Domestic Partners Card and Common Law Marriage

In recent decades, not only social scientists but lawyers, courts and national governments have had to broaden the definition of "family." New definitions are being crafted to include single parent families, as well as families resulting from same-sex unions, common-law marriages, couples' agreements, adoption, surrogacy and artificial insemination. In this country, lawyers and human rights activists are working to stretch the definition even further, to include families that result from unions of various types of people who are not allowed to marry according to the country's basic law...

In another precedent-setting achievement for the rights of same-sex couples led by NIF grantee New Family, an Israeli woman has been granted a widow’s pension by the government’s National Insurance Institute following the death of her lesbian partner.

/ / / / / What is Common Law Marriage?A common law couple consists of two partners that live together in a joint household under a common roof creating a family unit without having conducted any officially recognized marriage ceremony to make them husband and wife.In Israel, where no option for a civil wedding exists, common law marriage is an alternative to a religious marriage that might not suit the couple for legal or ideological reasons. This is especially true as judicial interpretations and legal expansion have given common law marriage a status almost equal to marriage itself during...