Legal assumptions, cohabitants' talk and the rocky road to reform
Barlow, Anne; Smithson, Janet
Date: 1 October 2010
Journal
Child and Family Law Quarterly
Publisher
Jordan
Related links
Abstract
This article assesses recent proposals for the reform of cohabitation law by drawing on two interdisciplinary
empirical studies. The first, sponsored by the Ministry of Justice included a survey (n=102) of people who had
accessed the ‘Living Together Campaign’ website, investigating legal awareness, attitudes to cohabitation law
and ...
This article assesses recent proposals for the reform of cohabitation law by drawing on two interdisciplinary
empirical studies. The first, sponsored by the Ministry of Justice included a survey (n=102) of people who had
accessed the ‘Living Together Campaign’ website, investigating legal awareness, attitudes to cohabitation law
and financial practices. The second, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, included a nationally representative
survey (n=3197) investigating attitudes towards marriage, cohabitation and their legal and financial
consequences. Each survey was followed up with semi-structured interviews which explored financial
practices, processes of decision-making, understandings of commitment, awareness of and attitudes to current
cohabitation law and possible law reform.
In the analysis, we considered cohabitants’ practices alongside attitudes to their legal position and the
links between finances, commitment and different ‘types’ of cohabitation were considered alongside
demographic differences in order to explore the legal needs of diverse groups of cohabitants. We concluded
that cohabitants in both projects fitted a typology comprising: Ideologues, Romantics, Pragmatists and
Uneven couples and we considered the current proposals for legal reform in the light of this typology.
Law School
Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
Item views 0
Full item downloads 0