Cohabitation is becoming more and more common as a form of family arrangement in the United States.
It is essentially a relationship that is established when two adults live together without being either formally or informally married and without a desire to be married.
There can be a variety of reasons why a couple will want to enter into a cohabitation arrangement.
They may be of the same sex, or unable to marry in a legally recognised civil ceremony.
However, their relationship is of such a character that they wish to be legally recognised as a couple.
It is important to understand that cohabitation is an altogether different situation to common law marriage or indeed a traditional marriage.
A cohabitation contract may state that the couple specifically denies a marriage relationship.
Historically, there has been no recognition of a private contract of marriage in the United States but these days there are now a number of states which accept the formation of these private marriage like relationships without the need for registration with a state authority.
It is enough now in many states of the United States to sign a cohabition contract or agreement and in this way evidence the formation of an informal marriage like relationship.
Because of the prevalence of traditional attitudes, in some states, couples living in an intimate relationship without being married may still be considered immoral but this will not always translate into their relationship failing to achieve recognition legally if a conhabition agreement or contract can be signed by both of the relevant parties.
An example is that some cases in the past have held that where a mother applies for custody of her children from a previous marriage, some courts have held that the fact that she is living in an informal relationship with another man who is not the father of the children would be enough to justify the conclusion that her moral character is insufficent to warrant the granting of custody over the children to her.
In some states of the United States, it is actually illegal for a couple to engage in non-martial cohabitation because this violates the statutes of the state which criminalise fornication.
Some commentators have also said that cohabitation contracts promote the inequality of women because it allows an informal relationship to exist in the place of what should be a marriage.
However, opponents of this view argue that in times where there was no formal recognition of these types of relationships they continued to exist with as much prevalence as they do today and to fail to recognise this further disempowered women.
For all of these reasons, a cohabitation contract or agreement is usually a good idea if you are involved in this type of relationship.