著者

堀田 みゆき

出版者

日本法政学会

雑誌

法政論叢 (ISSN:03865266)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.33, pp.154-161, 1997

---

The present thesis covers a case study on the relation between unmarrried cohabitation and marrige in Sweden, taking various legal aspects into account. In recent many western countries we can see the contemporary phenomenon of living together without gettin married. Especially in Sweden, it became more common for children to be born outside legal marriage. And today mostly all married couples have lived together as unmarried persons for some period before getting married. "Do people avoid marrying with some intention ?" or "Don't people care if they married or not when they form the family?" And then I performed researches on it by in-depth interviews in Stockholm and Halsingland of Sweden during March to May 1993. The total sample of couples consists of 21 cohabiting couples, 3 cohabiting couples with the fixed marriage date and 10 newly marride couples. 9 out of 24 cohabiting couples and 8 out of 10 married couples have 1-3 children. In Swedish society there is no longer any discrimination to children outside marriage even on peoples consciousness. In most cases the differences in their acutual life between legally married and unmarried are very few. As long as they lead their life as unmarried cohabiting couples, however, they could't get the right of succession to partners property but the right of property division by the cohabitees sct (sambalagen). Moreover, it is mostly impossible to take either of their family nam, e as the only family name. Then couples with children can't have the same family name as one family. The formal condition of marriage in Sweden is holding a wedding. the wedding is celebrated with festivities and today the wedding contains the meaning of confirmation rather than a rite of passage.