Independent Perspective News

Laws doesn't change as fast as life. The conventional model of cohabitation --heterosexual couple, married with children-already shears its leading role with multiple other forms many refuse to call family. But legislators are reluctant to admit it. Jurists specialized in family law analyzed in Barcelona the legal frame for the new models with a background demand: making both marriage between homosexuals and their right to adopt children legal.

700 children only with their mother's surname

The divorce rate grows non-stop. While traditional families disintegrate, society witnesses the increase of the monoparental family -homes formed by a mother and her children, or a father and his children--. In 2002, 700 children were registered in the Catalonian registry offices only with their mothers' surnames, and all of them will be raised, at least initially, in a monoparental home. (...) The data show that it is especially women that are opting for this new family model.

'No' to homosexual marriage

(...) Jurists who took place in the congress insisted on the need to give legal status to homosexual relationships, which are becoming more and more usual, by legalizing their unions. (...) "legislator" is someone with the ability to adapt the Civil Code. The experts debated on whether a child can fulfill all their emotional needs being raised by a homosexual partner. They insisted on the need to adapt the law because "one out of ten Spaniards is a homosexual".

Marriage crisis

Half of marriages end up in divorce. (...) The crisis of conventional marriage was also exposed with revealing new data: of the 600.000 homes in Barcelona, 17% has the structure of marriage with children. More than 20% of children are born outside their parents' marriage.

Agreeing on the split up on starting the relationship

Legally, they are known as prenuptial capitulations: agreements on the conditions of break up reached at the beginning of a relationship. The practice is almost unknown in Spain but is becoming more and more familiar after recent cases of unions between American movie stars. The jurists gathered in Barcelona have different opinions: while some foresees the custom will soon be habitual in Spain, others point out that judged will hardly support these private pacts.