(Untitled)

[shreena]

I think the various proposals that seem to be floating around about co-habiting couples are just madness and it really frustrates me that the only people arguing against them are slightly loopy "must protect family life" campaigners.  When quizcustodet and I got married, our legal rights and obligations within that contract were explained to us by the

Comments

[cartesiandaemon]

Ouch. I really don't know. Clearly, forcing legal relationships on people when both sides don't want one is insane and unfair. OTOH, we do have implicit contracts and so on: if both do assume "a right to financial provision if their relationship is a long-term one, includes children and has involved prioritising one partner’s career," it's surely fair that that is the case, even if something acrimonious happens later. If that could be provided in a way which worked even if some people didn't want it, some couples had always had conflicting never-resolved assumptions, and some couples it wasn't clear what assumptions they had had, it would be good, but I don't know whether or not those large hurdles are surmountable, or not.

[pw201]

I was reminded a bit of the Michael Sandel "Justice" lectures I've been watching: I think it's the second half of this one where he talks about whether contracts can be formed without explicit consent (in the context of Rawls's theory).