{"id":15343,"date":"2012-06-03T13:00:57","date_gmt":"2012-06-03T18:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=15343"},"modified":"2012-06-03T13:00:57","modified_gmt":"2012-06-03T18:00:57","slug":"quebec-case-may-force-common-law-couples-into-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2012\/06\/03\/quebec-case-may-force-common-law-couples-into-marriage\/","title":{"rendered":"Quebec case may force common-law couples into marriage"},"content":{"rendered":"

An interesting development in Quebec’s laws relating to common-law relationships<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Somewhere in North America, there is a place where little girls don\u2019t give the slightest thought to what kind of wedding dress they\u2019ll wear one day. A place where young men have never heard the expression: \u201cwhy buy the cow when you can have the milk for free?\u201d \u2014 because the milk is always free. A place where no one asks an unmarried couple expecting a baby if they\u2019re getting hitched.<\/p>\n

This place is the province of Quebec. The French language spoken here is no guarantee for romance. Couples are practical, and lovers treasure their individuality. Quebec has become one of the least marrying places in the world, thanks to the institution known as \u201cde facto spouses.\u201d But now, thanks to a bizarre legal case entangling a Quebec billionaire and his de facto spouse, the freedom to un-marry is under threat. More than 1 million Quebecois in this kind of relationship may soon be automatically married by the state, against their will.<\/p>\n

De facto spouses are defined by Quebec\u2019s law as two people who have been living together for a year or more without being married and who check the \u201ccouple\u201d box on their income tax statement form. Quebec\u2019s lawmakers have deliberately chosen not to give de facto couples the same rights and responsibilities that married couples have under the Law of Quebec, to preserve the freedom of choice. Upon the termination of a relationship, \u201cno matter how long cohabitation has lasted, de facto spouses have no legal support obligation to each other, even if one spouse is in need and the other has a high income.\u201d Quebec is the only province in Canada where spousal support payments are not recognized by law for de facto spouses.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An interesting development in Quebec’s laws relating to common-law relationships: Somewhere in North America, there is a place where little girls don\u2019t give the slightest thought to what kind of wedding dress they\u2019ll wear one day. A place where young men have never heard the expression: \u201cwhy buy the cow when you can have the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,9],"tags":[113,118],"class_list":["post-15343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cancon","category-law","tag-quebec","tag-taxes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-3Zt","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15343"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15344,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15343\/revisions\/15344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}