Actual marriage: legal oblivion or the right to choose

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of actual marriage (cohabitation) as a social and legal phenomenon. The emphasis is on the fact that the personal and material relations of the actual spouses in content are identical to those that develop between a man and a woman in a registered marriage. However, on the legal side, the actual cohabitation, regardless of its duration, the presence of common children, is currently not considered by the Russian legislator as a form of a family union protected by the state. Based on Russian family and civil legislation, materials of judicial practice, the legal consequences of the actual cohabitation of a man and a woman, problems of proof in resolving disputes about the division of property acquired by them, inheritance after each other, parenthood, as well as existing legislative initiatives on these issues are analyzed. Given the Russian and foreign experience in the field of legal regulation of factual unions, it is concluded that the inappropriateness of legal equalization (even partial) of the actual marriage with a marriage registered, about the presence of legal mechanisms in the legislation that allow the actual spouses to ensure their personal and property interests.