Civil Marriage — Concept, Pros and Cons, How to Arrange?

Civ­il mar­riage is a mul­ti-val­ued con­cept and today it is used both to denote offi­cial mar­riage and cohab­i­ta­tion. There are pros and cons to this de fac­to union. The ben­e­fits are more obvi­ous for men. Very often, a cou­ple, hav­ing lived for sev­er­al years in such a mar­riage, breaks up, some decide to for­mal­ize their rela­tion­ship.

What does civil marriage mean?

Mod­ern soci­ety is already look­ing with­out con­dem­na­tion at men and women who have decid­ed to live togeth­er with­out reg­is­ter­ing a mar­riage, to which the Ortho­dox and Catholic church­es can­not close their eyes, con­sid­er­ing this a great sin. What does civ­il mar­riage mean in the cur­rent under­stand­ing of peo­ple? This is a de fac­to union in which a cou­ple decides to come togeth­er and live in the same ter­ri­to­ry, shar­ing life togeth­er, but at the same time they do not under­take a trip to the reg­istry office, which means only one thing — this mar­riage is ille­gal. Hus­band and wife — these words sound in rela­tion to a man and a woman to each oth­er, but in fact they are not them.

How to get a civil marriage?

A civ­il or de fac­to mar­riage can be trans­ferred to the sta­tus of a legal one in only one way: reg­is­ter your rela­tion­ship. Reg­is­tra­tion of a civ­il mar­riage is car­ried out by sub­mit­ting an appli­ca­tion for reg­is­tra­tion of mar­riage to the reg­istry office. There is no oth­er way, so if there is a feel­ing that it is impor­tant to make the union full-fledged, the road to the reg­istry office should not become a dif­fi­cult obsta­cle.

Pros and cons of civil marriage

Civ­il mar­riage, all the impor­tant pros and cons are made up of both psy­cho­log­i­cal and legal aspects. You can start review­ing the pros:

• no one owes any­thing to any­one — this state­ment can be con­sid­ered from two sides, the advan­tage here is that the oblig­a­tions are min­i­mal and at the dis­cre­tion of the cohab­i­tants;
• check­ing feel­ings — maybe this is a banal love that will break at the first storm;
• “Are we suit­able for each oth­er?” — yes, this is a fat plus to the fact that you don’t have to get mar­ried in order to check this, and divorce in case of incom­pat­i­bil­i­ty;
• easy (not in terms of feel­ings) unbur­dened breakup, no need to col­lect papers for divorce, go through this unpleas­ant stage of your life;
• it is eas­i­er for men to agree to live togeth­er with­out stamp­ing it in their pass­port (you can call it cow­ardice, but also cau­tion);
• if before the actu­al mar­riage, lone­li­ness was a bur­den, then this is a case to feel like a “pair”, to learn how to live togeth­er and solve com­mon house­hold prob­lems.

Cons of civ­il mar­riage:

• about the fact that no one owes any­thing to any­one in a neg­a­tive aspect looks much sad­der than in a pos­i­tive one, here it can be called irre­spon­si­bil­i­ty in the legal sense of the word;
• over time, one of the part­ners strives for a full-fledged legal rela­tion­ship, more often these are women, which can cause rejec­tion and the depar­ture of the sec­ond part­ner, who is already sat­is­fied with every­thing;
• legal­ly — the actu­al mar­riage is with­out rights, and the prop­er­ty acquired togeth­er, you still need to prove this, more often this is not crowned with suc­cess;
• a mar­riage con­tract can­not be reg­is­tered — the exe­cu­tion of this doc­u­ment is a priv­i­lege of legal rela­tions;
• long-term rela­tion­ships in such an alliance are not dis­cussed, the cou­ple lives for today, which may indi­cate the futil­i­ty of the rela­tion­ship;
• there is no com­plete trust, because at any moment one of the part­ners can col­lect their belong­ings and leave.

Why do men live in a civil marriage?

The advan­tages of a civ­il mar­riage are more obvi­ous for men, it is believed that for them an offi­cial mar­riage is a huge stress and a cross for their bach­e­lor life. Whether it is a civ­il mar­riage or, in anoth­er way, cohab­i­ta­tion, in which a man con­sid­ers him­self still a bach­e­lor. But, if you look at it from the oppo­site angle for a respon­si­ble man, the actu­al union is a way to find out about your­self as a fam­i­ly man, and if a woman treats this with under­stand­ing, then this mar­riage can already be con­tin­ued in an already offi­cial sta­tus.

If we con­sid­er the rea­sons why, in gen­er­al, a man prefers this type of mar­riage to an offi­cial one, we can sin­gle out the fol­low­ing:

• feel­ing of free­dom;
• there is no desire to take on the respon­si­bil­i­ty of the head of the fam­i­ly;
• the cur­rent part­ner for a man is not the final option, he still hopes to meet a ful­ly con­sis­tent with his expec­ta­tions.

Civil marriage for a woman

For a woman in such a union, every­thing is more com­pli­cat­ed and the dis­ad­van­tages of a civ­il mar­riage for a beau­ti­ful rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the sex are more obvi­ous. The rub­bing, the recog­ni­tion of each oth­er has passed, but what’s next? A full-fledged fam­i­ly is com­mit­ment and care for each oth­er. In unreg­is­tered rela­tion­ships, this can also be present, but, as in the well-known Russ­ian proverb, “one fly in the oint­ment in a bar­rel of hon­ey” spoils every­thing and the absence of a stamp in the pass­port psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly makes a woman feel pow­er­less and unpro­tect­ed.

