Quebecers lead world in common law relationships
excerpts
Sebastien Ross and Nancy Mercier didn't shun marriage when they decided to live together in their Montreal home 12 years ago.[/p] The option just wasn't on their radar.[/p] "The concept of choice is very pertinent because I don't see it as a choice to not marry,'' said Ross, who teaches computer skills to people trying to rejoin the workforce.[/p] "I just don't have the taste and I don't see what it gives me. I don't see any objective thing that it could change in my life. Not in personal relations with my partner, not with my family, not anyone. There's just no link.''[/p] Quebecers have steadily withdrawn from marriage since the Quiet Revolution took off in the 1960s. Quebecers refer to the previous decades as "the Great Darkness'' when the Catholic church, an English-speaking business elite and a near-totalitarian provincial government under Maurice Duplessis dominated every aspect of life for francophones.[/p] As new governments of the '60s and '70s kicked the church out of the education and health systems, Quebecers rejected clerics who forbade birth control and pushed them to stay on the farm, produce babies and avoid the evils of liberalism.[/p]----[/p]"The 1970s was clearly the first era that allowed it,'' said Marie-Michele, a retired academic who met her partner, Adrien, in 1972, after they were both divorced. (The couple did not want to use their surnames.)[/p] "Ten years earlier, it wasn't possible to live like that.''[/p] Marie-Michele remembers early discussions with family about her then-cutting-edge choice to live with a man without marriage.[/p] "But we've certainly never had any real conflict over it,'' she said.[/p] Adrien, a 66-year-old retired professor, says he likes to joke that "marriage is the main cause of divorce. So we decided not to marry to avoid divorce.''[/p] "For our circle, we are a couple, there is no difference,'' Adrien added. "It's Adrien and Marie-Michele, and has been for a long time. Being married or not, I don't know what would have been the difference.''[/p]------
For francophone Quebecers, marriage and Catholicism were inextricably linked. When they rejected religion, marriage went with it, according to sociologist Martin Meunier.[/p] "Quebecers are throwing out the baby with the bath water,'' Meunier said.[/p] "In other places, religion and marriage are two things. Here, the two were so closely tied we are liquidating marriage as we liquidate the Catholic religion.''[/p] Quebec has followed a similar trajectory to Sweden, the former world leader in common-law partnership. Sweden was also dominated for years by one religion, Lutheranism, and ditched religious allegiance for secular values.[/p] Celine Le Bourdais, a demographer and expert on families at McGill University, says the various protestant religions more common in the rest of Canada have been more adaptable than Catholicism, accepting contraception, divorce and less formal weddings. [/p] "The Catholic church, even now, is opposed to many things,'' Le Bourdais said.[/p] Meunier points to other religious rituals that are disappearing. In the 1990s, the children of baby boomers stopped baptizing their children in great numbers. [/p] "And now we have a complete meltdown where people are dying and aren't even getting a Catholic funeral,'' he said.
[/p]-------[/p]Now the pitfalls of the common law[/p]Le Bourdais said many Quebecers are unaware that common-law relationships have hidden pitfalls when it comes to dividing property in the case of a split up, or death. [/p] When a partner dies, property is automatically passed on to children rather than the spouse, for example. Common-law spouses also have fewer obligations to share property when they split, she said. [/p] "Mostly it's women getting the short end of it,'' Le Bourdais says.
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