MARRIAGE À LA CARTE: A COMMENT ON HARTSHORNE V. HARTSHORNE.

The article discusses the legal stipulations and judicial pronouncements aimed at ensuring fairness on family breakdown and discusses the legal framework for a diversity of marriage forms. The article discusses the special rights, duties, privileges, and incapacities that flow from the status of marriage. Traditionally, marriage and only marriage conferred spousal status and the incidents of marriage. Today, in view of the changing lifestyles, and social practices and trends, marriage is no longer a prerequisite to the incidents of marriage and the modification of the incidents of marriage - or cohabitation - is statutorily endorsed. Most of Canada's jurisprudence on domestic contracts deals with challenges to spousal support provisions in separation agreements. The Supreme Court of Canada most recently dealt with this issue in the court case Miglin v. Miglin. Consistent with its pattern of deference to separation agreements, the Court ruled that the release of spousal support in the parties' separation agreement should be enforced and the wife's claim for support dismissed.