Parislog 81
December 2, 2006

In French class I was a bit shocked to find out that there was a legal relationship here called concubinage. A concubine to me is the property of a man and is below the wife. It was weird to hear it used in this way. I tried to find out what it was and why it existed but I didn’t understand the answer. You see here there are 3 forms of official relationship, marriage being the same, PACS, and concubinage. That was all I could get and that you filled out legal papers for all.

I know someone who is PACS’ed so have a little bit of a comfort level with that. So here it is. Marriage is the same thing all the way.

Getting PACS’ed is one level below marriage where you lose some of the rights of marriage. There are no rights to fidelity. Debts and property are for the most part handled as joint but not totally. You don’t get the partner’s pension. No rights to the partner’s unemployment. You can have rights to “titre de sejour” or possible citizenship after 3 years of living together. One partner or the other can adopt but not jointly.

Getting concubinaged gets you nothing except the sharing of health insurance and the right to “titre de sejour” or possible citizenship 5 years of living together.

I think the “titre de sejour” is a paper that gives you the right to stay and work for longer than 3 months.

As always, the morass of the legal system is something to behold.