civil marriage

Civil Same Sex Marriage (2010)

In 2010 the Portuguese Parliament passed a law permitting same sex marriage, altering the corresponding articles of the Civil Code.

The plaintiff wife sought a decree of divorce on the grounds of the defendant's desertion on the grounds that the defendant abused her and drove her out of the matrimonial home to live with another woman.   The Court found that the defendant was previously married through Lesotho customary law to the other woman at the time of the marriage to the plaintiff; thus, the defendant's marriage to the plaintiff was null and void.

Article 74 of the Family Code of Ukraine establishes rules governing property division in “civil marriages,” meaning that a woman and a man live together as a family but are not legally married to each other or to anyone else. Any property acquired by a couple in a civil marriage while living together is their joint property that will be shared or divided equally after the marriage ends, unless otherwise defined in a written agreement. Thus, in theory, the legal status of the property acquired by persons in a civil marriage is the same as the legal status of the property of the spouses.

The appellant sued his wife, the defendant, with whom he was in a de facto marital relationship (i.e., their marriage was not officially registered), to return funds unjustly acquired by her. According to him, he had won the national lottery and received a prize in the amount of UAH 400,000. While he was abroad, the defendant withdrew these funds from his bank account without his knowledge. The appellant believed that the defendant had no claim to his winnings and that he should get the money back.