U.K. Still Lacks Cohabitation Rights

An item in the Times Online law section surprised me this morning. It referred to a private member’s bill coming for second reading before the Lords tomorrow “to create a framework of rights and responsibilities for couples in England and Wales who live together but who are not married.” The Cohabitation Bill is promoted by Lord Lester of Herne Hill. (Nothing about this in Lords of the Blog. Perhaps tomorrow. BTW: someone help them get the “wordpress” out of their URL, please: http://lordsoftheblog.wordpress.com Way too amateur.)

I suppose I knew that the U.K. lacked this sort of protection for women, back when I was teaching family law. Must have. But I’d forgotten and am astonished that there’s still a fuss about whether and how… One commenter on the Times piece, e.g., went so far as to say it would turn women into whores. O terra, O moraes!

And a niggle: the obligatory foreign comparison in the article is with Australia, as it so often is, with nary a mention of the more populous Canada — perhaps the Times’ finger gets as far as “A” in the list and flags there — where in Ontario, for example, rights based on cohabitation have been in effect for decades now.