The first same sex marriage ceremonies took place on Saturday 29th March amid a great deal of media attention.
From a legal perspective not much has changed.
We have been advising on pre-civil partnership agreements since the Civil Partnership Act came into force in 2005; the only difference for same sex marriage is that these can now be called pre-nuptial agreements.
The law in respect of ending a civil partnership is called dissolution rather than divorce. The factors a court takes into account when dividing the assets are the same for civil partnerships as married couples.
The facts on which a civil partnership dissolution can be based are the same as for divorce – apart from the fact of adultery which does not exist for civil partners. For divorcing same sex couples the fact of adultery remains, though it does have to be with someone of the opposite sex.
For lawyers civil partnership has always been a bit of clumsy concept: there is no word equivalent to “widow” for a deceased civil partner and couples do not get “dissolved” like they get “divorced”.
We still do not know when the law will allow for civil partnerships to be converted into marriage and how this will work in practice. We could to end up in a situation where some same sex couples are married, some are in converted civil partnerships and some are still in civil partnerships. For someone practising family law in 30 years’ time, civil partnerships may be a rarity.
Conversion of civil partnerships into marriage should have been properly thought through before same sex marriage was introduced.
Anyway enough of the lawyer speak – there are issues with the law as it stands but, for the moment, let’s just be happy for those couples who are newly “weds”.
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