Same Sex Couples: Marriage, Families, and Children


In deciding who should be entitled to marry or have their marriages recognized, it is useful to consider current law regulating who may marry. Under California law:

Marriage is a personal relation arising out of a civil contract between a man and a woman, to which the consent of the parties capable of making that contract is necessary....16

No particular form for the ceremony of marriage is required ... but the parties shall declare, in the presence of the person solemnizing the marriage and necessary witnesses, that they take each other as husband or wife.17

Thus, a man and a woman can legally marry if they receive a marriage license and go through a ceremony, presided over by a duly authorized official, at which each of them says that they take the other person to be their spouse. Nothing more is needed. The couple need not live together, sleep together, have children, or do anything jointly. Unless one of them......

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Title: Same Sex Couples: Marriage, Families, And Children
Approximate Word Count: 455
Approximate Pages: 2 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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