over, regardless of how long the relationship may have been. There is no need to get a divorce because there's no marriage to terminate.

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