You can talk as much as you like about the eman­ci­pa­tion and advance­ment of mod­ern women, but you want a civ­il mar­riage to take place legal­ly, for real. Psy­chol­o­gists who are approached by women who have been in an infor­mal union for a long time note the fol­low­ing fea­tures:

• severe anx­i­ety;
• uncer­tain­ty about the future;
• the tense expec­ta­tion that her man will find anoth­er woman at any moment, pack his things and leave;
• simul­ta­ne­ous­ly with all this, being in the illu­sion that her man needs a lit­tle more time to under­stand that she is the one he is about to mar­ry.

Child born in a civil marriage

What hap­pens if a child is born in a civ­il mar­riage, does he have the same rights as a child born in an offi­cial mar­riage. Yes, it has. If all actions are per­formed cor­rect­ly. To do this, the father and moth­er of the child must sub­mit a joint appli­ca­tion in which the father offi­cial­ly rec­og­nizes the child and gives him his last name and patronymic, then there will be no dash in the birth cer­tifi­cate in the col­umn of the father of the child. Pater­ni­ty is called upon and even if a man leaves a woman, she has the right to file for alimo­ny.

What if the man does not take respon­si­bil­i­ty and does not rec­og­nize the child? Here the steps are:

1. Appeal to the court in order to estab­lish the fact of pater­ni­ty through a genet­ic exam­i­na­tion.
2. If a man evades the exam­i­na­tion, the court may auto­mat­i­cal­ly rec­og­nize pater­ni­ty for him.
3. After con­fir­ma­tion, again through the court to apply for the recov­ery of alimo­ny from the father

What rights does civil marriage have?

Recog­ni­tion of a civ­il mar­riage as a legal union is pos­si­ble only through an appli­ca­tion to the reg­istry office, there­fore the actu­al mar­riage is not rec­og­nized by the state as offi­cial. There is no need to talk about any sig­nif­i­cant rights, but with a cer­tain close exam­i­na­tion, there are some nuances that make it pos­si­ble to achieve such rights upon sep­a­ra­tion, such as: the divi­sion of prop­er­ty, the estab­lish­ment of pater­ni­ty for the pay­ment of alimo­ny.

Father’s rights in civil marriage

The con­cept of civ­il mar­riage as cohab­i­ta­tion has become so com­mon­place that it is per­ceived as a vari­ant of the norm of rela­tions, but one must under­stand that chil­dren, the most vul­ner­a­ble rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the de fac­to union, suf­fer in infor­mal rela­tions. If the father acknowl­edged his pater­ni­ty, then he has all the rights asso­ci­at­ed with the father-child rela­tion­ship:

• the right to vis­it;
• tak­ing part in upbring­ing, pro­vid­ing edu­ca­tion;
• trav­el­ing with a child;
• in the event of the death of the moth­er, has the right to take the child;
• request all kinds of infor­ma­tion about the child in state insti­tu­tions (edu­ca­tion­al, med­ical, mil­i­tary enlist­ment office, police);
• has the right to sue the child’s moth­er if she vio­lates his father’s rights.

Real estate in a civil marriage

Civ­il mar­riage is equiv­a­lent to ordi­nary cohab­i­ta­tion, so it is impor­tant to take care of your rights in terms of real estate in advance. Unreg­is­tered rela­tion­ships do not allow joint­ly acquired real estate to be divid­ed in half in a dis­pute, as pre­scribed in the Fam­i­ly Code for resolv­ing prop­er­ty dis­putes upon dis­so­lu­tion of an offi­cial mar­riage. There­fore, all real estate goes to the one who is indi­cat­ed in the con­tract as a buy­er. If this is shared own­er­ship, then every­one will remain with the share that is pre­scribed in the con­tract.

Mortgage in a civil marriage

An offi­cial fam­i­ly or a civ­il de fac­to mar­riage — in both cas­es, obtain­ing a mort­gage is not an obsta­cle, but if this is an unof­fi­cial mar­riage, then there are some nuances and pit­falls that need to be tak­en into account dur­ing reg­is­tra­tion:

1. Both “spouse” are reg­is­tered in the loan agree­ment — this is a doc­u­ment con­firm­ing that every­one has rights to their share of prop­er­ty, all checks, doc­u­ments must be kept so that there are no prob­lems if one refus­es to repay the mort­gage or when divid­ing mort­gage real estate;
2. The mort­gage loan is issued to one of the actu­al spous­es and he will then be the own­er. Here you can do the fol­low­ing: divide the respon­si­bil­i­ty for pay­ments in half, and also keep all repay­ment checks, which indi­cate the full name of the pay­er — this will help to declare your rights to real estate in the event of sep­a­ra­tion and divi­sion of prop­er­ty.

Property acquired in a civil marriage

Civ­il mar­riage, for all its attrac­tive­ness for mod­ern rela­tions, is not legal­ly pro­tect­ed, and there­fore all prop­er­ty acquired joint­ly by a cou­ple in a civ­il mar­riage will have the sta­tus of a sep­a­rate one. A car, an apart­ment, fur­ni­ture, house­hold appli­ances — who­ev­er appears in doc­u­ments, con­tracts or checks — is both the own­er and the cohab­i­tant does not have the right to claim what does not belong to him accord­ing to the doc­u­ments.