Consensual Union in Romania - on the Transition of Social Mentalities and Legal Postmodernism
In A. Sandu & A. Caras (Eds.), Tradition and Reform: Social Reconstruction of Europe (Pp. 17 - 20). Medimond. ISBN:978-88-7587-694-4. WOS:000334665500005 (2013)
Posted: 12 Nov 2020
Date Written: november 8, 2013
Abstract
The current evolution of the Romanian marital mentalities generally underlies mentalities about to be adapted to be more modern. Under these circumstances, new conjugal mentalities arise in which social imperatives gradually become less influential, the couple grows increasingly free and independent of the extended family, and consensual cohabitation tends to become one of the basic prerequisites for the partners to know each other better, to socialize and create the first elements of marital solidarity while the couple is taking further steps towards marriage. Often taken for consensual union, cohabitation has been, culturally speaking, acknowledged as a state which renders two partners' living together prior to their marriage lawful from a social point of view (a state of fact questioned by the traditional cultural system which is still nurturing the current social mentalities, yet more discretely).
From the opposite perspective, the legal system has built up the landmarks for some marital mentalities with postmodern orientations, Law no. 202/2010 and Law no. 71/2011 setting legal frameworks regulating the engagement, which create new dissolution rules and a series of patrimonial strategies attempting to put marriage on more contractual bases. Marriage therefore tends to gradually assimilate the awareness of failure in the same time as the declaration of eternal love, given that the decision to get married is backed by the strategy of patrimonial regimes establishing the way assets are to be distributed in case that marriage comes to an end. The current marital legislation leaves room for the mentalities of postmodern individualism, thus creating a premise for legalizing consensual unions.
Our study aims at analyzing the Romanian social mentalities, various international experiences related to the legalization of consensual unions, as well as the Romanian legislation in force and new proposals to make domestic partnerships lawful, while proving the effects of inconsistency between the values of social and the legal systems, bearing important consequences on both the social policies and the economic resources.
Keywords: cohabitation, legislation, consensual union, traditionalism, modernity
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