UNMARRIED COHABITATION

Moving in, living together, shacking up, being in a committed relationship - they are all more or less derisive expressions describing one of the most important trends in American family life since the 1960s, i.e. two adults who are living together as a family unit outside the bounds of legally sanctioned marriage.

Given this growing trend of households made up of unmarried partners, attempts have been made by many in the legal profession to address this new reality. The state of California has been among the first to open its courts to claims made in connection to nonmarried living arrangements, with the earliest case being that of the palmony action against actor Lee Marvin in the 1970s.

While the California case went pretty far (some would say not surpringly given California's reputation for pushing the legal envelope) in treating family relationships as if they were mere contracts, Florida and most other states were much more reluctant to go down that path, which would have depreciated traditional marriage even further.