Have the Europeans found the answer to marriage.

Wary, they're going for a lite version
MARSEILLE Nathalie Ramirez and Djillali Antar have been together for eight years. But like many modern couples whose relationships are shaped by practicality and logistics as much as romance, they are not sure what they want in the future. Marriage, so far, has always seemed like a goal too much..
So two years ago, they presented themselves to a court in Aix-en-Provence and signed a pacte civil de solidarité, or PACS, as the pacts are popularly known, giving them many of the same legal rights as married people but not, Ramirez explained with some relief, committing them to be together forever..
Today they are happily, if somewhat ambivalently, "PACS'ed" in an arrangement that Ramirez, 28, and Antar, 31, say does not feel like conventional marriage, but a light approximation of it. They do not wear wedding bands. They still refer to each other as boyfriend and girlfriend. When they visit her parents, Antar does not spend the night. He has not even told his parents, who are originally from Algeria, that he got PACS'ed..
"They wouldn't understand," he said. "For them, it is marriage or nothing.".
As President George W. Bush is proposing to spend $1.5 billion to promote marriage in the United States, European countries are moving in the opposite direction. They are granting new status to couples looking for some legal rights in the broad gray area between living together casually and "till death do us part.".
What European laws have in common, said Kathleen Kiernan, a professor of social policy and demography at the London School of Economics, is that they take a pragmatic approach to their populations' changing attitudes about the role - and even the relevance - of marriage in contemporary life..
"In some ways, there has been an acceptance of cohabiting relationships in Europe," Kiernan said. "There isn't a move in European countries to promote marriage - although care has also been taken not to undermine the position of marriage in formulating legislation. Europe has moved toward the idea of committed partnership and committed parenthood, and civil status is a secondary issue.".
Gay groups have led the way to registered partnership laws in many European countries; nearly all governments in Western Europe have or are proposing such laws for gays..
But today France and some Scandinavian countries also have similar plans for heterosexuals, and at least one other country is considering them..
The result, for the time being at least, is a legal patchwork in which rights and benefits bestowed in one country are not always recognized elsewhere..
For French heterosexuals with religious or political objections to marriage, as well as those suffering from modern angst over what kind of commitment they are prepared to make, the government-issued pacts offer the perfect halfway house..
Speaking in their small apartment here, Ramirez laughed sheepishly, trying to explain the many things she and Antar considered when they decided to get PACS'ed instead of married. Their respective parents, who come from different countries, have not yet met each other, she said. There are the geographical complications of combining her career as a journalist with his job as a secondary school administrator - not to mention her fear of a long-term commitment, and the issue of having children, which they both agree they would undertake only if they were first married..
The civil solidarity pact that they signed confers some stability and legal rights. It means, for instance, that Antar can remain in his civil service job in Marseille, living with Ramirez, secure that he will not be transferred to another area. It means that the couple share property rights and, after three years as official partners, will get the same tax breaks as married people..
But it also allows either member to dissolve the relationship, with little legal complication, on three months' notice, a source of some comfort to this skittish couple..
The Scandinavian countries, where being unmarried is increasingly the norm, have long allowed such couples to register as domestic partners, mostly as a way to protect any children they have together..
Even in Italy, where marriage is so deeply rooted as a foundation of society that it is codified in the Constitution, a proposed law would for the first time grant some legal recognition to unmarried couples..
Italy seems loath to grant comparable rights to gay couples. But several other European countries have taken the opposite approach, recognizing gay relationships but refusing to grant special rights to unmarried heterosexuals, on the grounds that they can marry..
In Germany, the law on unmarried couples favors gays. Under the country's registered partnership program, gay couples are, among other things, allowed to choose one surname as a shared "partnership name"; they also have increased financial rights in issues like inheritance, housing and maintenance..
The civil solidarity pacts in France, in fact, began as a way for gays to formalize their partnerships, but were broadened, when religious and conservative groups objected, to include heterosexuals..
By the end of 2002, according to the French Justice Department, about 133,890 people had signed such pacts..
For many, it is like training for marriage..
"It's an intermediate way between no commitment and a wedding," said Caroline Vinot, 34, a Frenchwoman who lives in Prague and recently had a baby with her Czech boyfriend. The two are considering signing a PACS together..
"I think there will probably be one day when it will be convenient for both of us to have this situation be legalized and all the financial and property aspects to be organized between us," she said..
There is still the allure of a traditional wedding, but Vinot is not sure how ready she is. "I probably would be very excited, with the big cake and the big party and the white dress," she said. "But I'm too scared to get married.".
The New York Times


What is your opinion regarding the European "answer to marriage"? Since 50% of marriages in the US end in divorce would it be a logical response here in the states. In addition it would put an end to the present controversy regarding Gay marriage. Considering the puritan bent of American society could such a system ever be enacted in the US?