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Forces Shaping The Law Of Cohabitation Of Opposite Sex Couples, Margaret Mahoney

Articles

Concerns about the institution of marriage have worked to slow the development of a legal status for unmarried, opposite sex couples in the United States. Many forces have shaped the development of law in this field. First, historically, in our Anglo-American tradition, non-marrital cohabitation was viewed as immoral and socially unacceptable. This viewpoint found expression, for example, in widely enacted state criminal cohabitation statutes.

The first Part of this Article focuses on the criminal regulation of unmarried cohabitation, highlighting its present day ramifications for unmarried couples. Notably, state lawmakers have repealed the criminal cohabitation statutes in all but a handful …