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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
“English law is finally beginning to recognise that 'family' does not just mean a man, a woman, and children”. This 5 page paper discusses the extent to which family law recognises unorthodox family arrangements with specific attention on the Civil Partnership Act 2004. The bibliography cites 4 sources.
Page Count:
5 pages (~225 words per page)
File: TS14_TEcivilpart.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
of divorce, single parents and unorthodox family arrangements, but the law has been slow to catch up with the social changes.
If we look at the basis of family law this has, at its foundation, the marriage. Marriage is an established institution defined as "the ceremony or process by which the
legal relationship between husband and wife is constituted" (Ivamy, 2000; 168). In case law it is defined by a Christian act that is "a voluntary union between one man
and one woman to the exclusion of others" from Lord Penzance in Hyde v Hyde (1866) (Cretney and Masson, 2003). The definitions
are old and it may be argued that they are also outdated. The definitions of marriage are then supported by the Marriage Acts of 1949 and 1970 (Ivamy, 2000, Cretney
and Masson, 2003). In the times that the Hyde case was same sex marriages were unheard of, today the situation is different. Sexual relationships between same sex partners are legal
under the law in England and Wales, and with increasing social constructs supporting partnerships of different types it would appear to be prejudicial to disqualify same sex partners form marrying.
This would indicate that they are either not capable of making the same commitments, or that there is an inherent wrongness in same sex relationships that does not deserve the
same level of social recognition. In Canada same six couples have been granted equal rights with married couples in many areas, including pensions, since 1998 (Lexis, 2006). In
Columbia there are many gay rights that can be seen as bring gay and heterosexual couples rights in line. In Denmark there is a step that takes the recognition even
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